Optimize Your Health for Even Greater Well-being
How to optimize health and achieve goals through fine-tuning
Jason Briscoe
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If you are already active and healthy, you may be wondering what else you can do to further improve your health. Health optimization would be the next step. This involves fine-tuning habits that provide another advantage in achieving health results. Because even if you feel that you are doing everything right in terms of health, there is often a more effective approach that helps you get closer to your goals faster.
What does health optimization mean?
Health optimization is the implementation of targeted protocols that help you work at the highest level physically and mentally. It is about evaluating and improving your own health in order to achieve the best or optimal state of mind. It also encourages small changes over time to move the pointer from “appropriate” to “good” to “optimal.” Optimization goes beyond a healthy, disease-free basic level. It's more about the question: What else can I do to improve myself? How can I optimize my health and wellbeing for as long as possible?
People with a health-optimising mindset focus on measures and habits that can improve their longevity and the number of years they can spend in generally good health — also known as their health span. They view their health as a repetitive process and try to regularly check themselves through subjective and objective analyses. Anyone, regardless of age, can be a health optimizer. But what everyone in this category has in common is the desire to perform and function at their best now and in the years to come.
How does preventive medicine differ from reactive medicine?
In contrast to a treatment-oriented or reactive approach, which only improves health after a disease has been diagnosed, preventive medicine aims to prevent illness and the onset of chronic diseases. Preventive medicine is therefore proactive rather than reactive and addresses the question of how a condition can be prevented. It promotes routine tests to identify disease risks at an early stage and prevent future problems. Vaccinations, annual preventive examinations, screenings, tests and health education fall within the area of preventive medicine.
Health optimization goes beyond preventive medicine and shows how you can make the best of yourself. It is the most proactive approach you can take, shifting the focus from chronic diseases to achieving and maintaining vitality for the next few decades.
Consumer-oriented technological innovations can help improve health
Consumer-oriented technological innovations, such as wearable devices and monitoring biomarkers in blood, can contribute to a better understanding of health conditions. With these tools, you can monitor your health and change your behavior to promote optimal health. And monitoring progress toward health goals using technology can motivate and help maintain healthy habits. In addition, customizing health recommendations based on health data can lead to better results.
How can we optimize our health?
The following are the key steps for implementing the principles of health optimization in practice.
1. Set health goals
The first step to optimizing health is defining health goals. It should not be about how illnesses can be avoided, but about how you want to feel.
Setting goals is a valuable tool when it comes to making changes in behavior. It is best to write down the goals as specifically as possible and consider when, where and how they can be achieved. Objectives should be relevant and demanding, but also realistic, achievable and specific.
One effective way to set goals is to set SMART goals. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, relevant and time-bound.
Specific:
State the desired goal and describe the behavior precisely and clearly. The more detailed, the better. Then, consider what environment you need to achieve the goal. What tools do you need? Do you have social support?
Measurable:
Determine how you want to track your progress, stay motivated, and measure your success. A blood biomarker test, for example, can be a helpful way to get a good overview of your health status and measure your goals for improving nutrient uptake.
Accessible:
Set yourself a goal that is challenging but achievable. You should be able to achieve the goal with some effort, change, and behavior change.
Realistic/relevant:
Make sure the goal is important to you and consider how it can improve your health.Time frame: In what time frame will you achieve your goal? A change in behavior takes time, which can take weeks or months, depending on the desired outcome.
2. Determine the initial state of health
It's important to have a starting point (where am I now?) for creating goals. Tools such as activity meters or blood tests can provide objective measurements during this phase. As soon as a starting point is in place, planning can begin in order to achieve the goals set.
Wearable devices can provide information about sleep, movement, and heart rate. Using this data, you can set goals to improve your health. For example, let's say you want to move more throughout the day. In this case, a wearable activity tracker can provide data about the initial state of your activity and help you set and monitor measurable goals.
Similarly, a blood test can provide honest insight into your physical health. Blood tests are reliable and repeatable, making them an excellent tool for evaluating the effectiveness of lifestyle measures. A blood test can help you set a baseline, and a routine blood test every three to six months can help you monitor your progress, make adjustments, and set new goals.
3. Create a plan
Creating action plans can help achieve goals. Action plans determine where, when, and how a goal should be achieved, and response plans provide a strategy when obstacles arise. Action plans help you achieve your goals, while coping plans protect you from giving up on your goals when things don't go as planned. Action plans should be tailored to your health goals, current health status, and lifestyle.
Consider what resources you need to achieve your goal and when and how you can achieve it. For example, if your goal is to improve your aerobic fitness, using a wearable fitness tracker (Garmin smartwatches, Apple Watches, and Fitbits) that monitors your resting heart rate (RHR) may be beneficial. The resting heart rate can be used as a proxy for evaluating maximum VO2 capacity (a measure of aerobic fitness), as the two measures are highly correlated.
4. Implement changes
Small, gradual changes are the key to success. If your goal is to improve your sleep, you can start by going to bed 15 minutes earlier and gradually increase that time until you reach your desired bedtime. If further changes are needed, a blood test may show that you should consider supplementing with magnesium or vitamin D, as these two nutrients can improve sleep when levels are sub-optimal.
5. Establish healthy habits
The first step to establishing healthy habits is to set yourself a goal and set a concrete plan for where, when and how you want to achieve it. But other methods, such as changing the environment and using habit stacking (a technique that uses existing habits to integrate new habits into the routine), can also be helpful in introducing healthy habits.
Design the environment so that health goals can be achieved. For example, if you want to eat more fruits and vegetables, you should also have these foods at home. If the fruit and vegetables are kept clearly visible and at eye level, the consumption of these foods can be further increased. If you want to go running early in the morning, lay out your sports equipment the night before so that you can slip on and start running as soon as you get up. Integrating habits can help establish a new routine that supports your health goals.
6. Evaluate progress
On the journey to optimising your health, it's important to assess your progress and make adjustments if necessary so that you feel comfortable and can do your best. Subjective measurements — such as your energy level or wellbeing — can be helpful indicators of your progress in optimising your health. But monitoring data — such as heart rate, amount and type of fruit and vegetables eaten, steps, and sleep — can provide more concrete information and allow you to spot trends. And longevity technology can help with that.
References
Publiziert
15.10.2024
Kategorie
Health
Experte
If you are already active and healthy, you may be wondering what else you can do to further improve your health. Health optimization would be the next step. This involves fine-tuning habits that provide another advantage in achieving health results. Because even if you feel that you are doing everything right in terms of health, there is often a more effective approach that helps you get closer to your goals faster.
What does health optimization mean?
Health optimization is the implementation of targeted protocols that help you work at the highest level physically and mentally. It is about evaluating and improving your own health in order to achieve the best or optimal state of mind. It also encourages small changes over time to move the pointer from “appropriate” to “good” to “optimal.” Optimization goes beyond a healthy, disease-free basic level. It's more about the question: What else can I do to improve myself? How can I optimize my health and wellbeing for as long as possible?
People with a health-optimising mindset focus on measures and habits that can improve their longevity and the number of years they can spend in generally good health — also known as their health span. They view their health as a repetitive process and try to regularly check themselves through subjective and objective analyses. Anyone, regardless of age, can be a health optimizer. But what everyone in this category has in common is the desire to perform and function at their best now and in the years to come.
How does preventive medicine differ from reactive medicine?
In contrast to a treatment-oriented or reactive approach, which only improves health after a disease has been diagnosed, preventive medicine aims to prevent illness and the onset of chronic diseases. Preventive medicine is therefore proactive rather than reactive and addresses the question of how a condition can be prevented. It promotes routine tests to identify disease risks at an early stage and prevent future problems. Vaccinations, annual preventive examinations, screenings, tests and health education fall within the area of preventive medicine.
Health optimization goes beyond preventive medicine and shows how you can make the best of yourself. It is the most proactive approach you can take, shifting the focus from chronic diseases to achieving and maintaining vitality for the next few decades.
Consumer-oriented technological innovations can help improve health
Consumer-oriented technological innovations, such as wearable devices and monitoring biomarkers in blood, can contribute to a better understanding of health conditions. With these tools, you can monitor your health and change your behavior to promote optimal health. And monitoring progress toward health goals using technology can motivate and help maintain healthy habits. In addition, customizing health recommendations based on health data can lead to better results.
How can we optimize our health?
The following are the key steps for implementing the principles of health optimization in practice.
1. Set health goals
The first step to optimizing health is defining health goals. It should not be about how illnesses can be avoided, but about how you want to feel.
Setting goals is a valuable tool when it comes to making changes in behavior. It is best to write down the goals as specifically as possible and consider when, where and how they can be achieved. Objectives should be relevant and demanding, but also realistic, achievable and specific.
One effective way to set goals is to set SMART goals. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, relevant and time-bound.
Specific:
State the desired goal and describe the behavior precisely and clearly. The more detailed, the better. Then, consider what environment you need to achieve the goal. What tools do you need? Do you have social support?
Measurable:
Determine how you want to track your progress, stay motivated, and measure your success. A blood biomarker test, for example, can be a helpful way to get a good overview of your health status and measure your goals for improving nutrient uptake.
Accessible:
Set yourself a goal that is challenging but achievable. You should be able to achieve the goal with some effort, change, and behavior change.
Realistic/relevant:
Make sure the goal is important to you and consider how it can improve your health.Time frame: In what time frame will you achieve your goal? A change in behavior takes time, which can take weeks or months, depending on the desired outcome.
2. Determine the initial state of health
It's important to have a starting point (where am I now?) for creating goals. Tools such as activity meters or blood tests can provide objective measurements during this phase. As soon as a starting point is in place, planning can begin in order to achieve the goals set.
Wearable devices can provide information about sleep, movement, and heart rate. Using this data, you can set goals to improve your health. For example, let's say you want to move more throughout the day. In this case, a wearable activity tracker can provide data about the initial state of your activity and help you set and monitor measurable goals.
Similarly, a blood test can provide honest insight into your physical health. Blood tests are reliable and repeatable, making them an excellent tool for evaluating the effectiveness of lifestyle measures. A blood test can help you set a baseline, and a routine blood test every three to six months can help you monitor your progress, make adjustments, and set new goals.
3. Create a plan
Creating action plans can help achieve goals. Action plans determine where, when, and how a goal should be achieved, and response plans provide a strategy when obstacles arise. Action plans help you achieve your goals, while coping plans protect you from giving up on your goals when things don't go as planned. Action plans should be tailored to your health goals, current health status, and lifestyle.
Consider what resources you need to achieve your goal and when and how you can achieve it. For example, if your goal is to improve your aerobic fitness, using a wearable fitness tracker (Garmin smartwatches, Apple Watches, and Fitbits) that monitors your resting heart rate (RHR) may be beneficial. The resting heart rate can be used as a proxy for evaluating maximum VO2 capacity (a measure of aerobic fitness), as the two measures are highly correlated.
4. Implement changes
Small, gradual changes are the key to success. If your goal is to improve your sleep, you can start by going to bed 15 minutes earlier and gradually increase that time until you reach your desired bedtime. If further changes are needed, a blood test may show that you should consider supplementing with magnesium or vitamin D, as these two nutrients can improve sleep when levels are sub-optimal.
5. Establish healthy habits
The first step to establishing healthy habits is to set yourself a goal and set a concrete plan for where, when and how you want to achieve it. But other methods, such as changing the environment and using habit stacking (a technique that uses existing habits to integrate new habits into the routine), can also be helpful in introducing healthy habits.
Design the environment so that health goals can be achieved. For example, if you want to eat more fruits and vegetables, you should also have these foods at home. If the fruit and vegetables are kept clearly visible and at eye level, the consumption of these foods can be further increased. If you want to go running early in the morning, lay out your sports equipment the night before so that you can slip on and start running as soon as you get up. Integrating habits can help establish a new routine that supports your health goals.
6. Evaluate progress
On the journey to optimising your health, it's important to assess your progress and make adjustments if necessary so that you feel comfortable and can do your best. Subjective measurements — such as your energy level or wellbeing — can be helpful indicators of your progress in optimising your health. But monitoring data — such as heart rate, amount and type of fruit and vegetables eaten, steps, and sleep — can provide more concrete information and allow you to spot trends. And longevity technology can help with that.
Experte
Referenzen
Publiziert
15.10.2024
Kategorie
Health
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