Wellness Stafford
What is wellness and why is it important?
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Wellness
Wellness is now a much-overused term and it’s meaning to you may be unclear and confusing, so much so, that you have no idea if it would any benefit to you at all. Here we will aim to clarify for you exactly why a ‘Wellness’ approach to life, at any age, will pay enormous dividends to both your quality of life and life expectancy.
Ultimately, it’s your call. But why wouldn’t you want a longer, healthier, happier life for both you and the ones you love?
Where does the following information come from? Nicky Snazell has, to date, written five books on pain and health and had to invest thousands of hours researching knowledge worldwide to write these. Thus, you can be confident that this information is not only well-researched but also inclusive of knowledge beyond our western medical approach. Nicky continues to research and is in the process of writing her sixth book. Thus her knowledge is right up to date.
Depending on where your beliefs and understanding of health are now, it may be that the concept of ‘wellness’ is too big a jump for you. That’s ok. Bear with us and we will try to take you on a journey of understanding so that by the end, you at the very least will have sufficient knowledge to make the best decision for yourself. You may wish to skip some or all of the following, as you feel you understand enough already to make that same decision.
There are various links to further information on the topics raised, which may help you in your understanding.
We will address the following steps:
- What is the difference between acute and chronic problems?
- Define chronic disease
- Your belief system. Whose responsibility is your health?
- Your need to maintain
- What’s normal
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The Difference Between Acute and Chronic
In medical terms, problems are categorised as acute or chronic. An acute problem is generally something that has just occurred, for example, a sporting injury or accident. The causes of acute problems can in most cases be treated quickly and need just a few sessions to resolve.
Patients with acute problems tend to come and go as injuries occur.
What is Chronic Disease
Chronic problems are different. They are long-term rather than recent and the underlying cause of the problem is not necessarily treatable. Moreover, after about three months, the pain gets hard-wired into the brain. Thus the symptoms of the problem have to be managed so that you can maximise the quality of your life.
These are the most common chronic musculoskeletal conditions:
- Osteoarthritis (OA)
- Spinal disc issues
- Nerve pain & sciatica (neuropathic)
- Rheumatoid arthritis (RA)
- Chronic tendon issues (tendinosis)
- Osteoporosis-fragile bones (OP)
- Chronic sports injuries
- Fibromyalgia-chronic fatigue (FM)
- Migraine
Your Belief System
Ok, from the above, you will have a rough idea of what a chronic condition is. But that won't make any difference if your belief systems are not aligned to those needed for you to get on the right road to Wellness.
What do we mean by this?
Well, let's look at responsibility. All of us will have grown up with the knowledge of having a National Health Service, or NHS as we know it. Many will therefore think that it's the NHS's responsibility to look after their health.
The problem is that the World Health Organisation has realised that only 3% of health budgets are spent on preventative health and that an overwhelming 97% is spent of treating sickness and injury. This is not a criticism of our NHS, far from it, it's just a statement of fact. At the same time health authorities recognise that while promoting good health would be highly beneficial in the long run, there is simply not enough budget to do this and treat sickness and injury at the same time. (In approximate terms it would double the necessary budget for many years)
It is very important, therefore, to recognise and accept that nearly all of our health budget goes towards stopping you from being sick and only a tiny fraction goes towards making you healthier. This 'stop me from being ill' approach to health is fundamentally the opposite to a 'make me healthy and well' approach.
Accept this and you have to then accept that there is nobody but you who is responsible for your own good health - because nobody else is. Again, it is emphasised this is not in any way a criticism of the NHS. It is more a reflection of budgetary reality.
Take your life in your hands, and what happens?
A terrible thing; no one to blame.
Erica Jong
For many, this is understandably a crunch issue and it may well be for you because it's turning upside down what you may have believed all your life. Many will struggle to accept this reality and not be able to take on board the need to take personal responsibility.
If on the other hand, you can accept that responsibility your actions will inevitably change to lead you, and those that you love, to a healthier, happier, and longer life.
Accepting The Benefits Of Maintenance
An analogy will help here. Most people fully understand the need to look after their car and the need for regular preventative maintenance. How fast your car gets to the junkyard and how many times it breaks down on the way, depends on how well you look after it. The difference can be both a lot of unnecessary expense and hassle, plus a much shorter life.
Your body is no different to a car, except that it's the only one you have got and it's a lot more complicated than any car. So it's infinitely more precious and needs a lot more care. It stands to reason that the number of problems you will have also depends very much on how well you maintain your body.
So, ask yourself this. If you are completely comfortable with the idea of servicing your car being a lot more sensible than suffering a lot of breakdowns and potentially a much shorter life for your car, then surely you can see the same logic applies to your body, your health, your happiness, and your life expectancy.
Let's look at a case study on this topic:
Case Study: Anona Chooses Maintenance
Anona first came to see Nicky 13 years ago for help with her low back pain, caused by many years of bending all day as a primary school teacher.
Nicky killed her pain and Anona did then what most patients do, which was to stop treatment and get on with her life. At the time she was newly retired and thought that a couple of treatments would get her fixed and that would be that.
Unfortunately, a 60-year-old spine will have suffered a lot of wear and tear, whatever her lifestyle had been. It was however more prone to damage from 40 years of constantly stooping.
Inevitably, the low back pain returned as a niggle, was ignored, and just got worse until the pain was bad enough to force more treatment.
Thus a pattern emerged of breaks in treatment, a slow build-up in pain until intolerable, interspersed with periods of intense treatment with David to get the pain removed again.
Eventually, after many years of this pattern, it dawned on Anona that it might be smarter to get regular maintenance to keep the problem at bay.
It occurred to her that she had no problem with going to the dentist every 6 months for a clean and check-up, because she knew this would most likely prevent any serious tooth decay and the pain and cost of dealing with that. And yet for some reason, she had ignored the rest of her body. Why on earth would she do that she pondered. Were her teeth somehow more important than anything else?
Well everybody knew that it was the norm for a 6-month dentist check-up. Everybody knew that you would be daft if you didn't get your car regularly maintained. Yet she didn't know anybody who had their body regularly maintained.
The more she thought about this, the more illogical it was. Just because most people didn't get regular body maintenance, that was no reason not to as well.
The realisation sunk in that she had been daft to wait until her body broke down before she got treatment.
In November 2017 she switched to a monthly maintenance routine with David, with the aim of extending the time between appointments until an optimum was found.
The result has been no return of her pain, no return to the restriction on her lifestyle that the pain caused, and a saving on her treatment cost.
Not only that, Anona is now able to do a 2-mile walk every day which is helping her tackle a blood sugar problem, which if left untreated could develop into diabetes. She wouldn't have been able to consistently do this unless she had switched to maintaining her body.
Well everybody knew that it was the norm for a 6-month dentist check-up. Everybody knew that you would be daft if you didn't get your car regularly maintained. Yet she didn't know anybody who had their body regularly maintained.
The more she thought about this, the more illogical it was. Just because most people didn't get regular body maintenance, that was no reason not to as well.
The realisation sunk in that she had been daft to wait until her body broke down before she got treatment.
In November 2017 she switched to a monthly maintenance routine with David, with the aim of extending the time between appointments until an optimum was found.
The result has been no return of her pain, no return to the restriction on her lifestyle that the pain caused, and a saving on her treatment cost.
Not only that, Anona is now able to do a 2-mile walk every day which is helping her tackle a blood sugar problem, which if left untreated could develop into diabetes. She wouldn't have been able to consistently do this unless she had switched to maintaining her body.