WE are all exhausted in monitoring how the coronavirus is mutating to impose a continuing threat to our lives, our living styles and our future. The news that present the dominantly negative updates and the government that is re-inventing the twists and turns in the recycled classifications of quarantines are all draining the very energy we need to cope up with the situation and become part of the solution.
What sinks the ship is not the water that is around it, but the water that gets into it. The real power is within each of us —tapping the inner strengths and potentials to cope with the threats. That is health! Humans, as the “masters of the universe”, are privileged to have the modern science which traces back in history and which capacity to continuously understand and incessantly defend humanity is beyond question. We have every reason to be optimistic. We all want to be healthy. But do we understand the very concept of it?
Health and wellness defined
IN an earlier and narrowest clinical definition, health is the complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Not having Covid-19 does not readily indicate health. In fact, the mental health issues have surfaced attributing to the increasing incidence of self-harm, suicide, anxiety and depression. They manifest in many areas not only in the personal level of productivity and performance but even in the interpersonal levels leading to an increase in the reported cases of tensions and crisis in relationships.
The real power within is health, which is defined by the WHO to include even the extent to which an individual or group is able to realize aspiration and satisfy needs, and change and cope with the environment.
This pandemic has attacked the very nature of our health, not only in the physical sense but also in our ability to realize our aspirations. With imposed limitations on the way we can learn and earn, even the ability to satisfy our needs and that of our family got disrupted. The ability to change and cope with the environment comes easy if one has the resources or control of the many areas of life. But among many people, the changes in the environment are just too overwhelming to cope up with.
The role performance model of health defines it as the ability to fulfill societal roles, which obviously has changed remarkably. Losing jobs and businesses, and the shift of work and learning disturb the fulfillment of our societal roles. This can be very frustrating, even to young children who are now missing the social value of school.
The adaptive model of health gives hope derived from the creative process of adaptation. As naturally adaptive beings, humans survive to eventually thrive. But the challenge to adapt has been so sustained in an environment that has become volatile (because of the rapid change), uncertain (because of the unpredictability of the present and future), complex (because of the multitude of factors affecting the environments), and ambiguous (because of its confusing state). The word “harsh” has been added to the acronym VUCA to complete the description of the environment that it is in the pandemic.
The ecological model of health describes the interaction of the agent, host and the environment. It warns that a balance is required to achieve health.
The concept of High Level of Wellness provides for a more comprehensive perspective as it conceptualizes the integrated method of functioning oriented towards maximizing the potential by which a person is capable of functioning in a given time and environment. The high level of wellness provides us the holistic nature of our being where our functioning is towards bringing out the best of what we are capable of doing and what we have at our disposal. It challenges the full utilization of what is within us to realize our full potentials and achieve self-actualization. The glass that isn’t half empty but half full is also a glass that can be refilled, in the dynamic context of this high-level wellness.
Promotion of health
Health promotion refers to the activities that, by accentuating the positive, assist the person to develop those resources that will maintain and enhance the well-being and improve the quality of life. Health promotion, focused on the positive, pushes for the development and use of resources with the end in view that life can be lived with quality and with well-being to enjoy it. Health promotion refers to the activities that a person does to himself in the absence of symptoms or disease in an attempt to remain healthy. It happens when we boost our immune system, take sufficient amount of exercise and sleep, and engage in stress management activities to remain healthy, among others.
The health beliefs largely influence health promotion. The health belief model has emphasized on predicting individual preventive health behavior based on his ideas about the appraisals of the perceived benefits compared to perceived barriers and costs of taking health action. The higher health benefit over the barriers and costs will propel the decision towards acting. The person’s susceptibility to a health threat, and its seriousness, influence the person’s decision to engage in a preventive health behavior. We work on what we feel is of value to us and we are influenced by internal and external factors unique of us.
We become unique persons in terms of health, belief and health promotion initiatives. It is therefore wrong for a public health policy to offer a one-size-fits-all approach. Personal responsibility and sense of control are key concepts for promotion of health.
Prevention of illness
Prevention comes in different levels. At primary level, the concern is on the prevention, or delay, in the actual occurrence of a specific illness. Primordial prevention focuses on preventing the emergence of the risk factors. Specific prevention focuses on removing or reducing the levels of risk factors. The quarantine is supposed to prevent us from being exposed to risk, as the wearing of the mask and hand hygiene are also able to break the chain of transmission. Another example is vaccination, which does not guarantee that one will not have the disease but will reduce the likelihood of critical level of the illness or of death.
At secondary level, the focus is on the early detection, through case finding and screening, so early treatment is accorded. An example of this is the testing which is done especially for those who had exposures so that managements may be conducted at an early stage. The early detection and the confirmation of the disease lead to early treatment and better prognosis in recovery.
Tertiary level is directed towards prevention of complications of a disease and rehabilitation. This is the stage where establishment of wellness and the return to the pre-illness level of performance become the goal.
He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope has everything, says Thomas Carlyle. If you are losing hope, could it be because you are losing health? Make your health as the greatest gift you can give your family and the world. Wrap it with hope. The power of health is within you—one day at a time.