what is health?

What is Health?

Seems like a pretty straight forward question, yeah?

No.

I always like to ask before we get started working together – so that we’re on the same page about what we’re actually doing.

I see some people with an acute sprained ankle – acupuncture and herbs work great to shorten the duration of acute musculoskeletal patterns. And in this case you might say health is walking without throbbing pain and swelling. There’s your straightforward answer. Are we done here?

No.

Acupuncture and natural medicine potentially work for everything – from ankle sprains to family-system issues, from complex PTSD to autoimmune disorders. But this creative and evolving medicine also works most importantly on us as WHOLE INDIVIDUALS – in an attempt to help us tap back into our own true nature, into what gives us meaning, what makes us satisfied, and to our own innate ability to self-heal. The needles just poke you to remind you of all that good stuff.

Understand?

Hopefully you have questions at this point. Natural medicine is weird and dynamic and hard to grasp – but it’s not rocket science – and neither is health, in the truest sense of the word.

Let’s just talk about the etymology – so we understand the roots of this concept “health.”

Health comes from the Old English hælþ “wholeness, a being whole, sound or well,” from Proto-Germanic *hailitho, from PIE *kailo- “whole, uninjured, of good omen” (source also of Old English hal “hale, whole;” Old Norse heill“healthy;” Old English halig, Old Norse helge “holy, sacred;” Old English hælan “to heal”). With Proto-Germanic abstract noun suffix *-itho

Of physical health in Middle English, but also “prosperity, happiness, welfare; preservation, safety.” An abstract noun to whole, not to heal. Meaning “a salutation” (in a toast, etc.) wishing one welfare or prosperity is from 1590s. Health food is from 1848.

Wholeness. Sound. Well. Uninjured. Of good omen. Holy. Sacred. Preservation. Safety. Happiness.

I hear all sorts of other definitions as well.

One of my favorites is “The ability to feel satisfied and to enjoy and adapt to life.”

Now we’ve defined it and can attain it, correct?

No!

A person comes into my office struggling with depression, anxiety and daily diarrhea. I ask them how they define health before they get started and they tell me “to be free of suffering and to feel uninjured.” That matches a bit of the above definition. So the question is always – “how can you help me get healthy?” Or in this person’s case “how can you help me be free from suffering and heal my injuries?”

And my answer for them will be different each week, especially if they are reflecting and putting their best foot forward in their healing trajectory. It will likely look quite similar for a difficult to treat pattern or if the person is having trouble making moves in the right direction.

Some weeks the answer is a question like “What makes you feel more alive?” or it might be simple things that are understandably quite hard to do for some people – like a suggestion to take the medicine I give them daily.

It’s hard to measure progress in natural medicine because the process can be slow but also because it can work subconsciously – and then vuala! Overnight you’ve suddenly stopped pissing the bed!

But we still need something to reference our progress towards – and in my practice one of those things, aside from lab values, feelings, and many more – is how each person defines health. That definition can change as a person evolves. And that definition can also serve as a north star – not an end all be all. Because what else will we do if we’re not growing and at least looking at the stars, if not reaching for them?

Unless of course we sprain an ankle. That’ll just take a few weeks with the right care.

I would love to hear your definitions of health in the comments below and your thoughts about what it feels like to be in that “state of health” as you define it.