Try The 5 Percent Solution and Improve Your Health

I stumbled across an interesting article by Jim Toedtman in the January-February issue of my AARP Bulletin.  I learned about the five percent solution and the man who developed the concept.  I thought it was worth sharing as good advice for every age and every lifestyle.

Dr. George W. Calver was the doctor appointed by the U. S. Congress to care for its members.  In 1928, at the time Dr. Calver was hired, senators and representatives were dying at a rate of 20 per year. Over the 38 years that followed, his prescription of moderation calmed congressional nerves.  He also offered his 10 Commandments of Health and gained acclaim for the solution to attaining better health.

Dr. Calver posted his 10 Commandments of Health on placards and displayed the posters throughout the Capitol.  He printed the information on wallet-sized cards and distributed them to every member of Congress with this admonition: “If a man wishes to be on the job and physically fit, he must obey the following rules.”  :

The TEN COMMANDMENTS OF HEALTH

·         EAT WISELY

·         DRINK PLENTIFULLY (of water)

·         ELIMINATE THROUGHLY

·         BATHE CLEANLY

·         ACCEPT INEVITABLES (don’t worry)

·         PLAY ENTHUSIASTICALLY

·         RELAX COMPLETELY

·         SLEEP SUFFICIENTLY

·         CHECK UP OCCASSIONALLY

P.S. Give 5% of your time to keeping well. You won’t have to give 100% getting over being sick.

Prevention and the common sense that goes with it would be a godsend today in confronting the nation’s soaring cost of health care.  There may be no more effective cost containment tool than individual effort to take the crucial and obvious preventative steps that mitigate the onset of chronic disease.

By any measure, it’s an essential investment.  For example, four diseases associated with obesity and smoking-diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and stroke- today cost $238 billion a year.  Medicare and Medicaid pay for $134 billion of it.  Seventy percent f the nation is regarded as overweight. It’s no surprise that the Urban Institute forecasts that a rapid increase of these conditions will add another $466 billion to the total cost by 2030-without inflation.

We may not be able to reduce what we’re paying for chronic disease today, but let’s start focusing on tomorrow.  The cost of failure is simply unacceptable.  Dr. Culver knew that and so must we.

Posted in: 5 Percent Solution,Dr. George W. Calver,Health care costs,Lifestyles,Th Emerald Quill,U. S. Congress