What Is Sick Care?
In the past, good health was defined as the absence of disease or infirmity, though the definition of health has been expanded to include a healthy mental state, as well. Traditional Western Medicine is constructed around a “sick care” paradigm.
Health is focused more on your physical body and how well-functioning it is—or is not. Your health involves the way you eat (your nutrition), how you move your body (exercise), and the absence of acute or chronic diseases. Examples of health factors might include genetics and heritable health disorders, the environment you grew up in, the local foods available to you, and any current acute or chronic illnesses you’re experiencing.
Patients with poor health engage the medical care model to treat illnesses; they interact reactively and episodically with doctors and clinicians whose goal is to diagnose and treat disease. The emphasis of sick care is on addressing acute symptoms, rather than concentrating on the cause of the condition. By the time these patients’ symptoms have presented and progressed, the sick care option is drugs and surgeries.
These are common themes in health overall, however they don’t fully capture the span of the human experience in the way that wellness does. While sick care focuses more on diseases, genetics, and illness (and, hopefully, the lack of health problems!), the concept of wellness is focused on all areas of your life to continuously seek balance.
What is Well Care?
The Global Wellness Institute defines wellness as the active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health.
There are two important aspects to this definition. First, wellness is an "active pursuit” that is associated with intentions, choices and actions as we work toward an optimal state of health and wellbeing. Second, wellness is linked to holistic health—that is, it extends beyond physical health and incorporates many different dimensions that should work in harmony.
Wellness is an individual pursuit—we have self-responsibility for our own choices, behaviors and lifestyles—but it is also significantly influenced by the physical, social and cultural environments in which we live.
The primary difference between sick care and well care is that in the sick care model, health is the goal by addressing symptoms and in well care, wellness is the active process of achieving that health goal by resolving the root cause of disease. Well care is about all aspects of your life— your body, your work, your relationships, your emotional life, and so much more. By creating “health” in every aspect of well care, you’ll find yourself improving your life, your body, and your overall well-being. You’ll find a new dimension of health and wellness that you might have never thought possible before, employing this active process of being aware and making choices that lead toward an outcome of optimal holistic health and wellbeing.
Why Does it Matter?
Our healthcare systems use a pathogenic and reactive approach, focused on causes, consequences, diagnosis and treatment of diseases and injuries. In contrast, wellness is a salutogenic and proactive approach, focused on prevention, healthy lifestyles and the pursuit of optimal wellbeing. Ultimately, a solid foundation for wellness helps us prevent and overcome disease, both at present and in the future.
Together, health and wellness can help you achieve a high quality of well-being. Focusing on wellness specifically can help you to also achieve good health for a lifetime.
Maintaining an optimal level of wellness is crucial to live a higher quality life. Wellness matters because everything we do and every emotion we feel relates to our well-being. In turn, our well-being directly affects our actions and emotions. It’s an ongoing circle. Therefore, it is important for everyone to achieve optimal wellness in order to subdue stress, reduce the risk of illness and ensure positive interactions.
Understanding the difference between health and wellness can help you get clarity on your goals, create a plan that makes sense for you, and star to build a quality of life that is sustainable for a lifetime.
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