Strange and Surprising Facts About Placebos

“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.”
― Beverly Sills

At this time of the year, we think of New Years Resolutions. We resolve to do better and to be better. 

are New Years Resolutions healthy? Do they make you healthier?

Many new year's resolutions are about health.  It's interesting to look at the hierarchy of healthicine, and see where we can make healthful New Year's Resolutions.   

A glance at The Hierarchy of Healthicine shows where resolutions can help us.  We can resolve to build healthy communities, healthy spirits, a healthy mind, and a healthy body.

We often make resolutions about nutrition - diet, which we believe will improve the healthiness of our bodies, thus our mind, spirits and communities. There are no medicines that can replace nutrition. No medicines better than resolving to improve your diet. 

We seldom make resolutions that address specific bodily systems or organs - with the exception of smoking.  Tissue healthiness, cell healthiness is tied to nutritional healthiness - and few people resolve to have 'healthier skin'. Most of us assume that our genetics are beyond our control. We cannot make resolutions that have a useful effect on our genetics. 

Medicine is designed to tackle specific illnesses, not healthiness.  Medicine focuses attention on specific organs, tissues and systems. There is no medicine for an unhealthy body, nor for a weak spirit. New Years Resolutions tackle aspects of health that are NOT well handled by medicines. Our communities, our spirit, our mind - medical systems hardly recognize these aspects of health. But our New Year's Resolutions work to improve them.  

Do our resolutions make us healthier? Of course they do.  The act of 'resolving' to make changes is healthy - even if some of the changes do not directly improve our health. 

According to the US Government website, the most popular New Year's Resolutions are: 

Resolution	Healthiness
Drink Less Alcohol	Nutrition, Body
Eat Healthy Food	Nutrition, Body
Get a Better Education	Mind
Get a Better Job	Spirit, Community
Get Fit	Body
Lose Weight	Body
Manage Debt	Community
Manage Stress	Mind, Spirit
Quit Smoking	Body, Respiratory system
Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle	Spirit
Save Money	Community
Take a Trip	Spirit, Community
Volunteer to Help Others	Spirit, Community

The important thing about New Year's Resolutions is choice. New Year's resolutions help us to exercise choice about our healthiness.  Even if our resolutions fail, we gain practice creating resolutions, and acting on them. When we resolve, we work to make a better world, to create a positive new beginning.

Healthiness is about balance - and balance is about movement.  New Year's resolutions require us to consider movement - and to act on our decisions.  This heightens our awareness, and ultimately our healthiness.



My resolutions for 2013?  I resolve to be happier in 2013. To be grateful for what I have.  That's for my spirit health. And I resolve to stand up for health, healthicine and health freedoms - for your health, for my health and for the community of healthicine. 

Everyone has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of healthiness. When we make New Year's resolutions, we are exercising this right.  Exercise makes us healthier, even exercising our rights.



to your health, tracy

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: