How Status Quo Thinking is Making You Sick
Time, research, and simple observation have all shown that repeated exposure to something lessens its impact on our minds and our senses. Take for example a person who is shown horror movies repeatedly. At first, they may be scared but after a while, they will be “numbed” to it to a degree. The same is true for many of us in healthcare. Not all of us were unbothered by our first time being covered in somebody else’s bodily fluids or by seeing a difficult and invasive surgery or by some of the smells that come along with working in healthcare. However, with repeated exposure, you would be hard pressed to find a seasoned physician or nurse who is still as acutely bothered by these things. The same is true for how we think about certain things that have a major impact on our health. Taking six different medications doesn’t seem so odd when you know a bunch of other people doing the same thing. Type 2 Diabetes doesn’t seem quite as horrible when you know a bunch of people with it. Drinking a highly processed blue sports drink doesn’t seem odd to us when it is around every corner, but had you shown that to someone 100 years ago, they wouldn’t have touched it. This type of normalized thinking is the status quo, and it is a big hurdle to getting healthy for many people. How can we overcome this status quo thinking to achieve our health goals?
First, it is important to understand that the majority of people doing or believing something does not make it good or right. As American author and social critic Mark Twain said, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” This sentiment expressed throughout history by some of the world’s most notable people reflects a theme of importance for critical thinking and morality. Look around you. If the dietary guidelines and advice we have been given for the last several decades were completely accurate, the chronic disease crisis in America would not be getting so significantly worse. While modern medicine has come a long way to keeping many of these chronic diseases from worsening, none of them have reversed or provided a cure. While acute care is needed and important, when it comes to chronic disease and in general, our healthcare system today has largely become a break it/fix it or manage it system instead of a system built on prevention.
Second, the “trust the science” ideology is a dangerous one as it not only discounts the active participation and intuition of the patient, but it is significant to know that science is often evolving and changing as we gain more information. That information takes time. Research gives us the information and tools to progress but even the best of all research models, the randomized controlled clinical trial isn’t perfect. It can be limited by time and sometimes ethics. Furthermore, even research itself has shown that in healthcare, it takes approximately 20 years from the time a theory has been shown significant in research until it is widely adopted into mainstream clinical practice.
With corporate marketing, political interests, and failed guidelines, it can feel like a complicated maze of information when it comes to getting healthy. What is the truth? When it comes to lifestyle intervention, who can you trust to guide you? After all, most physicians and nurses have received very little to no education on nutrition and fitness and unless they have sought out further education on lifestyle medicine, they may not be able to tell you much. Even many mainstream registered dieticians are being taught the outdated information that shapes the nutrition guidelines. However, there are some things you can do to overcome these hurdles.
Stay up to date on the current research on health and wellness from reputable scientific sources and gather information from a variety of professionals and a variety of sources.
Change your thinking and be open minded to trying different approaches that have been shown to have some value while keeping in mind that all our bodies are different and can respond differently to different things.
Be aware of the core elements to good health such as whole food, hydration with clean water, staying active, quality sleep, healthy relationships and avoiding things we know to be significantly hazardous to our health such as smoking, recreational drugs, and other risky behaviors.
Focus on prevention instead of waiting until there is a problem. Your primary care provider may not be as focused on this, but you can be. Talk with your primary care provider about a focus on prevention and ask about different approaches to your healthcare plan. It is important that you are your own advocate and that you have a professional provider who is willing to work with you to develop a health plan that you both feel comfortable with.
Lastly, follow The Health and Wellness NP (shameless plug inserted here!) for the latest on how you can improve your health at home with simple small changes to your lifestyle over time and for information on the latest health and wellness topics.
The steps you are taking now may be the right steps for your health but if you are not seeing results or are standing by your theories on health because that is what you were taught or have always believed, you may be doing yourself and your health a huge disservice. Now is the time to check in on how entrenched you are in the status quo thinking.
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