What Makes Us Healthy?
Friends,
How are you? How are we? How are your children?
We ask these questions. They seem harder to answer than before. But they might just be more important than ever.
Like many other areas of life in our American “instaculture,” COVID has further distorted our view of health. Below, you can read some of the latest and greatest sources of what I believe is a well-balanced view on what we should do relative to this virus. COVID is obviously a disaster. It is equally as obvious that we could have handled it better. All of us. Eventually, we will get over it. At some point. Until then, there are only a few really simple things we ought to do, which are addressed so well in the infographic below.
First, reduce your exposure. It goes both ways: act as if you have it, and act as if anyone you come close to has it. Keep your distance. Wear a mask. Don't get in small, crowded rooms near people singing or talking loudly. Practice good hygiene.
Second, optimize resilience. Do you or people close to you have one or more comorbidities? If yes, enter immuno-rejuvenation programs (sleep, diet, exercise etc). If not, keep doing what you are doing. It isn't much harder than that (for now.)
COVID, like most major crises, has revealed and laid bare so many underlying problems in society. All of which were there before but now are made visible.
I often describe our culture in terms of WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get. I think we have gotten so used to and have been programmed (literally) to get what we see. Immediately. It's the fascination, infatuation, and ultimately inflammation, of our technology-driven culture. It's the clickbait of it all. We see something. We click on something. It arrives at our front door the next day. But, that's all in the physical domain. While it all feels very "real,” it isn't. It's just visible and therefore tangible to us. But that is still only one dimension of our reality. There are deeper, underlying aspects of reality we don't see that matter just as much, or more, than the parts we see.
Consider the image of the tree above. This is not how we think of a tree, is it? We draw and capture only the top part: the branches, the leaves, the trunk. Yet we know there are things going on underground and out of sight that determine the overall health of the tree. If the conditions "below" aren't just right the tree will not prosper, bear fruit, or blossom. The same is true for all living systems.
Health is not black or white. Some people are quite unhealthy and therefore far more predisposed to this virus. Others are quite healthy and will most likely be unaffected, asymptomatic, or get over their COVID infection fairly easily. I hope that once this is over, we can deepen our commitment as a country to the quality of our roots in terms of our collective health.
Far before COVID, America was in the midst of a health crisis. We have the unhealthiest population of any western democracy. We have certainly exacerbated our health crisis with a corrupt, inefficient, and ineffective way of administering our health care system (sorry for such powerful words, but seriously, we spend 2x more than any other nation yet have worse outcomes). But regardless of our 'system’, in the end, it does come down to personal choices we all make and the habits we form. We can blame pharma, politics, big food brands, and agriculture all day long, but we can all still love more, move more, sleep better, and eat more real food. It's up to us. No one is stopping us. We'd all be healthier as a result.
I have written about health before, primarily in this blog here. It obviously is one of the most important aspects of a good life. I don't mean to suggest that access, affordability, or quality of healthcare aren't important matters for us to solve. Of course, they are. And we can, and must, do much better. However, preventative health is of equal importance. We all must take responsibility to promote the kind of healthy habits that we know will help us to avoid the onset of chronic disease that affects so many.
I ask you to consider the following. We knew very early that people with certain conditions are at a far greater risk for both getting and suffering from COVID. Why then has there been so little focus on our own lifestyle habits as a part of our COVID response? Why haven't America been motivated to go on the biggest weight-loss campaign of all time? Why haven't we been educated on the importance of the right nutrients, the amount of sleep, and how to use free tools to stress less and love more. As part of the multi-trillion dollar response to COVID, why didn’t we invest in the future health of the American population? When Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of Britain, contracted COVID, he was shocked to learn that his pre-existing health concerns made his experience so much worse. At the very least, the UK government launched broad initiatives towards the kind of things I am talking about here. I wish the US did the same. Here is their Better Health national campaign.
This is NOT that complicated. Somehow, we always end up in a politicized war designed to make someone ELSE look bad. We rarely turn to the mirror and look for the big answers within ourselves. I know – that is much harder. Perhaps we just don't like what we see?
Below, I've compiled some good articles and podcasts relevant to COVID. They're also relevant to the notion that most of our problems are systemic (rather than pandemic), and they simply have been more "acute" because of the virus. I do hope we can help each other dig deeper and attack the roots and causes of our problems such that we build a stronger, healthier, and more resilient world.
What I’m reading, watching, and listening to this week:
David Brooks, in his latest NYT opinion piece, makes great references to the underlying changes taking place in America that we have reason to all be concerned about. The Pandemic has certainly made obvious the importance of good government, investments in the common good, and how we have to restore both trust and capabilities in our broader experienced society.
THIS podcast with Dhru Purohit of the Broken Brain Podcast and Dr. Benjamin Bikman. I found Dr. Bikman's simple explanations of insulin resistance to be very informative: what it is, why it matters, and most importantly, what we all can do to avoid it. It is now estimated that over half of the US population suffers from elevated blood sugar levels. The best part is that most people can radically improve their health by making lifestyle changes.
While I am at it, I also want to flag THIS great podcast from Dhru with Nobel Laureate Louis Ignarro who was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of Nitric Oxide which he calls the “Miracle Molecule”. I found his approach to all things health-related to be commonsensical, simple, and yet very inspiring. Nitric Oxide also has shown strong promise for treating COVID patients. One of the most simple and surprising ways to enhance your own Nitric Oxide levels is to stop using mouthwash (which kills important mouth enzymes!) AND breathing through your nose. Listen more to learn!
Here is a great COVID medium post. Probably one of the best I’ve seen so far when it comes to an overall assessment on all things COVID. Love the infographic in the end which I have posted in my blog. It says it all. Take responsibility, act as if you are contagious, and make sure you understand your own risks and the risks of those around you.
Here is a good balanced article from the Atlantic on both “empiricism and imperfection” i.e. what we know, what we don’t know, and what that means for what we ought to do to get through this.
Shout out to Chuck Runyon, CEO Of Self Esteem Brands for posting this article where he talks about the fact that being safe is NOT the same as being healthy. He says: "The absence of a virus doesn’t equate to the presence of health." So true!
I know this is a very rough stretch for humanity. We are all hurting in various ways. But, as usual, the best strategy is to do what we can and ignore the rest. Eather better, sleeping better, loving more, exercising regularly, and being kind to each other is something every human can do. And it would make a big difference to just about everything we care about!
Have a great week. Please take care of your roots!
