Are you also confused about what really is healthy?

Are you getting overwhelmed by all the hypes and pseudoscience advices out there about stress, health and lifestyle choices?
This series of health blogs aim to help you figure out to make some good choices for your health, based on scientific knowledge , made practical.....

What is actually understood as good heath? What is an optimal state of well-being? 
According to the World Health Organisation's definition: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’ .
But what if you have an illness or you are injured or just not that super fit/slim/relaxed, is that the end of your optimal health? Huber (2014) redefined heath: the ability to adapt and self manage social,  physical and emotional challenges.

And one of these challenges is stress:
Patients that come to see me, talk a lot about that life is full of stress!
Do you belief that stress is harmful for your life?

A study done by researchers at the in the US looked at 29,000 respondents from the survey who matched up to public records, and then looked at instances of death among survey respondents through 2006. Overall, they found that survey respondents who reported a lot of stress and a perception that stress has a big impact on health had an increased hazard ratio — which converted to a 43% increased risk of premature death. However, survey respondents who reported a lot of stress but little to no perception that stress impacted health had the lowest hazard ratio of any group in the survey, even those who felt almost no stress. 
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So just from not perceiving stress as unhealthy, you will improve your health and life longer!
Apart from the perception of stress, there are a lot of other tools, like meditation, nutrition, breath, influencing the Ph of the body, exercise, yoga and so on.
More in my next blog.



References:
​Huber M. et al (2011)'How should we define health?' ;343:d4163 doi: 10.1136/bmj.d4163 

http://www.who.int/about/definition/en/print.html

https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend/discussion#t-51964

Keller A.,Litzelman, K. et al(2012)' Does the Perception that Stress Affects Health Matter? The Association with Health and Mortality'  Health Psychol.  Sep; 31(5): 677–684