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HEALTH CLIMATE SURVEY - MEANING

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You've completed the Health Climate Survey. Congratulations.

YOUR SCORE WAS ___________

The score of a normal, fit and healthy human being is less than 20.

Classification of scores

•  Excellent - less than 20.

•  Good - less than 40

•  Not bad - lass than 60

•  Poor 61 - 80

•  Not in great shape - 81 - 100

•  In very poor shape - over 100

Here's what's happening to millions of people world-wide who are in bad physical and mental condition.

They come to work and put on a brave face, but underneath the surface they

•  experience frequent headaches

•  are tired because they don't get a good night's sleep

•  lack energy and vitality

•  have a host of painful musculo-skeletal complaints

•  are not aerobically fit

•  have libidos that are as low as a snake's backside

•  have trousers and skirts that are uncomfortably tight

•  have all manner of digestive complaints

•  drink too much alcohol and caffeine

•  are anxious, apprehensive and depressed

•  feel they're under appreciated at work and at home.

It's not a pretty picture and it's common in just about all the organisations we've surveyed. It's a shocker.

If you don't measure it you can't do anything about it.

THE PROBLEM

Based on our experience administering the Health Climate Survey to thousands of people, there are a number of causes of the body system dysfunctions that are manifested in the workplace, among them

Low levels of physical fitness

Particularly in the sit down professions, the effect of cooping people up in cages leads to all manner of hypo-kinetically induced mind and body system dysfunctions. It's difficult - in fact well nigh impossible - to stay healthy in a sedentary occupation without a regular and systematic aerobic fitness, strength and flexibility training program.

You need a good fitness training program.

If you've got musculo-skeletal dysfunction you need a copy of the ebook, How to Fix Up a Crook Back.

We've reached the point in time where organisations who don't provide staff with the greatest encouragement and incentive to maintain reasonable levels of fitness, are at great risk of  reduced levels of productivity due to absenteeism, presenteeism and worker's compensation.

In some organisations it's reached the point where the cost of giving some people some time off during the week to improve their strength and flexibility is dramatically less than the cost of rehabilitation programs and worker's compensation.

An inappropriate diet

- too much junk food and too little good food. For starters lay off the two white powders (flour and sugar) and the two brown syrups (coffee and cola drinks.)

Eat from the top of the Hourglass.

Want to know more about junk food? Click on the link to the Hourglass Diet.

An inability to manage the stress of life and work

The idea has been around since antiquity that ...

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.                                                                                Epictetus
 

Your difficulty is not contained, primarily, in the situation which gave rise to it, but in the mental state with which you regard that situation and which you bring to bear upon it.                    James Allen

Go to the Lifestyle Prescription.

Wrong job

Not being in the job that suits one's personality, intelligence strengths, training, passions and interests is a cause of all manner of distress.

Poor workplace design

Repetitive dull and boring work, whether it be on an assembly line or an office c an suck all vitality out of you. If you're a creative person, do something creative, whether it be making something or thinking of something.

Inattentive and dismissive management at work

- particularly by an employee's immediate supervisor. Most managers are too busy getting on with their job to manage. If that's the case at your workplace, get on the front foot and manage up. Take your manage out for morning tea once a month and talk about you and your work - at your expense. It will be a good investment in your present and your future.

Lack of a satisfying home life.

There are not many things worse than having an unhappy home to go to at the end of each day. If you can't change your situation, change your situation - but don't let your kids suffer.

Lack of a satisfying life that's filled with personal meaning and purpose.

THE BODY AS AN ECOSYSTEM

The body is made up of trillions of cells, grouped in organ systems.

It's an ecosystem where all of the organ systems are connected, where the function of one part of the system is intimately connected with the function of another; so that if one of them becomes dysfunctional there is a good chance it affects the smooth operation of others. That’s why we all need to keep focused on the Lifestyle Prescription as a means of  keeping ourselves fit and healthy.

No more is this connection more strongly felt than in reference to the connection between the way the mind and the other body systems function. However, it’s not just the mind and the other body systems that are connected, it’s all the body systems that are connected. As I’ve said, dysfunction in one can lead to dysfunction in others.

It is the conventional wisdom of the Western medical/pharmaceutical industry which has us believe that the connection between organs and systems is not a particularly close one. That’s why when you go to most physicians with a particular complaint, you’re likely to come away with a prescription for a tablet, which masks the symptom (ie the pain) being generated in a particular organ.

Of course it is unlikely that the tablet will treat the cause of the complaint - as in tablets for high blood pressure, diabetes, reflux, or headaches. That's because the cause of the dysfunction is probably not at the site where the dysfunction is manifest.

Plus it's highly likely that there is more than one cause.

In any case, there is unlikely to be a detailed search for the cause of the pain, the elimination of pain being seen to be the outcome of the visit to the doctor which has the highest priority. Both doctor and client collude to ensure the pain disappears in the shortest possible time, with the least amount effort on either part.

What's more the client, likely as not wants to get out of the surgery without paying anything for the doctor's trouble. Increasingly the hands of the dysfunctional are dipping into the pockets of the fit and healthy to pay for ineffective illhealth treatment.

It's junk medicine at its best. You know it's a hoax: - headaches are not caused by a lack of Panadol, depression by a lack of Zoloft, high cholesterol levels by a lack of Lipitor, or poor sleep by a lack of Stilnox. Arthritis is not caused by a lack of Avpro or diabetes by a lack of Diabex. Reflux is not caused by a lack of Mylantin, a crook guts by a lack of Prilosec or piles by a lack of Anusol. These treatments are designed to lower pain thresholds and not stimulate the body's own recuperative power. It's junk medicine.

It’s increasingly unlikely that you’ll come away with a Lifestyle Prescription –  a prescription which seeks to stimulate the body’s own recuperative power – through things like exercise, a good diet, the ability to manage the stress of one's life and one's work and meditation.

One of the great tragedies of modern, pharmaceutical medicine is that we’ve stopped treating metabolically induced body system problems with metabolic solutions. For instance, if you have high blood pressure you could come away with a diuretic which will drain fluid out of your body, rather than a lifestyle prescription® which will have you cool down an over-stimulated sympathetic nervous system, reduce your body weight, stimulate the elimination of toxic waste, unclog the pipes and flush out your liver.

Of if you have the flu, you’ll come away with a tablet to dry up the stream of mucus flowing from your nose, ignoring the fact that the mucous stream is an integral aspect of the body’s way of dealing with the viral infection.

Of if you’re feeling anxious, sad, grief-stricken, tired, angry, moody, despairing or vacuous; if you break into tears, feel blue or just plain dreadful, you can walk into a doctor’s surgery and in seven minutes come away with a prescription for a bottle of Diazepam.

Because of the inter-relatedness of all the key body systems we need to think further than just the relationship between the mind and other body systems, and start talking about a host of body system inter-relationships

•  the mind - muscle

•  the heart – liver

•  the lung – stomach

•  the endocrine – skin ….

Once we’ve got that concept firmly embedded in our psyche, maybe we’d be better able to look at the human being as a total, unified system instead of a group of parts stuck together. Traditional Chinese and other traditional medical cultures have a much better handle on these inter-relationships than Western medicine.

Instead, using the reductionist model we treat the body like a machine, made up of quite separate and distinct parts, each having little or no connection with the other parts. This is another of the great tragedies of modern medicine. If the pump plays up, we treat the pump and only the pump. In fact we’ve got to the point in medical plumbing history where we can replace the pump altogether and not give two hoots about the causes of the dysfunction in the first place.

If the exhaust system gets faulty we just stick a bit of muffler putty up it and keep going.  Using the reductionist model, the question of why various body systems and organs become dysfunctional doesn’t have to be addressed.

Motor mechanics, plumbers, carpenters and electricians, masquerading as physicians, and their indifferent patients masquerading as machines, conspire with each other to fix individual parts in the quickest possible time, with the most expedient means, regardless of the cause of the dysfunction or it’s relationship to dysfunctions in other body systems which may, or may not yet have appeared.  This is usually done with a symptom-masking pill.

Just treating the symptoms with pills is a very tawdry, lazy, and primitive form of treatment which only leads to more complicated and expensive medical treatments in the future. The other parts of the body which are dysfunctional and have a causal relationship with the problem that has promoted the visit to the doctor in the first place are not treated.

Now that the post-medical era has arrived you know that's all nonsense. It's a hoax, a fraud, a legerdemain spun by the pharmaceutical industry and its willing cohorts.

Intelligence

Whilst the mind is just another body system, it is not the only one involved in intelligence and communication. Intelligence is spread throughout the body.

All of the cells of the body and all the key body systems and major organs have their own intelligence - means of communicating between cells of like character and cells in other organs, memory …

Having said all that, the concept of viewing the mind as one key body system group (psyche) and treating all the other body systems as another group (soma) has been with us since time immemorial and is useful for the purposes of illustration.

As well as being an organ in it’s own right, one which has to manage it’s own function, it’s also the central processing centre for all the other systems. If something goes wrong with the mind, there is a high likelihood that it will affect other systems.

Psycho-somatic effect

For instance, when people get anxious their blood pressure can go up, they could get an irritable bowel, rashes, headaches and chronic fatigue. This is known as the psycho-somatic effect.

Somato-psychic effect

On the other hand, what is less well known is that when something happens to other body systems there is a high likelihood that there will be an effect experienced in the mind. This is the somato-psychic effect.

For instance if the body doesn’t get enough physical activity, essential fats and B group vitamins a person can end up feeling depressed. (I don’t now why this is so, but it is. Maybe someone in the future will work out exactly why and win a Nobel Prize. Between then and now the ‘why' doesn’t matter.)

The corollary of this is that if someone is feeling sad, anxious and miserable there is a high likelihood that a Lifestyle Prescription involving

will lead to a dramatic improvement in how the person feels.

The Health Climate Survey is used to obtain a subjective a snap shot of people’s health, fitness and stress levels. In the workplace it is also a good measure of the risk of absenteeism, presenteeism and workers’ compensation.

People in poor physical condition experience

•      headaches

•      poor sleep

•      lack of energy and vitality

•      musculo-skeletal dysfunction

•      frequent colds and flu

•      obesity

•      anxiety ...

The aging population

We believe (barring disability) there is little stopping most people of working age from being in exceptionally good physical condition – except lack of training. It's not so much that we have an aging population but a lazy population.

Theoretically, as people get older they should be able to maintain a high level of fitness – they’ve had longer to train!

The Governments of Australia base their medical system data on the fact that as people get older they become more dysfunctional. It's a poorly researched premise. What's actually happening is that people are getting older younger! They're unfit and unhealthy.

As a general rule, poor health and body system dysfunction is not so much related to age as it is to

•      low levels of physical activity

•      junk food diets

•      over-consumption of alcohol

•      smoking

•      an inability to handle the normal stresses of life

•      a job that does not suit their personality, intelligence strengths or interests

•      an over-reliance on junk medicine - medicine that is pharmaceutically based

        and which masks symptoms without stimulating the body's own recuperative

        power.

The Health climate Survey provides people with a very good idea of how well the various systems of the body are functioning, particularly the

•      the mind

•      autonomic nervous system

•      immune system

•      digestive system

•      circulatory system

•      elimination system

•      musculo-skeletal system.

Within the Australian community, there is currently an epidemic of body system dysfunctions which when translated into the workplace are associated with increased absenteeism and workers compensation, and decreased work performance and productivity.

There are three principal categories of dysfunction,

▪ metabolic

▪ musculo-skeletal

▪ psychological.

These dysfunctions are recognised by their symptoms

There are very few people and even fewer organisations that are not affected by this epidemic.

How well people score on the Health climate Survey provides them with a good indication of how fit and healthy they really are.

I read somewhere that we don't see full blown body system dysfunction until the particular system is 70% dysfunctional. What the Health climate Survey does is pick up the dysfunctions at an early stage - (you know something's wrong and you feel dreadful but you can't put your finger on the particular system that's causing it.

But it doesn't matter that you don't know the precise system involved. What you are aware of is that one or more of your systems isn't working at full pitch. There is something wrong with the whole ecosystem.

The good news is that you can restore poor function to normal healthy function by getting fitter, eating wisely, meditating, getting the job you'd love to do ...) Very few people became fitter and healthier in a surgery or a pharmacy!

Being vigorously physically active on a regular and systematic basis is the most powerful symbol of your ability to give back to your Self. On top of that it protects the body from a wide range of dysfunctions and contributes to an enhancement of the body's own recuperative powers.

There is an epidemic of body system dysfunction in our community and it is certainly not caused by a lack of Panadol, Avpro, Diabex, Lipitor, Ventolin, Milantin, Celebrex, Valium, Zoloft, Viagra or Anusol!

The mind/body relationship

The body is an ecosystem and all major systems are intimately related. When something goes wrong with one system it may impact on another.

The mind is just another body system but a significant proportion of other body system functions can be attributed to how well the mind is functioning. And vice versa.

Major body systems are frequently negatively affected by stress generated in the mind. The body is incapable of dishonesty!

On the other hand, the mind is effected by the healthy working order of other body systems. Certainly it is positively affected by vigorous, physical activity, and Hourglass diet, meditation and a low-toxic environment.

People who are physically fit are less likely to become depressed. They are also more likely to have a strong immune system and an autonomic nervous system that is balanced and healthy in its management of key physiological responses. They are healthy and happy. They have normal blood pressure, they sleep like logs, are about their ideal weighty, rarely, if ever get a headache and don't have a crook back.

As your fitness level improves you can be certain that your score on the Health Climate Survey score will also improve. 

Higher scores are symptomatic of dysfunction of more than one body systems, though the cause may be common to both.

People with high levels of stress usually score well over 100. People who are unfit usually score over 1000 as well. The two go hand in hand.

For people with a score of more than 80, the ‘background noise’ of their life is becoming louder and louder. It is hard to concentrate on your work when body systems are dysfunctional.

We know a fit and healthy group when we see the majority of scores below 40. This was not the case with this group. By and large higher scores are usually a reflection of

•      low levels of fitness

•      an inability to deal with what life and work are serving up to people.

Remember, it is not what happens, but how we deal with what happens that determines our level of stress.

Perception

Based on people's perception (where they gave a particular symptom a score of 7 or more, and backed up by objective scores) the five key issues in most organisations are musculo-skeletal dysfunction, low levels of fitness, high blood pressure,  obesity and anxiety.

Fitness

Most organisations have a fitness problem.

It's interesting that rarely do people have their aerobic fitness levels measured, when aerobic fitness is the key driver of poor health. We measure every thing but; blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and fail to measure the key driver of metabolic health. In one survey we measured aerobic fitness and 46% of people have been found wanting.

Blood pressure

Blood pressure is directly related to

- lack of aerobic fitness

- being over weight

- being stressed.

A blood pressure reduction program that is pharmaceutically based misses the point. The medication masks the symptom - the underlying causes persist. Bad behaviour is encouraged.

I recommend that organisations take very serious note of blood pressure results and give staff every encouragement to seek non-medical interventions to restore blood pressure to normal. Of course when high blood pressure is first diagnosed medication is an appropriate, short term therapy, but it needs to be accompanied by the following programs

- fitness

- weight reduction

- yoga or meditation

- holidays

- stress management.

Obesity

30% of people we survey are over weight. That is they are 20 or more kilos over what they believe is their ideal weight. It's symptomatic of high energy diets, low energy lifestyles and (probably) people spending too much time at work.

My belief is that staff will welcome any initiative that encourages them to become fitter. For starters they'll feel better. Certainly once they become fitter they'll become healthier and be grateful to the organisation for the encouragement.

Any organisation that takes fit and healthy people from the community has a responsibility to give them back to the community in good condition!

Musculo-skeletal dysfunction

Most organisations have a musculo-skeletal dysfunction problem with over 30% of people putting up with musculo-skeletal pain. Sooner or later these self-generated dysfunctions become labeled as 'injuries', at great cost to the organisation's workers compensation arrangements.

I recommend that the organisation build a firewall between dysfunctions and injuries. What this means is requiring staff at risk (and staff experiencing musculo-skeletal pain) to attend musculo-skeletal prehab sessions, in work time, to improve strength and flexibility and to get bones back into alignment - tracksuit therapy not white coat therapy.

Our surveys show that staff will willingly participate in such a program.

There is a good case for subsidizing fitness centre memberships, but only for people who go and only for people whose fitness is getting better, or has achieved an acceptable level. A lot of organisations pay by input, not output. They don't get good value for money.

Annual and long service leave

We generally find that a lot of people are owed too much leave, particularly long service leave. Those with high blood pressure and those who are unfit should be encouraged to take their accrued leave and to use the time to restore poor body system function to good. That's what holidays are for.

I recommend that organisations establish a holiday and long service leave policy that requires staff to take their leave within a reasonable period of it being accrued.

Smoking

In this day and age it's surprising that people are still smoking. It can't be through ignorance of the effects. Click through to our 8 step smoking cessation plan.

Depression

There is an epidemic of depression in our community and we encourage all organisations to target depression.

As the population becomes less physically active, eats diets high in flour and sugar and low in omega 3 fats, selenium and B group vitamins, lacks resilience, drinks too much alcohol and caffeine, has difficulty managing the internal and external conversations going on inside their head and/or live lives devoid of meaning and purpose, we can expect rates of anxiety and depression to increase.

This epidemic will, of course increase at the same rate as the epidemic of all other body system dysfunctions. The mind is just another part of the human ecosystem - an ecosystem under threat from low levels of health, fitness and wellbeing.

Whilst not wishing to make light of the true ‘black dog’ of clinical depression, for some people the symptoms of stress, unhappiness, sadness, grief, hopelessness, disappointment, despair, vacuity, anger and anxiety are being treated as if they were the symptoms of clinical depression.

I believe it is appropriate for organisations to encourage those people with an unhappiness, anxiety or depression problem to make full use of the counselling services of the EAP and encourage them to do the things that unstressed people do - like keeping themselves fit, having a lunch hour outside, taking their holidays, eating wisely, not working too many hours and ‘getting a life’. There could be a high price of achievement for those who can't keep lives in balance.

It is frequently the case that those people on anti-depressants are not doing the things that unstressed people do to keep their bodies and minds in good shape.

The best book about depression I've read, and what you can do about it, and one that I recommend highly is by psychiatrist, David Servan-Schreiber, Healing Without Freud or Prozac.

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