No Longer the Picture of Health
While industrialized nations have conquered many infectious diseases of a century ago, and are living longer than ever on average, we are increasingly falling prey to new diseases of our own making. Industrialized nations are among the sickest on earth due to our environment and lifestyles. Stress, carcinogens, toxins, obesity and sleep deprivation all combine to erode the quality of life and lead to higher rates of diabetes, cancer, depression, suicide. Our biology is just not able to keep pace and evolve fast enough to cope with the changes that profit-seeking industrialization and technology have produced.
Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body
The ancient Greeks got many things right, including the maxim “Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body”. Notice the neither they nor I said a scholarly mind in an an perfectly athletic body. That is not the point here. The point is that for the mind or the body to function optimally in service of a healthy and productive life, they should both be healthy.
Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) understands that the mind and body are two facets of the whole person, and that any intervention must take the wholeness of both into account. The mind and the body have profound influences on each other, and are chemically and neurologically inseparable. A sick mind will pull the body down eventually, just as a sick body will pull the mind down a notch or two. Conversely, exercise makes one feel better, reason better, and remember more, just as a mind that is not preoccupied by anxiety eats less, sleeps better, and has more energy to direct in useful directions.
Taking care of the whole person from youth through old age is paramount in one’s happiness.
Living forever is unrealistic, but living as well as we can for as long as we can is not.
How Neurolinguistic Programming Can Improve Health
Modeling Success
Remember that the heart of NLP has always been modeling excellence, and with regards to health it is no different. Find out what works, who’s doing it, and copy them. Not for the short run (there are no shortcuts in good health), but for the long run. This includes modeling what works for people who have always been healthy, as well as those that once were not, but now are and have maintained it for a while. The lives of healthy people are often different at many different levels from those of less healthy people, and through NLP those levels can be modeled, including:
- Spirituality (what is the higher purpose and intent of healthy people?)
- Identity (who do healthy people believe they are, and what principles of health do they identify with?)
- Beliefs and Values (what do healthy people believe about their minds and bodies, and why is it important to put their health high on their lists?)
- Capabilities (what are healthy people able to do to make time for health, and what does their health enable them to do in life?)
- Behaviors (what do healthy people do for meals, exercise, activity, recreation, stress relief, rest? what are their do’s and don’ts?)
- Environment (what and who do healthy people surround themselves with, and what do they not permit into their homes or work places?)
Compare what you find by asking these questions to models of health, and compare with your own? If you see any differences, these can serve as places to start.
Developing Rapport with One’s Body
Another key principle of Neurolinguistic Programming is rapport. Traditionally, rapport has meant to convey like-mindedness to another person, but in the context of health, it is vitally important to be in touch and in rapport with one’s own body. We need to understand non-verbal chemical signals to indicate fatigue, true hunger, satiety or fullness, pain and pleasure. Most people live in their heads, and regard their bodies as transportation for their heads only. Once you pay attention to your body and learn its language, you will eat right, sleep right, exercise right, and the whole process need not drive you crazy because you get your head out of the loop.
Education is also required, because there are psychological and chemical assaults on your mind and body specifically engineered to send your body and mind false and confusing signals. Every smoker knows that smoking calms the nerves and brings a temporary sense of relaxation and control, while abstinence produces a tremendous case of nerves, yet we know cognitively that smoking is a slow but sure death. Every carb addict knows that you can’t eat just one potato chip. The refined carbs, salts, synthetic fats and preservatives assault the pleasure centers of the brain and switch off the ability to easily say enough, at the same time the body is thrashing out metabolic hormones to try to deal with the unnatural substances you’ve just absorbed into your blood.
NLP can help you learn to pay attention to your body throughout the day, and over a lifetime, verbalize what is happening at a chemical level, and respond with what your body needs, naturally rather than synthetically.
Love the Body and Mind You’ve Got
You can’t be someone else, but you can be a better you! Your health can be measured in terms of how good you feel and look, and how good your numbers are. If you go from 20 lbs overweight to 10 lbs overweight in 6 months, take yourself to a movie! If your HDL rises by 20 points and your LDL lowers 15 points since your last checkup, buy yourself a new pair of shoes! If you could do 6 pushups 6 months ago and can now do 60, then flaunt it! Small, incremental improvements over time do count, and make all the difference in your mood, energy, and ability to enjoy and contribute to life.
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