Health is a tricky thing. A person can be objectively healthy and still not feel good. And then another person can be objectively very unhealthy and they can feel amazing about themselves. That’s why it’s important to understand there’s a balanced viewpoint that’s required on an individual basis when getting people to try to understand the best course of action for themselves regarding health.
A few of the tools that you can use to appreciate the difference between subjective and objective health would be wearable technology, internal surveys, the HALT perspective, and stories about science versus cultural anecdotes. Each of these ways of thinking about health can enhance how you view the subject and what you can actively pursue in your own life.
Wearable Technology
Wearable technology is changing the health industry – there is no doubt about that. And this is a case of objective health coming to the forefront. If you have sensors hooked to your blood pressure, your heart rate, your blood sugar level – this is all giving real-time explanations of your biochemical processes. If you use wearable technology while you’re working out, you can see what type of exercises literally and scientifically do the most for you. Wearable technology does not bring feelings into the equation. It strictly illustrates a way to map numbers to results.
Internal Surveys
Subjectively, you can look at things like pain maps. Essentially, people are given a spectrum of choices when it comes to how much pain they feel. And they have to decide where they are on that spectrum. Being subjective, there are no numbers or physical attributes associated with the system. It is simply how people judge themselves to be. Now, this is good for finding trends in yourself, but it’s impossible to map subjective pain among people who define pain differently.
The HALT Perspective
If you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, your perspective about your health is going to be skewed. That means if you want a more objective discussion about health, you need to make sure that it’s not taking place if any of those attributes are present. As soon anything from the HALT realm is present, it will be impossible to remove subjectivity from the health equation. Emotions are great for connecting with people, but they interfere with the ability of a person to comprehend a balanced viewpoint on various conditions.
Science Vs. Cultural Anecdotes
When it comes to health, science and medicine suggest that repeatable events make sense when it comes to improving health. However, there are an enormous amount of cultural anecdotes that also have value. For instance, objective medicine would suggest that taking aspirin can help with a headache. Cultural anecdotes might say that burning a certain kind of incense and doing a handstand would do the same thing. It’s up to you to figure out what each situation needs concerning this balance.
Originally posted on May 18, 2018 @ 2:49 pm