Why Do People Wait to Get Sick Before Learning About Their Health?

You hear a someone say, “Did you hear she has cancer?”

I don’t ever want to hear those words. I might, if my genetics choose to express themselves in that way and I don’t change some bad habits! But why do we wait to hear those words before we start thinking about why our health is important? Don’t we already know how important it is?

Don’t we want to do everything in our power to remain healthy for as long as humanly possible?

Well, if you want me to be honest. I think we all know the answer, it’s just easier not too! The pace of life is so crazy. Trying to keep up with everyone on social media so you don’t feel like you’ve missed out or thinking I’ll just sit here since I’m tired and place my grocery order on-line even though I haven’t gotten up from this desk all day. Grow my own vegetables? Wait, who has time for that??? I can barely get through the day now!

Or can I?

When we stop to reflect, are we taking the time we really need to focus on our health? Are we thinking about how much sleep we got the night before? I bet you are if you didn’t get any! And what about stress, do we walk around asking ourselves how we should prioritize a ten-minute break to destress after that frazzled exchange with our kids or our boss? Nope…we just power through because that is what all the cool kids do!

Modern medicine is designed to address an illness after the diagnosis, not prevent it to begin with! Many people don’t even understand they could have prevented their diabetes by changing their childhood diet or altered that gene expression that is now showing up as a cancer through modifying their lifestyle, taking in clean water or reducing toxic burden. Preventative care is reaping rewards, but how many times have you heard someone say, “I know I need to schedule that colonoscopy,” or mammogram, dental procedure, or what ever else they are putting off. Not knowing that poor dental care may be the root cause to their dementia in 20 years or that tiny polyp the colonoscopy would have discovered is what caused cancer 5 years later.

What it boils down to is education or lack thereof! Most people never studied the body, they don’t know how their body should work or even if it isn’t normal to feel so bad all of the time! Or maybe they just ignore the cough because they would rather enjoy the nicotine rush or the high from the vape. Maybe that bad habit is what holds them together emotionally and they can’t figure out what they would be without it. Scary thought, right?

I remember caring for a breast cancer patient who struggled with obesity so severe that she could not see the blackened tissue from the cancer growing out from under her breast as the tumor grew through her skin. Or did she see it and just willingly ignore it because she already knew it was there and was too scared to treat it? Just maybe, she didn’t know how to access a doctor to even ask what to do about it or know if she could afford the treatment.

Here is where a Functional Medicine Health Coach comes to the rescue.

Let’s stop ignoring the facts. Stop saying “I know. I know, I’ll get to it soon.” Nope, put that attitude away and take action because tomorrow just might be too late. Waiting for that diagnosis is a risky move to make! So here are 5 tips to get you starting in thinking actively about prioritizing your health.

1. Schedule those checkups with a healthcare provider.

• When was the last time you actually went to a primary care doctor, reviewed your labs, checked in on your height, weight and body mass? Do you know your numbers: blood pressure, cholesterol, cortisol, vitamin levels?

• What other poor health trends do you see in your family history or community that you might need to address? Do you need a cardiologist (heart), dentist (teeth), dermatologist (skin), endocrinologist (hormones), gastroenterologist (gut), geneticist (genes), hematologist (blood), gynecologist/obstetrician (female parts), immunologist (allergies), pulmonologist (lungs), nephrologist (kidneys), neurologist (brain), oncologist (cancer), ophthalmologist (eyes), orthopedist (bones), physical therapist (muscles), psychiatrist (mental health), rheumatologist (connective tissue) or urologist (urinary)…shew, and yes, I’m probably sure I forgot one! Well, then schedule that visit!

2. What do you really know about the foods you eat?

• Are you reading labels? Shopping the perimeter of the grocery store for only the fresh unprocessed foods?

• What are you putting into your body and is that food your medicine?

3. Really listen to your body and investigate the root cause for noted symptoms

• Do you down half a bottle of wine at night and scratch your head in the morning wondering why you don’t feel well? What are those aches and pains trying to tell you because they hold the secret so don’t ignore them!

4. Prioritize that beautiful brain and apply those stress management techniques.

• Stress just builds and builds! We’ve all been there. One day it stops us in our tracks. Maybe it is our immune system that breaks and we find ourselves rushing to the bathroom for the 10th time or we literally have a mental breakdown where emotions so strong come out of no where and shock us and everyone around us!

• Breathe…just breathe. Start there and don’t make it any harder than that to start.

5. Get quality sleep

• Recovery occurs when the body finds those various sleep cycles and each cycle is important or God wouldn’t have put it there!

• Most people don’t even know what quality sleep looks like. Thinking 8 hours on the mattress equals a good night’s sleep, but we all have those restless nights where falling asleep and staying asleep make you like a grouchy bear the next day!

My goal in life is to educate you about your body. Think in a system wide fashion understanding that those systems are all intertwined and needed to make you whole. And then take tiny steps with that learning and applying it to see what kind of impact you can make in improving your world one day at a time.