Where Do We Go From Here When More Care is Not Better Care?

Health care seems to be getting more complicated, expensive, and unnecessary over time. In my youth it seemed that overdiagnosis and overtreatment weren’t much of a part of growing up for many people. Sounds like the “good old days” in some ways, I know. I think that sports, daily chores, school work, and many other activities all added up to a healthy lifestyle.

An integral component in my daily activities was a spiritual foundation developed from reading the Bible. The spiritual concept of being unlimited, as an idea of God that I found in that reading, was helpful in my activities.

As I grew up, I found developing a spiritual understanding of God allowed me to see how mental outlook and physical well-being were affected by thought. And I could directly access that well-being by maintaining that spiritual awareness. I relied heavily on the idea of being unlimited and I found that when I controlled my thinking, I was able to run for miles without feeling exhausted.

Health care is now being widely viewed in terms of taking control of your body, as research is also indicating. H. Gilbert Welch elaborated on the idea of taking control of one’s own health to combat overtreatment/overdiagnosis by writing, “For years now, people have been encouraged to look to medical care as the way to make them healthy. But that’s your job…Doctors might be able to help, but so might an author of a good cookbook, a personal trainer, a cleric, or a good friend.” And a spiritual foundation to take control of personal health may be just what is needed to stop the rise in overdiagnosis and overtreatment seen today.

Scientific findings, which indicate health is governed by thought and is affected by one’s spirituality and consciousness, allow for a change away from overdiagnosis. Mary Baker Eddy, an early health researcher, understood the importance of taking control of thought when she wrote, “…predicting of danger [disease] does not dignify life, whereas forecasting liberty and joy does; for these are strong promoters of health and happiness.” She found that spirituality and a personal relationship with God are key to good health.

In my own experience, health is best established by starting from a spiritual perspective and understanding that health is God-given, not something I have to engineer. An unlimited and always present God leads to the idea that the man God created is also actually unlimited. In school I found that a reliance on understanding this idea allowed me to break physical barriers. I saw heat exhaustion corrected by turning to this understanding of God, always present. This is only one example of how I was able to view myself spiritually – and find a healthier outlook on life. As more people bring a spiritual perspective to their health care, hopefully overtreatment and overdiagnosis will finally start to diminish.

Article first published in Blogcritics.

photo © GLOW IMAGES. Model used for illustrative purposes.

Don lives in Laguna Beach with his wife and they are both Christian Science practitioners. He brings his years serving the public in education to his work as a liaison of Christian Science, where he maintains contacts with the media and legislative offices. Don blogs on health and spirituality and you can read more at www.csinsocal.com.