Choosing Health

“With access to better information people invariably make better choices for their health” David Wolfe – Food Matters

There’s a very good reason why this post is called Choosing Health and that is because it is the exact title for a White Paper the National Health Service (NHS) published in 2004, one that concluded with the creation of a new NHS profession: Health Trainers. The tag line for the paper is “Making healthy choices easier”. The paper basically sets out to give background to the evolution of our health system and outlines the need for “a new approach to the health of the public”. It recognises the dramatic changes in our society over the past 50+ years and some of the issues they have created for public health. After an extensive consultation with the people of England, the following 3 requirements were drawn for the new public health approach:

– Informed choice

– Personalisation

– Working together

Without going into all the details of the paper and how this affects our NHS system, I am proposing that Health Coaching can offer just that response. In fact a Health Trainer or Health Coach, however you want to call it, is the exact solution needed to help individuals with giving them the tools to be healthy whilst providing the independence of choice that the public asked for. It’s also my opinion that it is not only individuals in difficult social environments that need help understanding how to better their health routines. Health Coaching is a booming profession in the US, close behind a Life Coach (google it, you’ll know what I mean). We live such busy lives it seems we rush through our daily activities stretching ourselves being over-scheduled, over-stimulated, often living in de-natured environments, to the point where we need help and guidance and even a little encouragement in order to focus on something as essential as staying healthy.

The profession is offering to help willing individuals make informed lifestyle choices and “identify their own priorities for health and the changes that they feel ready to make, to obtain online guidance about what will make the most impact on their lives, and to receive tailored advice on how to go about making changes and sticking to them” (quote from the NHS paper).

Now I must be very clear on this, I do not work for the NHS – however my intention is to provide a Health Coaching programme that will do exactly that. I want to share tried techniques and tools, simple advice that I learned and that worked for me when I needed them. I am largely inspired by my study of Ayurveda because again it offers exactly such a highly practical system of daily rhythms and seasonal routines and also has the knowledge to tailor advice based on your unique metabolic type. It is more than a form of medicine, it is a total way of living that can inform every part of your life to bring health and keep you on-purpose. I should know because this is what saved me when I was working in London, stressed out of my mind on the corporate ladder, in a highly competitive and critical environment whilst going through fertility treatment at the local hospital over my lunch hour. Lacking sleep, overweight, suffering crippling digestive issues, you get the picture.

This was then, where I am now is a totally different space of wellbeing and personal best. And this is where I would like to take you. When I say those tools are tried and tested, I don’t just mean by all the generations that have come before us but I can attest by them myself.

If my story talks to you then you’ll want to join the study group I’m creating and a community of like-minded people who’ll have each others back. Although of course you won’t need to be in such an extreme situation to take the programme and benefit from a new health regimen.

Still hungry to read more about the subject? I highly recommend this article posted on the Pukka Herbs website, the author refers to a Natural Health Service. For reference Pukka are one of the best known if not the best known provider of Ayurvedic products and they’re based in Bristol, UK.