Health: What Does Good Health Actually Mean

Healthcare gulps trillions of dollars annually and this is to tell you how important health is. Health is not just absence of disease but a state of overall wellbeing (emotional and physical wellbeing inclusive).

Healthcare exists to help people achieve and maintain optimal state of health.

Good health is essential to managing depression, anxiety and living a long and active life.

Read How To Create A Healing Environment At Home

What is health

According to World Health Organization, “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

In 1986, the World Health Organization further stated that health is "A resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities."

Researchers have defined health as the ability of a body to adapt to new threats and infirmities. This is credited to modern science as humans are more aware of diseases and searching best cure for them.

6 Types of health

The most commonly discussed types of health are mental health and physical health

1. Mental health

Emotional, social, and psychological wellbeing could be referred to as mental health. A person is not said to be in total wellbeing if the mental health of that person is questionable. Mental health is as important as physical health.

2. Physical health

A person is said to be in good physical health when bodily functions are working optimally.

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is necessary in achieving and maintaining physical and mental wellbeing. Healthy lifestyle reduces the risk of diseases. One of the ways to achieve physical health is by maintaining physical fitness. This can protect and develop the endurance of a person's breathing and heart function, muscular strength, flexibility, and body composition.

For optimal physical health and wellbeing and to reduce the risk of other health issues, you might want to stay away from alcohol, or illegal drugs and drug abuse.

Read Five Factors That Can Positively Impact Your Health

3. Social health

This has to do with your ability to develop and sustain a good interpersonal relationship with others. Your ability to adapt and act appropriately to different social situations is also known as social health. A sound social health will include a good communication skill, accountability and understanding. This also means having healthy relationship with friends, family and others. One of the ways of improving your social health is by physical activities such as jogging, bricks walk, swimming, self-talk / self-improvement programs, having the right acquaintance etc.

Read Is Your Social Environment Negatively Affecting Your Health?

4. Emotional health

Emotional health is in some way related to mental health. It is the expression of your general wellbeing via your emotions. The state of your emotional health could be determined through your thoughts and feelings as they make up your world.

Understanding your emotions and what triggers either negative or positive emotions is important in achieving a good emotional health.

The place of emotional intelligence in emotional health cannot be overemphasized. Emotional intelligence will also help you identify and understand the emotional changes of your spouse, friends etc thereby giving you the ability to control emotions.

Other ways of developing your emotional health includes the following:

Seeing the good in every negative situation
Seeing the good in yourself
Develop a social network
Deal with depression
Deal with anxiety
Create time for leisure / break
Be creative

5. Environmental health

According to world health organization, Environmental health addresses all the physical, chemical, and biological factors external to a person, and all the related factors impacting behaviours. It encompasses the assessment and control of those environmental factors that can potentially affect health. It is targeted towards preventing disease and creating health-supportive environments. This definition excludes behaviour not related to environment, as well as behaviour related to the social and cultural environment, and genetics.

Note: Your environment plays a major role in your general wellbeing.

6. Spiritual health

Spiritual health is one of the complex types of health to be defined. Two factors associated with spiritual health are prayer and religion. Purpose of life, peace, joy and hope are also pointer to spiritual health by some school of thought. In other word, spiritual health is broad.

Spiritual health is associated with the belief of a supreme being, an organized religion through which people practice their belief.

From research, general wellbeing can be impacted by spiritual health. People undergoing a life changing event will address their situation in a strong positive way and more resilient by properly addressing their spiritual health.

Fundamentals for good health

Good health is dependent on various factors.

1. Environmental factor

This factor contributes greatly to our health. People living in certain environment are prone to certain illness. Research show that people living in noisy environment may experience hearing defect sometime in the future. Environment can also trigger negative emotions in a person.

2. Access to healthcare

Accessibility to healthcare is also a fundamental issue. How far is the closest healthcare center to you? Does the healthcare center have the necessary equipment? These are questions to be answered.

3. Income

This may sound funny but it is so true especially if you live in a developing country like Nigeria where the government careless about the healthcare of her citizens.

4. Educational level

This also plays an important role in achieving quality health. Your educational level will determine your drive for good health as you could easily carryout research on any health challenge you experience.

Other fundamentals include: