It’s open enrollment season!
Another year has passed and not much has changed. We continue to spend 84% of our healthcare dollars on chronic diseases and, in the last 50 years, US healthcare spending has risen 818% compared to 168% increase in GDP and 16% in wages, respectively.
Health care providers prescribe medications to manage conditions, but chronic disease doesn’t go away. Over time, chronic diseases demand more attention, drugs, medical intervention and dollars. I wrote a blog post one year ago detailing the dismal state of our health care system.
This year I am going to do something different. I’m going to focus on the upside.
The power of lifestyle behaviors.
We all have in us the power to affect change to feel better, sleep better and make use our fractured healthcare system LESS. Imagine needing LESS medication. There is irrefutable evidence suggesting physical activity can positively affect chronic disease including reliance on prescription drugs.
Here are 5 ideas to put yourself in a more powerful (and feel-good) position in taking control of your health and well-being:
- Lifestyle choices can suppress bad genes. Genetics can be overridden. We can strengthen and modulate the good genes through healthy lifestyle behaviors.
- You have more power over how you feel than your health care provider. Your healthcare provider cannot make you change.
- Pharmaceutical companies thrive on our dependency. The more drugs sold equals more money for them. Regular physical activity lowers drug dependency.
- Physical activity opens the door to creating change in other lifestyle behaviors. People who move more feel better, sleep better, manage stress more effectively and make healthier food choices.
- Curiosity, a belief in possibility and a willingness to feel (a bit) of discomfort are your 3 best superpowers. You deserve to live an active life that fits who you are. The secret is in your approach.
It’s open enrollment; time to reevaluate how you want to be. Possibility for change is ever-present. If you need help finding your own answers, I can help. Find out how to design an active life that fits who you are.