Time to make lifestyle healthy habits your priority

Welcoming the New Year may feel a bit different this year, given the challenges of 2020 and the inability to celebrate together.

The pandemic has not only served as a visceral reminder that greater focus should be placed on health and disease prevention and that there is more to us, people than the harried exhausted person who, at the end of the day, wants nothing more than to get into their PJs and play a video game, binge-watch a favourite TV serial, or read a current novel. With immunity and overall health front-of-mind, health trends have changed, and individuals are increasingly turning to preventative measures for disease and health maintenance.

We all live our lives according to our personal values and importance that we place on our health varies depending on these values.

I am a firm believer that health happens by choice, not by chance.

If you do not put health on the first place on our value list, do not expect to have it, or if you have it by simple virtue of youth or by sheer luck, do not expect to keep it for long.

In order to have good, life lasting health we cannot rely on luck or genetics.

It is the choices we all make today that determine the quality of our lives tomorrow and for as long as we live.

Connecting health to our highest personal values will motivate us to find the time to make healthy lifestyle changes of lasting value.

Time is precious. Virtually everyone that I know, patient or not, when asked what do they want in their lives invariably answer ”pursuing their dreams, exploring what the world has to offer, and being with loved ones“. My question then is: How can we do all the above without having our health?

Caring for our health even when we already have it, it will not only improve the quality of your life, it will prolong it so that we can have more of what we love.

So if lack of time is what is stopping you from being actively involved in your health, thing again.

If you do not have time to consume a nourishing diet, to exercise, to chop vegetables for a made from scratch meal instead of microwaving a store bought meal and to see a lifestyle medicine practitioner, just realise that the time you are saving now will simply be subtracted from your life at its end.

If health just is not high enough on your value system you have to start making it TODAY.

To realise the value of ONE YEAR, ask a cancer patient with a year to live.

To realise the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.

To realise the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realise the value of ONE DAY, ask a daily worker with children to feed.

To realise the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realise the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who has missed a train.

To realise the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who has avoided an accident

To realise the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the athlete who has just won a silver medal in the Olympics.

To realize the value of ONE INSTANT, ask a person that survived a heart attack due to being promptly resuscitated.

And if there is anything 2020 has taught us, it is to take care of our minds and bodies, especially to safe proof them in case of any unforeseen circumstances. Let us remember that health is the greatest gift of all, and we all know that if we do not value gifts we usually do not get more.