The Ultimate Guide to Mindful Health Choices: Building Your Health Savings Account

There is a prevailing mindset that people can sit on the couch, order McDonalds delivered by Uber Eats, binge watch Netflix, drink Coors by the six pack, smoke Marlboros, pop Leafs’ edibles, and remain COVID-free if they simply put on a mask and get a booster shot. Conversely, many people also believe that not wearing masks and avoiding the vaccine - regardless of healthy lifestyle choices - is a certain path to The VID. The truth most likely lies somewhere in the middle.

What is important is to be mindful and not to get lulled into a false sense of security. It is easy to think that a mask or vaccine, since they are easy to see and identify, are silver bullets for warding off viruses and disease. And while they may be effective as part of an overall health and wellness approach, they are far from silver bullets. In fact, the positive contribution that those measures will have on one’s health are significantly lower than the impact of eating healthy, moving regularly, and sleeping consistently.

Keep the health savings account analogy top of mind when making choices. It is not something to be obsessed about, but rather, to be mindful of. Do not get into the habit of eating, moving, and sleeping without thinking. Be aware of the choices that are being made and acknowledge that there is freedom of choice, but not freedom from consequence.

Health Savings Account

When making a food, beverage, activity, or sleep choice, ask the fundamental question: is this going to be a deposit into the health savings account, or a withdrawal. Not all choices need to be a deposit, but the ledger needs to stay in the positive.

The adverse effects on health start to arise when the account balance is consistently in the negative - too many withdrawals and too few deposits. That does not mean that the goal is to only make deposits and live a life void of enjoyment. It cannot, however, be strictly focused on hedonistic choices that keep making withdrawals long after the account balance has gone negative. When this happens, the body will impose penalties in the forms of mental fatigue, physical discomfort, joint inflammation, weight gain, muscle loss, weakening in the bones, wrinkles in the face…the list goes on and on.

By consistently making healthy choices that will add to the balance in the health savings account, the ledger will steadily grow, allowing plenty of positive accumulation that can be withdrawn against to enjoy life’s less-than-healthy pleasures.