Tamen Haddad-Garcia

Healthy is really a judgment for yourself, right?

Around 75 to 86% of people with a single disease, like diabetes or arthritis, actually consider their health to be positive.

So do 50% of people with three diseases.

Hi.

Really happy to be here.

Love the show.

So we have a flawed understanding and a harmful understanding of our health.

We sometimes associate health as being the absence of disease, but it's actually an ability, right?

Rather than it being a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, like the absence of disease, we can see health as the ability to adapt to the inevitable challenges of life.

For example, data from around the world have shown consistently that around 75 to 86% of people with a single disease, such as diabetes or arthritis, they consider their own health to be positive.

And so do 50% of people who live with three diseases, right?

So if we focus on the ability to adapt as our understanding of health, then we can live a healthier and longer life, no matter what, really.

Yeah, and I mean, that's what's really interesting with this perspective of health is that when you separate health from your disease and you focus it more on your ability to assess it, that's where there's so many opportunities to thrive.

And I mentioned positive, like rated their health as positive.

And the reason why I'm saying that is because you can ask people how they rate their health.

And that is a super powerful question.

It has a predictive power, like an internal sense of what's happening in your body and the world around it.

It's like a sensitive barometer, and it can actually be more sophisticated than many clinical tests.

So you're not necessarily your disease.

Like, sure, you can have that disease, but you can still be healthy.