Salutogenesis – Health Creating

Salutogenesis

I encountered this word for the first time three years ago, and to my surprise, I reencountered it this past Saturday.

Fortunately, I had the opportunity to attend an excellent six-hour online seminar in Morita Therapy with Dr. Masa Minami at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver with a group of lovely people from around the world.  And to my surprise, he brought that term up. Salutogenesis resonates with me because of its health-promoting orientation. And the work I do with Living Well with Illness, based on the principles of Morita Therapy,  is likewise health-promoting.

I wrote a blog post on this topic back in January 2023, and I want to consider it again here.

The word salutogenesis comes from the Latin salus (meaning health) and the Greek genesis (meaning origin). The word originally caught my eye in an article by Nigel Crisp, in Prospect Magazine,  How Aristotle Can Teach Us  to Build a Better Society:

There is a long (but often neglected) western tradition of interest in salutogenesis, the origins of health, which is concerned with understanding the causes of health as opposed to pathogenesis, the origins of disease. This is in some ways the precursor to what is today called “social prescribing,” an approach which sees clinicians prescribe gardening, swimming, singing and other activities instead of (only)pharmaceuticals, making use of the health-creating benefits of each. This is not about prevention of disease but the creation of health—the causes of health not the causes of disease. It takes the positive, not the negative approach to creating the conditions for people to be healthy.

Nigel Crisp

I had not heard of Nigel Crisp so I looked him up and stumbled on this introduction at Harvard: besides a long CV he is a distinguished Visiting Fellow at Harvard School of Public Health; an Honorary Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; and an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge.

Health-creating activities always pique my interest. As you know from reading my blog these are the kinds of things I love to promote. The non-medical things we can do to support our well-being in conjunction with our medical treatments.  Furthermore, I naturally gravitate to studies of what works rather than what doesn’t. I confess the article sent me sailing down the rabbit hole to Crisp’s  book, Health is Made at Home and Hospitals Are for Repairs.

Up Our Chances

It seems to me, in life, with all of its difficulties, joys, and sorrows, health and otherwise,  focusing on what we can do to enhance our daily lives is our best bet. It’s why playing an active role in our own illness is the first guideline of Living Well with Illness.  We can’t get along without medicine but medicine needs our active engagement too. Whether we are talking about cancer, heart disease, or chronic illness, the list goes on. When we do things that are health-creating, we increase our chances of reducing unwanted side effects and improving our condition.

I don’t use the word prevent because it easily becomes a blaming word. It implies we can actually prevent X if we do y and z. And since I know so many people who did do y and z and still got X, I no longer use the word. I absolutely believe, however, that we can reduce our risks when we engage in health-creating activities. For myself, I experience an improvement in the quality of my everyday life when I move my body, get enough sleep, eat reasonably well and am aware of the support I have in the world. Not to mention the many creative activities that absorb and relax me/us.

And I observe that we can’t wait for the perfect time. There will never be time left over nor a time when conditions are perfect for us to implement some life-giving opportunities. We need to take charge of ourselves and figure out what makes our lives better. And the important thing is to do it even while life is throwing us curve balls. By now, you know I am never talking about utopian visions of how to live. Rather I am talking about the messy, stressful, sometimes dysfunctional and ordinary and amazing lives that we all have. And working with that. Changing what can be changed. Creating joyful moments. Learning something you have longed to do.

Noticing

Noticing the things you do that make you feel better, is a good place to start. And with things as they are in your life, taking action to do the something you can do. Only you can figure this out. Take a step back from yourself and see what is working. Who are the humans in your life who fill you up rather than drain you? You may want to make more time to keep the company of those who are health-producing for you. Laughing is a sure sign.

I am convinced that we are all doing the best we can, with what we know, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.  And we may need a tiny nudge, now and then to enjoy new possibilities.

Even when our lives are no longer normal. We still need to take care of the life enhancing activities that we have access to especially the family and friends that lift our spirits.

I have been thinking about Dr. Jinroh Itami’s motto for his patients: “Even though I am ill, I will not live like a sick person.”  This does not mean denial. Rather it means, we refuse to let our illness dominate every waking hour. We do what we need to do to treat our illness and we don’t put our lives on hold until we are better.

We continue to live, to show up, to exercise our beautiful desire for life. I realize that we can apply this to all aspects of our lives. When life is no longer normal, we can play an active role in responding to the needs of the situation, and we can still make sure to laugh, sing, dance and refresh our spirits with what calls us. Is it nature, art, making things, gardening…?

To take care of others, including our wider circle, we do have to take care of ourselves as well.

I love the African proverb: When the music changes, so must the dance. Life is forever changing, as are we. But we still have music and we have dance. And even when we don’t like what is happening, we never give up the “music or the dance.”

This is a poem I love and seems to fit:

For When People Ask by Rosemerry Whatola Trommer

I want a word that means
okay and not okay,
more than that: a word that means
devastated and stunned with joy.
I want the word that says
I feel it all, all at once.
The heart is not like a songbird
singing only one note at a time,
more like a Tuvan throat singer
able to sing both a drone
and simultaneously
two or three harmonics high above it—
a sound, the Tuvans say,
that gives the impression
of wind swirling among rocks.
The heart understands swirl,
how the churning of opposite feelings
weaves through us like an insistent breeze
leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,
blesses us with paradox
so we might walk more openly
into this world so rife with devastation,
this world so ripe with joy.

NOTES and KUDOS

1:) A reminder that I am teaching my annual program with the ToDo Institute in April. A lovely gift for all of us is that Kate Karius from Switzerland will co-facilitate this program with me. You can find out additional details here. Note that the fees are discounted for alumni and or members of the non-profit ToDo Institute. April 3- May 1. The first webinar will be this Saturday, the 5th

2:) Next Wednesday I will be back in the hospital and hopefully my surgery will be full speed ahead. I won’t do a blog post that day, but probably a short one on Friday to check in. Fingers crossed.

3:) I was delighted to meet one of my blog readers at the Morita seminar last Saturday. What a delightful surprise.

4:) Sending gratitude to all of you for reading my scribbles and being so kind. May you have what you need along with strength, courage and joy-filled moments. Warmest wishes, Trudy

PS I hope you cat people enjoy meeting Ryuu—he’s part of my Vancouver family. Actually, they’re sharing as his home base is next door. :-)All photos from son Rob today.

KUDOS

Cory Booker for showing up.

Heather Cox Richardson always.

Unsung heroes and heroines everywhere.