In this blogpost, we will look at a key reason why most patients fail to heal, prevent and recover – and what we can do…? Attitude of the patient is as or if not, more important than the drug, and the treatment. When someone is stricken with a disease or illness, you do not throw your life and body into that hands of your healers. It is your responsibility to participate in the process of healing and getting better. You pay money for a treatment, but unlike a money transaction involved in purchasing a product, this is not a money transaction leaving you with no accountability or responsibility. You must involve yourself in the process of healing. When you are not involved, you put full responsibility on your doctor or healer, you open up the doors to blame, complain, find fault, judge and all this only goes against creating a conducive environment for healing.

Yes, it is your experts’ job to have the knowledge and use wisdom and experience to bring you back to normalcy, but it cannot work effectively if the attitude of the patient is negative, egoistic, and non-cooperative. It is a team effort between you and your team that is treating or healing you. It is not a business transaction, you are not a commodity, you are a human being, and you have as much or not, more responsibility and accountability to yourself to be involved in the process.

We see cases that beautifully start to recover and heal from diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, autoimmune diseases to skin, hair, obesity issues, etc and we see the same conditions in many, that have little or no progress. The conditions are the same, the symptoms are the same, the team is the same, but the attitude and cooperation from the patient is poor and hence healing and recovery work for many and fail for even more.

You can have 100 women with an ER positive breast cancer, at the same stage, getting the same number and type of chemo cycles from the same doctor, and you can have 100 different results.

Why?

• Firstly, every human being is unique and different and beyond just treating the symptom we need to address emotions, nutrition, sleep, exercise, environment and so much more and also measure the patient’s participation in the healing and recovery process.
• Secondly, we must understand a sick person especially with a life threatening disease can be angry, irritated, negative, snappy and rude , and we must have an empathetic approach to this, being gentle with them and offering listening and compassion and coaching them to believe in the best, but finally, the patient must make attempts to change this attitude if they are to heal and recover . Negative emotions affect the way drugs, food, water works in the body. Assimilation, absorption gets affected, inflammation increases, hormones are knocked out of balance, making the internal environment for healing non conducive.

This is why, besides just medicine, we need to look beyond medicine, let the drug be prescribed, but the patient may need emotional care and counselling, better nutrition, moment, quality sleep, sunlight, family, love, care, clean air and so much more to enable a healing internal environment.

It is normal to feel like a victim when sick, feel that feeling, go through it, but the sooner you come out of it, the sooner you will be able to take action and make positive decisions related to your treatment and healing and lifestyle changes. In victim mode, we are stagnant, we cannot move forward, so we do not improve or explore new way to overcome the problem.

To have the right attitude you should also be able to have trust and faith in their team that is treating you. if you can’t have feel that faith and trust, it is important you change the team that is handling your health and life. Nothing works without faith, trust and belief.

Attitude is everything when it comes to life, living, wealth, relationships, work, family, and most importantly your health, not just physical, but emotional, mental, intellectual and spiritual too.

Luke Coutinho
Integrative Lifestyle Medicine