My thought of the day is that there are three simple foundations to health and well-being:
1. A healthy diet
2. A healthy sleep cycle
3. Regular exercise
These are the three essential foundations for health. If one or more of these is not in place, your health and well-being can suffer, or at best, not be optimal.
And if you do have health issues at present, check these foundations..often making changes here can solve a lot of health problems or make them easier to treat.
The only problem is in defining what those mean for everyone.
Yes agreed Zeno. It is hard to adopt a one-size fits all when it comes to health, as people can be very different in terms of dietary needs, sleep, and amounts of exercise depending on lifestyle and work etc.
The purpose of my post was just to remind people of the basics though. It is worth checking whether these could be improved for yourself if you're not feeling well often or your health is suffering.
Are you getting enough sleep? Is your sleep disturbed? Could this be linked to diet or lifestyle? Is your diet healthy and balanced, or nutritionally deficient.. are you eating or drinking things which are making your health suffer? Do you get enough exercise, fresh air and sunlight? Exercise can provide so many health benefits, even gentle exercise.
It's surprising how few GP's will ask patients about these 3 basics and suggest keeping a health journal and making changes if there's need for changes or improvements. Some do, but in my experience most are only interested in the symptoms and treating those.
It's difficult to know whether your experiences are typical or not. I certainly have been asked about lifestyle, diet, etc. I wonder if there is evidence for this?
The one that's missing is, of course, a question about smoking (although I suspect GPs will be able to tell the heavy smokers as soon as they walk in...).
My experiences with GP's are similar to others I speak to, that you get good doctors who look at these basics and take an interest in patients, and those who seem to want to just get you out as quickly as possible. Maybe its just the demands and limitations on their time more than anything. I get asked whether I drink or smoke, but not about exercise or sleep, and diet is usually limited "eating ok? normal appetite?"
The time pressure is definitely enormous and that has to be something that has to be dealt with.
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