• Gabriel Shalom

Health according to WHO is a state of complete physical mental, and social wellbeing and not the absence of disease or infirmity. The questions “are you healthy”? or “are you living a healthy life” occasionally pop up in conversations and usually when there’s a medical emergency and people often claim they are in perfect health, and others claim their good health by faith even when they obviously need medical attention. But good health does not only mean that you’re free from any form of disease, exercise well or have a healthy diet, though these play a major role in your physical health. What about your mental and social well-being?  These questions beg for answers;

         Are you suffering from any form of depression?

         Are you confused about life?

         Do you have issues with making and keeping a relationship?

         Do you have any sympathy for those who are in pain?

         Do you enjoy seeing others happy or sad?

         How often do you put a smile on people’s faces?

 

These and many more are questions you need to answer to personally, independent of your friends or loved ones! And if your answers are mostly negative, one can argue your state of health.

Does that mean everyone in the world is not healthy? Not necessarily

We just have much more unhealthy people than we think or can imagine around us and we’re assigned with the task of making them better by virtue of our relationships and not the other way round.

How then do we remedy this you ask?

Well, for starters we need to make sure your physical health is optimum and no worries if there are any disease conditions that make this impossible! You know yourself better than anyone and you can tell one or two things that you can do differently in other build a better physical, social and mental health.

Here’s an example; Anna was a very reserved beautiful lady who lived across the street, she loves watching movies and reading books and because Anna was a freelancer, she had little or no reason to go out on a day to day basis. She was a member of a local church but she hardly participated in their activities as she loved her personal space. She would often turn to different genres of movies for consolation and advice in trying times. She lived in a city away from her family but her sister visits her from time to time. Anna felt ill for a while and was diagnosed with chronic depression after many consultations. Engage in things that make you happy and spend more time with family and friends the doctor advised her in addition to taking her meds. Anna then started trying to build her life but this time, she wasn’t the only one in the picture. What’s your story? You may or may not be like Anna, but whatever the case maybe, you need to be mentally, physically and socially sound to be declared healthy. So are you healthy? If your answer is no, what practical steps can you take to remedy the situation? And if you’ve been at it for a while without positive results don’t give up just yet! I’m rooting for you.