Health Blog

To wrap up our Ignite Book Club for this time, we turn to the last few chapters of What Healthy People Know.  The chapter "Be Kind- Unwind" talks about stress and how too much of it can damage our heath and even cut our lives short.  Dr. Bob makes some great points about stress, talking about daily stressors such as the pace of normal life, negative world events and being constantly "in touch with the world" with email, cell phones, and television news invading our lives 24/7.  Even de-stressing activities such as exercise can become stressful when we are rushed, multitasking while we do it, or taking it so seriously we don't enjoy it. While stress is sort of difficult to define, there's no question that stress is costly in terms of drugs used to reduce anxiety and depression, health insurance premiums, disabilities that are made worse by stress, and family problems including divorce.  Clearly, stress affects our mental and physical health.

To combat the effects of stress in our lives, Dr. Bob highly recommends finding quiet time for ourselves- truly quiet time where our thoughts only center around our breathing.  He highly recommends focused meditation for a few minutes each day.  He also suggests that, like other choices we make about our health, we pretty much choose whether to be stressed or not.  While we may not be able to control things that happen, we choose how we react to things in our lives, and how much time we make for ourselves.  So, be kind to yourself and choose to unwind!  What other ways do you reduce stress in your life?  How are you kind to yourself ?

The last chapter talks about preventive medical care and reminds us that preventing problems is much easier than fixing them. Getting some basic preventive care from your physician is important, in addition to the other preventive measures discussed throughout the book.  Specifically, Dr. Bob focuses on the largely preventable conditions of heart disease and cancer.  Heart disease is the number one killer of Americans, killing more people than the next seven causes of death combined.  That's impressive, and tragic, considering how preventable heart disease is.  

Doctors and scientists know how people can prevent heart disease:

1. Maintain healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels
2. Maintain a healthy weight
3. Don't smoke
4. Get some exercise
5. If you have diabetes, treat it
6. Know your family history

Most people have one or more of these risk factors, but your risk grows significantly with more risk factors.  The good news is, that eliminating one or more (hopefully all) of these factors reduces your risk significantly.  

Blood pressure and cholesterol are fairly easily treated through medication.  Dr. Bob reminds us that your physician can work with you on assessing and maintaining healthy blood pressure and cholesterol.  Many people don't even know their blood pressure and cholesterol numbers, and as many as 30% of Americans have high blood pressure.  Another alarming fact was that half of those being treated for hypertension and high cholesterol are non compliant with their mediation regime, mainly because they feel no symptoms or effects of the medication and therefore stop taking them.  The problem is that medicine doesn't work at all if you don't take it!

Cancer screening such as colonoscopies and mammograms play a vital role in detecting and treating cancer early, which is by far the most critical aspect of treating cancer.  And since the Lumenos plans offer free preventive care, there's no reason consumers shouldn't take advantage of this benefit and have their preventive visits and screenings.  Philosophically, Lumenos plans support what Dr. Bob is preaching- prevention is the key to good health.  Preventing illness is much less expensive than treating illness, and it's better for consumers!

Have you seen your physician for your annual checkup and screening this year?  What do your numbers say about your risk for heart disease?   There is lots of great information on the Lumenos consumer Web site about preventive care, recommended tests and screenings for various age groups, as well as tools that help you make sense of your results. You can track your and your family members' numbers in My Health Profile as a handy reference.  Knowing your numbers is the first step to taking control of your health- so if you haven't seen your physician recently, now is a great time!

Soon we will announce the date and time of our live Book Club chat as well as our next book.  I really enjoyed reading the helpful information in What Healthy People Know, and look forward to discussing it with everyone in the live chat!


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