Want to Improve Patient Health? Stop Promoting Health!

This article quoted the late Noreen Clark, internationally renowned chronic disease management researcher, as saying that improving daily feeling and functioning is the real hook for motivating patients to manage their illnesses.
To Motivate the Consistent Decisions that Favor Health, Let’s Rebrand Health as Well-Being
I propose a simple strategy: Let’s rebrand “health” as “well-being.” In addition to the interdisciplinary science that supports this suggestion, I’ve been using this tactic in my private health coaching practice for twenty years and have seen how this simple change in framing revolutionizes people’s relationships with healthy behaviors by making them relevant and compelling to what matters most – to them, today.
Consider this: Many of the behaviors that improve health (getting more sleep, moving more, making better eating choices) also lead to feel-good experiences (reduced stress, feeling strong, lifted mood) that help us better succeed in our roles and responsibilities, all of which contribute to happier and more meaningful lives. So it is more strategic to rebrand these behaviors in ways that are more likely to hook patients: as direct routes to daily success, well-being, and meaning, which is what they truly are.
It’s counterintuitive, but true: To help patients achieve the consistent decisions and sustainable healthy behaviors that underlie disease management and prevention, we must stop promoting health within health care. Instead, we ...

Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - July 13, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Health Uncategorized Source Type: blogs