What is Your Health Worth? A practical guide to happy, healthy living.

For the better part of 20 years now I have been coaching and mentoring men in the area of happy, healthy and productive living. Through a combination of formal and informal education, discussion, thought modification and implementation of daily practices involving spiritual awareness, self examination and physical fitness, men are optimizing their lives.

My approach to helping men change has been to emphasize the value of discovering or rediscovering their core values, and helping them alter their previous conditioning while validating their strengths and potential. I stress balance among the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of living. This will not change. However, what will change in my approach is the emphasis I’ll place on coaching the urgency to understand and value one’s health, especially as it relates to the long term effects of one’s daily practices, and maybe more importantly in today’s information age, the information and misinformation that is disseminated about their health, ultimately leading to success or failure, however they define it.

Since I so often encounter men who leap-frog this incredibly important aspect of living and young men who have never been exposed, from a holistic viewpoint, to the choices available to them, I write this article. I give my heartfelt thanks to a gentle, conscious, nudge from my wife, Sophia, and three unrelated communications with talented men in the medical profession for their unknowing inspiration to write this article. So, my thanks also go out to Randy Ice PT, CCS, fellow Hub Pages author by Dr. Thomas Greenwell, and incredibly gifted Dr. Joseph Mercola.

My initial disclaimer is that I am not a doctor, scientist, attorney or other medical, mental health or legal professional so if you have questions concerning those areas I would advise you to contact the appropriate individual. I also have no business or personal relationship with the gentlemen above except as they have contributed to my knowledge of my own health.

However, I am speaking based on personal experience and therefore feel justified in offering my humble opinion as it relates to the subject matter that follows. The reason for this article as well as my practice as a life architect is to encourage men to discover who they are or are not, help them uncover what they believe and to coach them to practice it as early in life as possible by being passionate about their own development and contribution to this world.

As I said earlier, I am making a shift in my approach to coaching my clients. Statistics can be misleading and sometimes confusing because there are many variables that contribute to the conclusions that are drawn. This may be especially true today, in a world of incredible competition for our fixed costs (food, shelter, transportation, etc) as well as any disposable income that may be available. What we have to remember is that we must decide how are resources are allocated to optimize our lives. Well, that is an awfully broad subject, right?

Any engineer or manager worth his weight will tell you that to solve complex problems you must break them down, analyze the components, create a new plan, prioritize, test and execute. What could more complex than how we live today? I suggest that we can improve the quality of our lives by living the quote form Henry David Thoreau who said,“ Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.” So, the decision as to what half dozen details you will choose to focus on is, of course, entirely up to the individual. I will, however, begin to coach into my clients and anyone else who is interested in personal development (at any age) a greater sense of urgency to include the following health considerations.

There are probably thousands of books on the market and in the libraries and on the net to help in this area. My suggestion here is get started learning about what will help you and what will not, but get started, immediately. Why? Look through the article below and find out! And, this is just one area. There is no time to waste on misinformation. How do you reconcile this to how you are currently living? Ask yourself, does this matter to me?

You don't need to be a fitness Guru to get benefits from exercise. The link to the Mayo Clinic explains this much better than I can so my only statement is one of encouragement. If you care about living, I mean really living a fulfilled life, you will read the contents of the Clinics article and the other resource links available within it and MAKE CHANGES happen. Period!

In an August 20, 2011 article entitled “The Financial Benefits of a Healthy Lifestyle” Hubert Maloy indicates that; “By age 40 or 50 almost everyone who has lived an unhealthy lifestyle begins to learn something of the health and financial consequences.” If this is true it would behoove us to take an active interest in our lifestyles or resign ourselves to paying a heavy price for our ignorance. This is just one of many such articles supporting an active, healthy lifestyle.

This article is entitled “What is your health worth.” Only you can determine the answer to that question and only you can educate yourself and make the necessary changes. If your answer to the above question is anything less than what you want for yourself, then isn’t it time for some serious self examination? In my humble opinion this is actually a “no brainer” if you care at all about yourself or your family and friends. So how is it then, that so many men die prematurely when, as the book above says, “Simple Changes bring Big Rewards? The best time to start any change is right now!

As always, the choice is yours!

May Peace be with you!