I will first give a brief overview of the trends in illness and life expectancy to set the stage for the bulk of the article, which is contextualizing acute illness as an experience in the greater scheme of life and why good health is imperative not only for yourself, but for those who you care about. In the first section, I will explore the fogginess and loss of virility in illness, illustrate how illness detaches you from the stream of life and society, and illuminate the involuntary confrontation of death, realization of mortality, and the subsequent alignment of greater perspective. In the second section, I will define good health, examine the blessing of good health, and lay out the good in good health and the bad in bad health. I will then conclude the article by offering a philosophy on how good health can be internalized, behaved, and maintained.
A Brief History of Illness and Where We Are
Illness has plagued humanity since the beginning of time. Our ancestors used to believe that illness was caused by evil spirits or curses or divine punishment or miasma or changes in weather (sorry, that's fake science), but we now understand illness more than ever before. Only until the late 1850s did the germ theory of disease overtake the widely held miasma theory. Before then, we were really just guessing and trying whatever seemed to heal us. Whether that was undergoing shamanistic rituals paired with natural hallucinogens, consuming questionable herbal blends while undergoing extremely shoddy surgeries, or sacrificing our precious belongings (or loved ones) to the higher powers, we rarely succeeded in ridding ourselves of illness.
As we can see from the graph above, we've gotten pretty good at warding off illness and increasing our lifespans-- and the UN thinks we'll get even better at it. But despite the advances in biological and medical technology to fend off communicable diseases caused by viruses and harmful bacteria, we have just started the battle with chronic diseases. Chronic diseases that stem from genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors such as diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer's disease have steadily increased year over year in recent decades. As shown below, the global prevalence of diabetes in adults is estimated to have grown more than 300% since 2000 (while the world population has only grown by around 25%).
Not only are these chronic illnesses increasing in absolute terms, they are also increasing in relative terms. Since 1990, non-communicable diseases defined as "often chronic, long-term illnesses and include cardiovascular diseases (including stroke), cancers, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases" have gone from causing 57% to 74% of deaths in the world.
So we live longer lives than we used to but are experiencing higher rates of non-communicable diseases. Outside of people living in poverty, we are no longer concerned with malaria or malnutrition, but we are definitely concerned with cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes (or at least should be). That being said, our lives aren't devoid of communicable diseases. We can still be negatively affected by food poisoning with bouts of vomiting or diarrhea, by bacterial infections with difficulty breathing and whooping coughs, and by viruses with body aches and high fevers.
During these times of acute illness, we often don't go to work or call off a social gathering or stop engaging in our hobbies. Sometimes, our condition is too debilitating to even leave our beds. While most likely not life-threatening, they can often leave us reflecting on all the time we've been taking our good health for granted. In addition, we can find our minds, paranoid, ruminating on death.
The Inner Experience of Illness
The physical experience of illness is often what you'll find descriptions of when you frantically scour through WebMD after a google search of your symptoms. But what I am more interested in exploring here are the mental and emotional symptoms of sickness. I was recently sick for 3 weeks with a pretty bad sinus infection, so I had all the time in the world to sit there and reflect on my misery.
The first experience I want to explore is that of fogginess. Your mind becomes preoccupied with the pain and discomfort you are constantly experiencing. At times your mind even bombards you with frustrated questioning. When will this end? Why do I deserve this? Is this a punishment? Did I do something wrong? Something as trivial as what to eat for lunch becomes dauntingly complex with those questions in the backdrop.
After a couple of days of being sick and symptoms worsening, your life is consumed by the illness. You don't have the mental bandwidth to do anything except mindlessly consume content online. You are too physically weak to be active. It's not the best idea to go out and socialize. You may try to sleep away the days, trying to escape your responsibilities, but they'll just force their way back into your mind as fever dreams. Everything becomes a blur, a mucus filled crumpled tissue ball of nothingness. And so, your life comes to a halt.
This brings me to the second experience, the detachment from life. At a certain point, while you lay there sweating in bed at 1 am dazed from a terribly exhausting 5 hour nap, you realize that you have somehow let go of all worldly desires. You may even experience pure, unadulterated acceptance of life and death. You are overcome with a sense of enlightenment that surpasses Buddha himself. With the help of an unruly concoction of painkillers and NyQuil, you ascend above mere mortality, achieving a state of nirvana.
Thanks to the social isolation, you lose touch with your ego. No one to compare yourself to, no one to compliment you or insult you, and no one to share memories with. You become the closest thing to metaphysical existence itself-- that is, until you have to blow your nose to breathe again.
As you deal with your congested sinuses, you are instantly sent back to the physical realm and realize you are still in a body. You still have work to do, loved ones to keep in touch with, dishes to clean, cats to feed, a human to feed (yourself), and a bunch of other responsibilities. This is all too much to handle and stresses you out, and you know stress can make your illness worse, so you try not to stress about it, stressing you out more. In the midst of this vicious cycle, you force yourself back to sleep. On the other side of snoozeland? Just some fever dreams and hallucinations.
As you fall back into a deep slumber, you start to think about how much life you've taken for granted. The ability to breathe from both nostrils, the fact that you aren't perpetually cold, the nonexistent headaches when you stand up, the coughless sentences uttered, the food you could actually taste, the music you could dance to, the people you shared laughs with, the accomplishments you garnered through hard work and determination, and the body that let you experience all of these things. Those experiences will last forever, they will always exist even after those memories are long gone, but your body won't. Yes, death.
The third experience illness brings about is the realization of mortality. Your ill and weakened body is a subtle yet stinging reminder that you exist within a physical form that is deteriorating ever so slowly-- maybe even too slow for our own good. We are given a chance, or perhaps forced, to confront death (read my previous post if this topic interests you). If we successfully confront death and come out better for it, we can achieve alignment of perspective to what really matters in our life. With the fogginess and detachment from life, we are given a vantage point to look at our lives from a distance. We don't get the details and we can't get into the nitty gritty, but it is a wonderful opportunity to zoom out, look at the bigger picture, to see the silhouette of how our life has shaped up to be, to see the forest, to see what is actually important. You can see all the things you'd rather be doing (than being sick doing nothing) and all the people you'd rather be seeing (than not seeing). You see what makes your life worth it.
In this way, we can see how acute illness (when overcome) can be a blessing. Yes, it is difficult and time-consuming, but it can be enlightening, motivating, and serve as a time for rebirth when looked at with the right mindset. Of course, you don't want to be sick all the time and more severe illnesses can have detrimental long-term effects, but with acute illnesses it may be helpful to see them as blessings. It may sound counter-intuitive, but one cannot be grateful for good health without bad health existing. Everything has duality, the positives in life cannot be appreciated without their negative counterparts.
The Imperative of Good Health
Firstly, allow me to define what good health is. To me, good health is being fit in as many ways as possible. Being fit means having the ability to do a particular action without pain or discomfort. This encompasses both mental and physical actions. So, good health means that you can think clearly, react quickly, move freely with strength and flexibility, and ponder deeply and much more. In short, good health is having control and command over your mind and body. You can manipulate both your mind and your body to express your free will in this world. You are in charge.
So what's so good about good health? You have your standard answers of being able to live a long and healthy life, but that isn't really specific nor meaningful. What really is good about good health is being able to use your will to help those you care about when it comes to it. If your grandma needs help moving a bunch of furniture, you can help. If the neighbor's cat is stuck in a tree, you can help. If a friend needs someone to talk to, you can help. If a business partner needs to bounce ideas off of you, you can help.
Conversely, if you don't take care of your health, you aren't fit to do those things. You might pull a muscle or dislocate your shoulder when helping granny, you might not be able to pull yourself up the tree and end up falling when reaching out to Pumpkin, you might be too preoccupied with your own emotions to give space for your friend to talk, you might not be able to think so clearly about Bob's ideas that could increase profits by 33%.
The issue with good health is that it takes time, planning, investment, and faith. Health is such an abstract concept and there are a million ways we can measure it. Whether it is your weight, your hair, your eye sight, your blood, your thoughts, your behavior, your teeth, your heart, your feelings, or your lungs, none of these things can tell us if we are healthy. Furthermore, results aren't instant. You can't expect to gain muscle by lifting weights once. You won't see your hair shine forever after one oil masking session. You won't lower your blood sugar levels after one day of avoiding carbohydrates. Good health habits have to be consistent throughout your entire life. There are no phases to good health. Good health is a difficult commitment which requires short-term sacrifices for its long-term benefits.
It is difficult and it sounds overwhelming, but good health is worth it because it allows you to help in as many ways possible. Good health is the foundation to a stable life in a world where chaos is plentiful. The better health you are in, the more prepared you are for what life throws at you and at your loved ones. There are people who are counting on you. Please, don't let them down. You may not realize it, but you are important enough to have to take care of your health. With the first section of this article in mind (rising rates of chronic illnesses), good health should be a priority.
In addition to helping others, good health allows us to enjoy the blessings of the one life we get. It allows us to travel comfortably to faraway lands, to dance and celebrate with friends and family, to play sports with our children, to help the elderly live with ease, and to really live life in all its glory.
How Do I Live Healthily?
Because good health is so complex and can be measured in so many different ways, there is no one-size-fits-all lifestyle. Just as there is no magical diet or best exercise routine, there is no prescription for good health. That being said, there are some guidelines that I think can help us make the best decisions for ourselves:
Allow yourself to indulge here and there. I put this first because I think it is that crucial. There are no rules and therefore no punishments when it comes to how you take care of yourself. Healthy is not a label you can place onto a food or on an exercise, healthy is a lifestyle. Remember, health should be maintained throughout your entire life as best as you can, don't be afraid to treat yourself.
Think long term. Chicken breast, rice, and broccoli is great but how long can you sustain that? Going to the gym everyday is commendable but it can lead to injury. Trying to run a marathon next month with no prior running experience is a little too ambitious. If it is not sustainable, it isn't a good idea.
Wash your damn hands. This should go without saying but washing your hands properly and often is the best way to avoid getting a communicable disease.
Learn about what food is and how your body processes it. The current landscape of popular fitness media is often hyper-focused on calories because it is simple. Your body is more complex than a machine that has numerical inputs and outputs. We also hear about sugar being the greatest evil, but it doesn't have to be. 20 years ago fat was antagonized (it no longer is). Your body requires certain nutrients to function properly and none of them are inherently bad. Almost everything in moderation can be good for you (the tricky part is finding what moderation is). Find out what moderation is for you and see how you can make it sustainable.
Try to find ways to give food more purpose to your life than just enjoyment (purpose-based eating). For me, that is setting up my food intake surrounding physical activity. I try to get more carbohydrates before a workout, more protein after the workout, and have my fats near the end of the day. For you, food might be a way to get more social, or cooking food could be a way you express love to your friends and family. Whatever it is, make sure you have a purpose for food that you can feel good about.
Keep it interesting. Enjoy how it feels to improve at something, whether that is learning a new dish or playing a new sport or practicing a mindfulness technique. Health can always be improved in some avenue, so try to explore as many areas as possible!
Stay away from what makes you feel bad. Whether it is eating fast food or drinking milk or fried food or smoking or alcohol or a certain vegetable or eating at 2 am or sleeping in until 2 pm, listen to your body. Some people feel refreshed waking up at 2 pm, but others will feel miserable. I would go as far as saying it does not matter what the nutritional research or science implies, your body is not the average and science is not prescriptive.
Move. Our bodies weren't made to sit all day. However you enjoy to move, do it. Don't fall into the trap of thinking the gym is the only way to stay fit.
Hopefully these guidelines were helpful in any way. Again, good health is complicated and difficult, but I believe it is worth it. It is a long journey to embark on and we will learn things about ourselves that we have never considered. Good health can help us become forces of good in this world. In addition, we can greatly increase our chances to avoid those chronic illnesses mentioned before.
I wish you all the best of health and the ability to live life to its fullest.
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