My Personal Definition of Health

The meaning of health is: Personally, I define health as the ability to perform daily tasks without difficulty or pain. I don’t see health as just an absence of disease or illness. I see health as an overall state of well-being where a person is able to cope with all the stress of day to day life and be able to do and finish regular routines. Health is subjective and only the person can dictate whether he/she is well enough to perform daily tasks. Good health is whenever you forget about your toothache while you are busy conversing with a friend. Although one is in pain, this is overpowered by the satisfaction that one gets from socializing with peers.

The meaning of illness: If health is the ability to function and perform daily tasks, then I see illness as a severe imbalance in either one of the physical, mental, emotional, and social aspect of a human being that it totally inhibits or hinders a person in doing things that he/she likes or routinely does. For example, I know if I am ill if I am unable to eat food that I love because I have a severe case of pharyngitis or I am unable to go out with friends because I am depressed for some reason and I don’t want to see anyone. I see illness as something that cripples you and hinders you from being happy and enjoying things that you love to do.

I know I am healthy when: I know I am healthy when I don’t even bother thinking if I am healthy or not because I just do my daily activities as I usually do. I am healthy when I can get a good night sleep because I am free of lower back pains or when I can walk or run normally without limping because of an ankle sprain. As long as I am able to do all the things I need to do then I consider myself as healthy. I may not have a personal experience of being diagnosed with a disease and still be able to live a normal daily life but take for example people with cancer. Just because they have a terminal illness, you can’t really say they’re unhealthy because they seem just like any other cancer-free people. They can even have better and healthy lifestyles as compared to cancer-free people.