What you need to know to maximize your health and a healthy lifestyle
Claudewell S. Thomas, MD, MPH, DLFAPA, is an established psychiatrist who is currently retired ,, He received his medical degree in 1956 at SUNY Downstate College of Medicine and specializes in social psychiatry, public health psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry. Dr. Thomas was board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry... more
In order to preserve your health, you need to know what constitutes a healthy lifestyle, and the ability to obtain reliable information. For those who have a primary care provider, this is the most obvious source of information. However, this brings to light issues of health insurance and employee/employer plans. For this information to be accessible, you need to have health insurance. So, you must find out. Are you insured? What is the extent of your coverage? There is also the issues of how often your health is monitored, and the acknowledgement of health risks being age, sex, race, education, and ethnicity related.
Medical Devices
We live in a digital age where devices are available to monitor blood pressure, and give some indication of cardiac rhythmicity. It can be difficult to interpret what is being recorded with such devices. Also, the reliance on said devices can be dangerous. Of course, with wealth, comes a greater access to these devices and the settings that employ them (Health clubs, Fitness centers, Spas, etc.). However, this does not guarantee a person's health, just better access to it. A person's lifestyle can greatly impact their health.
Often, an individuals lifestyle is influenced by the "lifestyles of the rich and famous" with their fast cars, sexual promiscuity, alcohol overindulgence, and substance abuse. Most people with such wealth practice concierge medical care. While others look on the internet for information about their health. Usually, from health websites like WebMD, Medscape, TopDoc, and others. Despite the surplus of online information, people need someone to reference this information to, a healthcare provider. Most questions can be answered by an MD, but for serious emergencies, you should visit the emergency room.
Social Issues
The awareness of the extent in which anxiety, depression, marital discord, adolescence, group or individual bias contributes to individual and group malaise is important and growing. In relation to that, mass shootings are becoming an epidemic in the country. We have experienced the third mass shooting in a week in the United States, and the contagious nature of mass violence is rather clear at this point. So, avoidance of public gathering places may make sense currently, but is not a solution. To make change, you should be pressuring your congressmen and women for effective gun laws. It is clear that the idea of "a good guy with a gun" stopping crime and violence is nonsense and dangerous nonsense.
Know what you are capable of physically and mentally given your age, sex, and education. Work on improving in the areas that are accessible to you, and press your elected representatives to find out what your national government is doing about such threats as Ebola, measles, smallpox, and plague.
