Maintaining Your Health – Dr Innocent

Many people think and believe that health is not having a disease or pain. Unfortunately, this is not true! World Health Organisation defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely absence of disease. This means you should have no injury/damage/disability on your body, feeling happy and fulfilled, feeling loved and belonging as well as respected within your community. This makes health difficult to achieve.

Health services are provided to all of us using the public health approach. This approach does not cater for our individual beliefs, values and requirements. Therefore, it is our responsibility to maintain our individual health. Health is maintained through the following;

• Eating well: Your body needs all the nutrients; proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and mineral salts. We need a balanced diet to get all these. The good news is, wherever you are in the world, the food available there is able to provide all the required nutrients most of the time. There is so much information about eating well some factual and scientific but there is also much that is false! 
• Sleeping well: Adequate sleep of at least 7-9hours is key to good health. Our brain cells clean and repair themselves when we are asleep.
• Living well: Living health requires a conducive environment with clean air, safe water, with enough (preferably green) space to move around/exercise from, free of noise and stressful neighbors.
• Work well: Our workplaces are second homes and should allow us good health. Unfortunately, a lot of ill health arises from our work environments from oversitting, work-related stress (manifesting as chronic headache, poor sleep and body pains), air conditioning among others. We cannot stop working because of the health risks within our work environment but we should try to make such environments safe and less risky for our safety and good health. 
• Endeavour to have a sense of belonging. The health benefits of belonging to a loving family, group of friends, caring community etc are immense. 

When all these fail to maintain your health and it breaks down, you will need to visit a doctor to assess what has gone wrong and put it right. Avoid self-medication as most serious diseases start in small ways with no serious symptoms or no symptoms at all.

Maintaining your health is like maintaining your car in a sound mechanical state. It needs regular servicing and not many mechanics. Therefore, try to always have a health professional preferably a doctor if possible who knows and understands you as a person. Always remember, health is made at home and only repaired in hospital when it breaks down.May the Almighty God bless you and keep you healthy! Amen!!

Dr.Innocent Besigye,Chairman St Mary’s College Rushoroza Old Students Association,Kabale Diocese,and a KKCRA Education Committee Chairperson.