What are the factors that affect our health that we can manage?

There are of course many factors that can affect your health, but there are only five, which are genetic factors, environmental factors, social factors, healthcare quality, and your lifestyle.

Among them, genetic factors are carried by your genes, so we can't control them. The environment, social factors, and healthcare access are external factors that are not under your control, but you can do some regulation. For example, environmental pollution affects health, you can take protective measures; education impacts health, you can make your knowledge higher; the local medical level is limited, you can go to find a better hospital to seek treatment; and so on. However, these issues are not the most important factors affecting your health, and there is only so much you can do to change them.

So, what are the most important factors affecting your health? Let's start with the internal factors. Whether it is the World Health Organization (WHO), or China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), medical scientists all over the world have used various models and algorithms, and have come to the unanimous conclusion that the most important factor that dominates your health is your lifestyle.

How important is it? According to WHO, 77% of the risk factors for global non-communicable disease (NCD) deaths are related to lifestyle. What do we mean by NCDs? It means all diseases that are not transmitted by viruses or bacteria. As long as there is no pandemic such as COVID-19, it is the NCDs that are affecting the longevity and quality of life of our population. Conversely, if we manage our lifestyles well, we can prevent more than 80 percent of these diseases, significantly reducing mortality risks.

When analyzed in this way, you will find that the most important element of family health management is the lifestyle of the family. If you manage this well, you will manage the foundation of family health.

In the next course, I will take you to figure out every lifestyle that affects your health, including eating, drinking, living, traveling, and sleeping, their principles, target populations, and how to do them. You can match these lifestyles to your own health goals.

In addition, you also need to find out what environmental and social factors you can regulate well, and what room for improvement there is in the healthcare system.

In this way, you will be able to grasp these factors that affect your health and lock them in a state that meets your needs, and naturally, you will achieve your ideal state of health.

The core of health management is lifestyle. Only if we break away from the conventional approach of disease treatment, and with the preventive mindset of taking our own health goal as the endpoint, and manage our current lifestyle according to scientific rules, we can achieve three levels of health now and in the future, which are: the adaptation of function and demand, the harmony of body and mind, and the resilience to cope with difficult situations and pressure.

Disease treatment is reactive, while health management is proactive, both require aligning health factors with personal needs through targeted actions, so that the physical and mental state of each person can align with the needs of our life, work and social values to achieve.

By managing your lifestyle in the present, you may be able to reap the benefits of three dimensions of health in the present and the future: adaptability to functions and needs, harmony between body and mind, and resilience for coping with adversity and stress.