Yes, it’s true! It is possible to reduce your healthcare costs by hundreds or even thousands of dollars if you do your “body-housekeeping”.
Recently I had the occasion to need consultations with an excellent Rheumatologist. There was a possibility that I might have to resort to a particularly unpleasant medication to treat a painful condition. After full consideration of what was going on and then testing my ability to move my body, plus assessing the extent of, and type of, exercise I had prescribed for myself over the years, I was told that I was managing myself to the optimal degree.
The pleasing aspect of this was end result was I was subjected to a much more conservative approach by the medical fraternity, and encouraged to keep on doing exactly what I was doing!
Body-housekeeping relates to what you are doing personally to get the best out of your body. Just as your car needs regular maintenance to avoid major expenses, and your house needs regular cleaning and maintenance to save unnecessary financial outlays, so will anything you can do to keep your body in ship-shape condition pay off financially.
A key aspect of body-housekeeping success is whether or not you are doing sufficient physical activity, and whether it is the right physical activity for you.
Research now suggests that there are very few medical conditions that do not respond positively to tailored and structured exercise.
So many chronic health conditions from type 2 diabetes to osteoarthritis, osteoporosis and heart disease, require medication to manage the symptoms and since all medication has side effects for a certain percentage of patients, you may need another medication prescribed to reduce these side effects, so the expense escalates.
It makes sense to do whatever we can to contribute to our own health care, in support of conventional medical intervention, by including personalised body-housekeeping into our activities of daily life.
I know that I have saved thousands of dollars in my lifetime by addressing my own needs in relation to exercise as medicine and food as fuel. I feel so blessed that I discovered the formula for body-housekeeping early in my life and have been able to find a happy balance between eating my cake occasionally and still having it there in my larder!
Victoria Gill
28/06/2023