Past Topics : Habits of Health Tuesdays

Habits of Disease

Also known as Slight Errors in Judgment

Posture: Walking duck-footed or pigeon toed leads to knee or hip replacements.
Which should be considered a better option: Correcting the posture before the damage occurs or waiting for surgery?

Alcohol: Can lead to cirrhosis of the liver, a very miserable lifestyle, and even death.
Which should be considered a better option: Stop consuming alcohol before it does the damage or wait for the symptoms to become so great with the damage already done before you take steps to rectify anything?

Diet: Eating sugary foods can lead to Type 2 diabetes, which could lead to blindness, amputation, and death.
Which should be considered a better option: Changing the diet today and developing better eating habits or waiting until the damage has been done?

Lack of sleep: Can lead to depression, anxiety, fatigue, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and a miserable life.
Which should be considered a better option: Taking all the steps suggested and required to improve your sleep environment and your sleep habits or wait until those habits are so entrenched that they seem to be impossible to overcome?
It’s my belief that it is never too late to start.

Poor Hydration: Can result in numerous gut issues, blood disorders, seizures, kidney problems, cramps, headaches, muscle weakness, and dizziness.
It is said that we should drink half our weight in ounces of water to stay hydrated.
Which is better: To not focus on how much water we drink (being lackadaisical about our hydration) or making plans and setting the stage for getting enough water each day?

Over-Eating: Stuffing ourselves, getting our money’s worth at every meal.
Which should be considered the better option: Eating reasonably for our health and not eating for our taste buds. Eating every two and a half hours to maintain vitality and energy throughout the day to prevent ravenous behavior.

Shortness of breath: Asthma, building up toxins in the lungs, inflammation, decreased energy, sleep problems, and decreasing health.
Which should be considered the better option? Improving our breathing through breath exercises, activity, and exercise or letting it continue to deteriorate until we are on medications to help us breathe?
Shallow breathing will determine the CO2 set point in the body. A higher set point due to shallow breathing will lead to more headaches.

Lack of Preventive Measures: Relying upon Re-Hab instead of using Pre-Hab – waiting until the other shoe has dropped. Which would be considered smarter: Developing Dis-Ease and then taking a medication to alleviate the symptoms or taking Preventive Measures beforehand to prevent to occurrence in the first place.

Smoking: Leads to emphysema, stomach and/or lung cancer, and early death. Seems to be a dumb question, but what are the benefits of smoking? Why would someone not quit, knowing the risks involved? Which should be considered the better option: Stop smoking, or continue to smoke and except the dysfunctional aspects that come along with it.

Snacking: Not eating a full, balanced, low calorie, nutritional meal every 2 ½ to 3 hours. Snacking typically involves some unhealthy choices of foods. Which would be better: Planning your meals out the day before or just keep doing the same old thing out of habit (a bad habit, I might say)?

Eating unhealthy proteins, such as hotdogs and lunch meats, both loaded with chemicals and unhealthy fat. Why not tell our taste buds who are demanding to be satisfied to shut up? Why not make the choice to choose healthier proteins?

Eating unhealthy starches, such as donuts, cookies, cakes, and French fries — unhealthy starches have one thing in common — a High Glycemic Factor. Which is easier to deal with: Type 2 diabetes or normal blood sugar levels?

Eating unhealthy fats, Omega six - arachidonic acid (excess of which creates inflammation), saturated fats, and hydrogenated fats. Which would make more sense: Focusing on the good fats, omega 3 (EPA and DHA), vitamin D, vitamin A, and limiting the harmful effects of the unhealthy fats or continuing to pay no attention to what we put into our mouths?

Relying upon instant gratification: Feeding our wishes, desires, and cravings with a satisfaction that lasts moments. Or can we put off those cravings, knowing that by delaying them we are gaining a stronger hold on Optimal Health?

Always in a hurry, rushing to get things done. Are you always putting our fires, getting caught up in emergencies? Slow down! Instead of trying to Force life to happen, move into Power and allow life to happen. Live in the NOW and take care of situations as they occur. Letting go of procrastination means fewer emergencies.

Lack of Mindfulness by not paying close attention to details, we allow our lives to be run by the committee in the mind (EGO); saying “That’s just the way I am” without thinking “It doesn’t have to be that way, I can change.”

Health is an overall endeavor; it takes physical aspects, mental aspects, emotional aspects and spiritual aspects to improve the big picture. Some may even add in a financial aspect. We sometimes spend money on un-needed items and avoid spending money on items that would bring us closer to Optimal Health.

Many times people want to self-diagnose and cherry pick individual items to bring on instant health and cures (half measures). To me, this concept seems to be based upon false thinking, erroneous knowledge, and false beliefs.
It’s based on the idea of instant gratification rather than delayed gratification.

I understand that we all have to die, that is not an option. But everyone has the option of putting emphasis on their health and taking intermediate steps to improve that health before they die.

It is my desire to die healthy! I am willing to go the extra mile to stay healthy. Are you?

Sloppy, lazy, mindless, dysfunctional living always leads to Dis-Ease and a degeneration of our health status. When repeated over time, this type of living will create Habits of Dis-Ease.

 

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Michael McCright
Free Health Coaching – provided by the "Together i Can Group"
Togetherican.com
March 25, 2015

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