Health Is Easy, It’s Our Environment That Makes It Hard

The medical definition of health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” However, often times we forget that there is more to being healthy than just being capable of performing physical tasks such as the squat, deadlift, and core stability/pelvic control. Or even the fact that we “eat clean” or “eat healthy”. We also neglect the mental and social aspect which ultimately will determine our overall performance in a given task. Reminding ourselves that there are many components that need to be taken care of to ultimately classify one’s self as “healthy.”

Photo by Arek Adeoye on Unsplash

Health has become a very confusing topic over the years with all the fads and quick fixes being flooded into commercials and peoples social media feeds. However all the information on health is coincidentally very common sense, and the majority of people have heard the requirements before.

1. Get more movement in. Move often. Place physical stress on the body every once in awhile.
2. Eat Fresh, unprocessed foods. We use the acronym P.R.O.D.U.C.E at Performance Course.
3. Sleep for 8 or more hours.
4. Develop and maintain healthy relationships and human connection.
5. Get outside and “get some rays.”

Simple enough? I’m sure it is nothing you haven’t heard before. Then why in today’s society do we find it so hard to be healthy?

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

MENTAL

I know I definitely don’t meet all the requirements on that list. This is because our environment ultimately determines our ability to be healthy. This leads me to my first, and in my opinion most important topic, the mental state.

This can be the most difficult to prioritize, especially as a parent or coach, because there is no way to measure it like you could for physical well being, like a scale to check weight. It’s because of this that mental health is often left alone. Which unfortunately, in this day and age is a huge misfire with the level of negativity looping through social media and different social avenues. As well as lack of human connection and social norms caused by our amazing, but socially crippling technology. This is exactly why at Performance Course we put such a huge emphasis on team building and character development. We may not be able to monitor it, but we definitely can be a positive reinforcement of it.

A quick demonstration of some of the things we discuss on a daily basis are:

1. Belief- Belief in one’s self and belief in their team will ultimate determine success.
2. Leadership- When you believe in yourself you can lead anyone.
3. Attitude- You are in control of your attitude from the moment you wake up, you intrinsically decide whether your gonna have a great day. It’s not your circumstance or the outcome of the day that does.
4. Consistency- Having the ability to wake up day in and day out and be able to believe in yourself, and lead others who may need it will dictate how often you will succeed.
5. Effort- Once you have made the decision that you will have a great day, act on it with fearless effort in hopes that it will result in a positive outcome.
6. Desire- Whatever it is you desire to do, attack it every day and don’t let anyone distract you from it. It’s the fire that burns within you and motivates you.

It is these constant reminders on a day-to-day basis that allow us to understand that success and failure doesn’t define us. It’s how we go about doing it, whether or not we gave it our best shot is what ultimately matters.

PHYSICAL

With that said it is important to understand that there are many physiological factors that affect mental and overall health. For example, the amount of sleep someone gets tremendously affects their mental state. We have all talked to someone who didn’t get enough sleep and you quickly learn to avoid them because of how it affects their mood.

Physical fitness, or lack there off, plays a role as well. Unfortunately for most, including kids, people happen to be living pretty sedentary lifestyles. We sit at desks and offices for hours, which may only be broken up with a quick walk from time to time. Movement has become harder for people to get enough of. Kids are in school for 7 hours and typically only 40 minutes of that may include physical activity. You can imagine that would have a pretty serious effect on our physical well being. This is why various sports and hobbies are important in order to supplement activity that is neglected.

NUTRITION

Accompany this lack of physical activity with very little availability to unprocessed, natural foods and we now have a compounding issue. People often choose the easiest and quickest route to meet their needs. This is why there is an abundance of fast food restaurants that serve cheap, highly processed foods. However, does this mean we tell people to just stop eating fast food? It just makes sense that when you’ve worked all day the last thing you want to do is cook dinner for 45 minutes.

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

I don’t believe that asking athletes or their parents to cut out fast food is going be the most realistic tactic unfortunately. Due to the reality that majority of these kids parents are already dealing with a hectic schedule to begin with. Instead we should teach them how to make healthy decisions, and how to recognize whether or not something is healthy to eat or not. A really cool and simple acronym we reinforce at PC is P.R.O.D.U.C.E.

P- Protein, (Different sources and most dense forms)

R- Rainbow colored foods, meaning there should be a variety of colors on your plate.

O- Omega 3 fatty acids help combat inflammation

D- Drink plenty of water

U- Unprocessed foods, things that are not in a can, box, or fried.

C- Carbohydrate coming from fruits vegetables and grains are a main energy source.

E- Eliminate Junk food from your diet (Whataburger, Candy, etc)

This is all very simple, however when applied properly can teach athletes how to make better decision on nutrition regardless of where they may be eating. We teach them how to choose the “better” option instead of getting caught up in what might be the “best” option. With the realization that athletes are going to eat at fast food restaurants and that they aren’t always going to eat fresh foods.

I know you are probably thinking to yourself that this article is not anything mind blowing, and for most people you already knew majority of these things. Which lead me to my statement that health is ultimately simple, we just allow our environment to cloud our judgment. It just takes a reminder that we need to pursue relationships, we need to pursue things that will challenge us mentally and physically in order to ultimately reach our health. It’s not hard. It just takes effort.