The following is an article I wrote back in 2013. Enjoy!
How health affects our quality of life
What is health? Why is the western world in such bad mental and physical health? and How is health of central importance to our lives? The mechanisms which control us may be grounded in biology, but our experience of reality is plastic and is shaped by our perceptions and beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. Can humans bring awareness to their internal mechanisms and take conscious ownership and responsibility of their lives and apply ‘self navigation’ to make more constructive decisions and and take more constructive actions?
Physical and Mental Health
Health is usually defined as the condition of the mind and body. Excluding any external forces, the health of any individual will be the result of any decisions and actions taken by the individual. I interpret this as the ability of an individual to generatively be aware of and make consistent constructive decisions/actions with respect to activities that will affect the health of the individual (self navigating ability with their decisions/actions regarding diet and exercise). E.g. a person will see that their body craves pizza and chips, but they see that the internal mechanism which is causing that desire is not constructive in the current context, and therefore the enlightened individual can choose to eat something more constructive for their physical health.
Mental health could be defined in a similar fashion – the ability of an individual to generatively be aware of and make consistent constructive decisions/actions with respect to activities that will affect the mental health of the individual (self navigating ability with their decisions/actions regarding beliefs). Eg. A person will see that their body craves anxious and depressed thoughts, but they see that the internal mechanism which is causing that desire is not constructive in the current context, and can believe something which is more constructive for their mental health.
A detailed discussion on these physical and mental mechanisms is for another place/time. The physical mechanisms were perhaps useful and necessary and there to serve us at some point in our evolution. E.g. a possible explanation is that the humans who craved high density foods, survived better in the environment we evolved from, and as a result we still crave high density food which in western society today, is in abundance. Therefore this physical mechanism which has served us at some point in the past is now outdated, and if left unchecked, will cause a host of physical diseases in our bodies. The reason for the disease according to contemporary biology, is due to the lack of adaptive ability – the fact that our bodies change very slowly, or that genetic mutation is rare, and the fact that our environment has changed so quickly in such a short time. i.e. from 100% organic natural food and physical labour to crispy crème and desk jobs.
The mental mechanisms were perhaps useful and necessary and there to serve us at some point in our evolution. E.g. a possible explanation is that the humans that were more anxious avoided dangerous situations and survived better in the environment we evolved from, and as a result we still become anxious in social situations which in western society today, is in abundance. Therefore this mental mechanism which has served us at some point in the past is now outdated, and if left unchecked, will cause a host of mental diseases in our bodies. The reason for the disease according to contemporary psychology is……the fact that our environment has changed so quickly in such a short time. i.e. from living in small groups of 150 people or less, to living in cities with millions of people in intricate webs of social networks.
In any life venture we are always carrying ‘ourselves‘on the journey. The only thing that we can’t escape from, and which affects all perceptions, interactions and experiences is us!! This begs the metaphysical question – what is ‘ourself’?, yet for the purposes of this discussion, which is not intended to be a discussion in metaphysics, I will refer to ‘ourselves’ as simply a bundle of physical and mental ‘stuff’ which interacts and seems to ‘go along with’ what we refer to as ourselves.
If we are carrying the previously mentioned ‘bundle’ with us wherever we go, with our own underlying assumptions, beliefs, preconceived ideas, etc. then what we perceive of any situation is to a large extent what we are bringing to the situation (out flow = inflow). Our experiences are filtered through our personal bundle, and therefore, we see not necessarily what we want to see, but what we are conditioned to seeing, and what we are conditioned to believe. Our belief of what is possible, and what is probable, creates the world we experience. We are responsible for our own reality. Whether we take responsibility, or whether we play the victim in any situation, we are the creators of our own worlds.
If the previous is true, and we have the power to create our own reality, then what is preventing us from having a pleasant or interesting, or any reality we so choose? The first requirement is that we understand that we shape our own reality, and see how our belief systems are shaping our perceptions. Awareness is the first step towards competency with self navigating ability (or learning anything for that matter).
– A model I find quite helpful is the 4 quadrants of competency, starting with unconscious incompetence, where one has no clue that they are incompetent (this is the state of the average person in our society, with respect to self navigating ability). The second phase is conscious incompetence. This is the phase where although the individual is incompetent with the task, there is an awareness and understanding of their own lack of competence. The next stage is conscious competence, where the individual succeeds in competency, followed by unconscious competence, where the individual is so practiced at completing the task competently that the competency becomes automatic (like driving a car for most people).
So to continue our example, the stage of conscious competence would be where one recognizes where a person is consciously shifting their belief system to produce a more desirable outcome. And the unconscious competence is where the competency has been practiced so much that the person is automatically ‘catching’ and correcting themselves, whenever a limiting belief arises within them.
Using the aforementioned definitions of health, gaining health could be considered as gaining insight into our physical and mental mechanisms and being able to reprogram ourselves through practice, to take more ownership and control of our lives thereby improving the quality of our lives.