“Know then that the body is merely a garment. Go seek the wearer, not the cloak.” Rumi
What does it mean to be healthy?
Ask people that question and you’ll most likely get a wide range of answers. Responses will run the gamut, ranging from a simple “not being sick” to more elaborate explanations related to one’s lifestyle, socioeconomic status, age--even one’s spirituality can be part of the picture. Over the years, I have learned that the answer to this question says a lot about our habits, patterns, choices, and the capacity to cope with the stressors of daily life. Our beliefs about health guide and integrate our experiences with sickness, disability, and disease, while helping us make sense of the daily fluctuations in our well-being. Being aware of our health beliefs makes a difference: studies have shown that people who have a cohesive definition of health show an enhanced capacity to resist disease, adapt to stressors, and bounce back from adversity.
Health beliefs grow over a lifetime, transmitted from birth through one’s culture and upbringing. They tend to be dynamic, growing and changing throughout our lifespan, influenced by social networks, direct and indirect experiences, and the resources available in our environment. They guide our lifestyle choices in many ways, sometimes directly, such as a decision to quit smoking, as well as indirectly, as with yearly dentist appointments, annual physicals, and flu shots. The more we engage in behaviors that support our beliefs, the more ingrained these beliefs become. At times their roots run so deep that we believe them to be reflective of reality, even when objective evidence tells us otherwise—think of the battles waged against masks and vaccinations. Without our awareness, health beliefs exert a powerful influence over our choices that can lead to both positive and negative outcomes.
The origins of many habits related to our health can be traced back to our health beliefs. The importance placed on care for our physical body--nutrition, physical activity, sleep, alcohol consumption, etc.—reflects attitudes about how much control we have over our well-being and the importance of the mind-body connection. A teenage boy raised with stories of how “all the men in this family become drunks” may do very little to control his drinking, believing it is his destiny. Or, believing he is in control of his behavior, he may resist this path and avoid alcohol entirely. Understanding what lies beneath our choices can be an important catalyst for changing unhealthy habits.
We all know that changing habits can be hard, many times feeing impossible or overwhelming, especially when they are deeply ingrained. What happens along the way to change can propel us forward or create roadblocks. Change starts with thoughts which can initiate an action. The outcome of that action will either encourage further exploration or thwart forward progress. Imagine two people who are trying to drop 20 lbs. Both are told by a doctor that walking is an effective way to lose weight. Both start a walking program that aims for 30 minutes, 4 days a week. One feels great--she is more energetic and alert and loses 2 lbs. in the first week. She continues this pattern for the next four weeks and drops 10 lbs. The other person also starts walking, but with much different results. The first day, he only makes it for 20 minutes because his knee starts to swell and is quite painful. He needs to take two days off to recover before he tries again. The second time he only goes for 15 minutes due to the pain and swelling. He spends the rest of the afternoon with his knee elevated. Two people with the same intention and very different experiences. After two months the first person has established a regular walking program, having lost 15 lbs. and feeling much stronger. The second person has a much different story. Due to his severely arthritic knee, he believes that losing weight is impossible because he “can’t exercise”.
Health beliefs are an important way of creating coherence related to our well-being. They can guide us to make skillful choices, find meaning in adversity, and help us mobilize resources. However, they need to be held with a soft grip. Life’s demands are in continuous flux, so we must always be prepared to adapt. Repeating behaviors without conscious choice will eventually get us stuck in unhealthy patterns. As we repeat unconscious habits, they start to create deep grooves in our psyche. Eastern traditions refer to these patterns as “samskaras”. These patterns run so deep that they keep us locked in cycles of unhealthy behaviors. Samskaras are reactions to events rather than responses, brought on by triggers, and can create a great deal of trouble and misery in our lives.
Differentiating the habits that help us to grow from those that create samskaras can be tricky. The cure can easily become the poison. Let’s look at our successful walker again to illustrate. After three months, the happy walker starts to regain some of her weight—just a few pounds—but to take control she starts to walk for 45 minutes rather than 30. She continues to gain weight. She increases her time to 60 minutes. Her weight plateaus. Now walking 60 minutes, 7 days a week, what was once invigorating is now a chore. To make matters worse, she is getting shin splints and her ankle is sore. After a month, the time constraints are overwhelming, the walks feel tedious and burdensome. She wakes up one day and her foot is swollen. Discovering she has fractured a bone in her foot, she spends 8 weeks in a boot. No longer walking, she regains her weight.
Should we conclude that our happy walker’s belief in walking was unhealthy? Not necessarily. We know that there are numerous benefits to walking that go well beyond weight loss. It wasn’t her belief that was flawed, but how she used it given the circumstances. It had become her samskara, a groove that was the only answer to her weight challenges. She was too deeply invested in her belief to see it wasn’t working, too close to accept that her circumstances had changed, that her cure had become a poison. Holding onto our beliefs softly allows us to sense changes and respond appropriately.
How do we change habits? How do we know if our habits are supporting us or turning into harmful samskaras? Change is not easy, but with the right tools we can start to chip away at the patterns that make us miserable and establish habits that support our well-being. Over the next several weeks, we’ll look at some tools that have been shown to support healing and growth, helping us to establish habits that reduce the grip of samskaras while allowing us to live with more ease. We’ll focus on three skills in particular: self-regulation, which enhances our somatic awareness; adaptability, through which we develop discernment and wisdom; and resilience, which creates stability and supports a sense of calm. These tools can help us build a nimble foundation upon which we can build our health beliefs, those that not only keep us healthy, but encourage us to flourish.
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