Life gets complicated.

You’ve got work respon­si­bil­i­ties, fam­ily respon­si­bil­i­ties, and finan­cial pressures.

And per­haps you have some of these other issues weigh­ing down your spirit:

• You’re still car­ry­ing that extra 5–10 pounds of extra flab you can’t get around to losing.
• Your blood pres­sure or cho­les­terol might be a lit­tle high.
• The shoul­der (or knee) you injured way back in high school is act­ing up and stops you from the activ­i­ties you enjoy.
• You’re start­ing to worry a bit about some of the long term health prob­lems that Amer­i­cans are prone to – like arthri­tis or diabetes.
• You’re not sleep­ing as well as you used to, and you’re always tired or have a low mood.

Why do some peo­ple seem happy, con­tent, and fully engaged with the chal­lenges of life, while oth­ers are fre­quently frus­trated or unfulfilled?

I really have no idea.

But I do know that the most impor­tant thing you can do is take an active role in being healthy.

The blog to help you take own­er­ship of your body and your health

No mat­ter what else is going on in your life, if you’re not healthy, you’re mis­er­able.  Noth­ing else in life can com­pen­sate for not liv­ing up to your health potential.

Poor health will cost you.  Experts esti­mate that the aver­age retired cou­ple will spend $200,000 — $300,000 or more for out-of-pocket health expenses.  That’s a lot of money.

Poor health costs a lot more than mere money, too.  Dete­ri­o­rat­ing health robs you of your abil­ity to enjoy life.

And unfor­tu­nately, the day when you could count on a knowl­edge­able, car­ing, per­sonal doc­tor to be the man­ager of your health quest is over.

We don’t live in a ratio­nal health care uni­verse.  The sys­tem is designed for the needs of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies, insur­ance com­pa­nies, hos­pi­tals, doc­tors, the gov­ern­ment – every­one except for you and me.  It’s insane.

Don’t be a pas­sive recip­i­ent of health care ser­vices.  You’ve got to take own­er­ship of your own health and your own body.

That defines the major pur­pose of this blog — to help you take respon­si­bil­ity for your body and sup­port you in tak­ing the steps needed to ensure good health.

Health isn’t indi­vid­ual, it’s social (and so is this blog)

The cre­ation of a blog is a social activ­ity.  Even though there’s a host and pri­mary author, every­one is invited to contribute.

The social cre­ation of a blog per­fectly mir­rors how health is cre­ated.  The breadth and depth of our fam­ily and social con­nec­tions are strong pre­dic­tors of the state of our health, and become our most impor­tant tools for healing.

That’s why you’re encour­aged to par­tic­i­pate in this blog.  Please com­ment on any posts that engage you.

You can even con­tribute arti­cles of your own.  Send an e-mail to drlavine@askdrlavine.com with the arti­cle attached.  We’ll review it and you’ll soon see it pub­lished on the blog.

You can tar­get your arti­cle to one of the main cat­e­gories of post­ings on the blog:

• Per­sonal Stories
• Spe­cific Health Conditions
• Fit­ness & Exercise
• Nutri­tion & Diet
• Lifestyle & Leisure
• Spir­i­tual Insight and Humor
• Pol­i­tics of Healthcare
• Health Queries

Per­haps your con­tri­bu­tion even fits into more than one of these categories.

Enjoy.

Ron Lavine, D.C. (your host)