Health problems don’t always come one at a time. Every system in your body is interconnected. When one part falls ill, other parts are affected.
If your heart is having trouble, you may find that you have the beginnings of kidney problems.
When one organ is working less efficiently, the rest of your body works overtime to compensate.
But what about behavioral health problems? You may be a smoker who also has high cholesterol and needs to cut down on fat intake.
Or you might have diabetes and a weight problem, and are trying to improve the amount of exercise you get each week.
A new study just published in the June issue of “Archives of Internal Medicine” reports that tackling health problems together, rather than one at a time, will improve your chances of success.
The study followed 289 smokers with hypertension. Each participant was assigned to one of three groups, each one focusing on three issues: reducing salt intake, quitting smoking, and increasing physical exercise.
The first group was given help in all three categories simultaneously. The second group was helped with one category at a time. And the third group was given a one- time referral to group classes for each of the three health issues.
The researchers found that 29% in the simultaneous group managed to reduce their salt intake. This was compared to 16% in the second group and 13% in the third group.
And 20% in the first group managed to quit smoking, while only 16% in the second group and 10% in the third group had success.
The researchers concluded that long-term behavioral changes are hard to make. But making them sequentially seems to be even harder than making changes simultaneously.
It makes sense, really. If you try to quit smoking and increase your exercise at the same time, your health should get a real boost. And when it does, you’ll feel stronger and better able to stick with your goals.
There’s a lot of wisdom, too: for example, in trying to eat an improved, healthier diet while adding a new weight- training routine to your daily activities. One will give a boost to the other, and you’ll be well on your way to success.
If you’re going to tackle one behavior problem, you might as well put them all on the table and talk to your doctor about ways to achieve your goals. You should be able to come up with a plan that interconnects all your health issues. One more thing: just make sure you get lots of support — you’ll need and deserve it!
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Tags: diabetics help, exercise
