In Monday’s Blog we discussed the state of healthcare reform. It’s clearly complex and it is debatable whether fundamental and meaningful health care changes will be made to address: cost, quality and patient safety, and the challenge of an aging population and chronic disease.
The one thing we cannot afford to do as consumers of healthcare is to wait for our legislators to resolve these issues and for health care providers to readily accept them. As much of a crisis as we are in, it is not enough to standby and watch and wait for relief. Our job is to do what we can – ourselves.
Common causes of illness are: stress, poor nutrition, obesity, smoking and not enough physical activity. One way to think about this is not controlling stress, not eating well, smoking (primary or secondary) and little to no physical activity causes you to become ill; and it is at this point you enter an expensive healthcare system with quality and patient safety a concern.
From a lifestyle perspective – you limit your activity and shorten your lifespan. From a business perspective, you reduce productivity and generate higher expenses for the business (days lost from work, healthcare benefits costs).
There are no easy solutions here, unfortunately. But if you are concerned, and we believe you should be, consider doing the following:
- Eat well. Find a nutritionist if you need to learn how
- Increase your physical activity – focusing on cardio
- Practice yoga, tai chi, qigong, dance or other movement (balance, stretch and strength based) focused activities
- Learn how to mediate – it’s proven helpful in reducing stress
- Don’t smoke
- Find a chiropractor or naturopathic physician who believes in wellness care or a holistic medicine provider
We are not talking about consuming hours in your day, we are talking about lifestyle changes that can have a significant impact on you and your business. If you run a business, consider building a wellness program for your employees. It will pay great dividends.
Copyright 2011 Kubica LaForest Consulting
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