Health Part 1 - Physical Health

Health.

This is our goal.  What is it?  How do spiritual and physical health relate to each other and why?

To begin, we need a definition.  Try asking five people on the street what "health" is and you will probably end up with ten different definitions, but there seems to be a common thread throughout each definition: wholeness and balance.

While the understanding of the human body and disease has developed a lot since the time of Hippocrates, certain basic definitions have remained the same, and health is one of these. This is why we are going back to the origins of medicine to understand what health is.

The word health derives from the Old English word for "wholeness, being whole."

Galen saw health as "that sound and wholesome state, in which all the actions of nature are correctly performed" (Galen, De Optima Corporis Constitutione).  He went further to describe it as the balance of the humors [we will discuss these later].  Disease, by contrast, is caused by an imbalnce of the humors.  As the humors are tied to the temperament of a person, the ancients like Galen and Hippocrates saw both the physical health and the mental health of a person closely connected to this balance within the body (Galen, Ars Tuendae Sanitatis).

We see this same theme in Aristotle's De Anima and Nicomachean Ethics, as well as Plato's Republic. 

The WHO defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."  While  some in modern medicine may not appreciate the broadness of this definition, I think it looks back to the notion of the whole person that the ancients understood--that man is not just a physical being, but has a spiritual side too.  These two aspects of man, body and soul, need to be healthy in order for the whole person to be healthy.

Physical health can be measured by a series of numbers.  As long as we fall into that range, we are considered healthy.  If we fall outside, then we are unhealthy.

It is important for each of us to have a baseline.  To know where we are starting from and to know where we need to be.

I would encourage everyone to get a yearly physical, and what better time to start than now.  Aside from weight and blood pressure, consider asking your primary care physician for a standard blood pannel which would include cholesterol levels, thyroid hormone levels, and blood glucose. As you continue this journey, always make sure you are consulting a licensed medical professional for medical advice.  Your PCP can also help monitor your progress.  

Next time we will look at spiritual health.

Peace!