Is Healthcare Really Declining In Russia? And The United States? | Healthy Living articles | Well Being center

Western media have been consistently critical of healthcare in Russia. For about a decade, they have been carrying stories with headlines like these:

Life Expectancy Continues to Fall in Russia
Despite Armies of Doctors, Russian People Do Not Get Need Medical Services
Spending on Health in Decline After Falling Oil Prices

What other country is also so disparaged in the Western press? The answer would be, of course, the United States. In November of 2015, the headlines in the US newspapers noted that death rates for middle-aged white Americans were rising, not falling. Announced by recent Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton and his Princeton University colleague Ann Case, these statistics show that this "mom and apple pie" group of Americans was dying at accelerating rates not from the "big killers" like diabetes and heart disease but from heroin overdose and the complications of drug addiction and alcoholic liver disease. These new headlines tell us that Americans between the ages of 45 and 54 with no more than a high school education are dying at a rate 30 percent higher than 15 years ago. The increase of deaths due to drug and alcohol abuse in this group in the United States has no parallel except the AIDS epidemic.

However, other statistics about health in America have not been as widely publicized.

A number of counties in Georgia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma registered shorter life expectancies for women in 2010 than in 1985. In over half of the counties in the United States, women's life expectancies did not rise during the same period.
There are huge discrepancies in life expectancy across the United States. People in Marin County in the redwoods just north of San Francisco, California have a life expectancy of 85 years. This is among the highest in the world. On the other side of the country, men living in McDowell, West Virginia can expect to live to 64 years, which is slightly lower than Pakistan.

A reasonable question from these statistics is, are people in these two countries being cheated out of long and happy lives? I would argue that they are not, for the simple reason that there is more to life than how long one lives and how many illnesses are avoided. Quality of life takes on meaning that cannot be measured statistically. Here are seven examples.

1. Effective people recognize when things are not OK.

Suppose you are experiencing chronic insomnia. You just can't get all the sleep you feel you need. Or suppose you have aches and pains that just won't go away. You can't quit shoveling snow or carrying groceries or playing with the kids just because your back hurts all the time. Or suppose you feel like you need alcohol to function, or you are chronically lonely, or you have some kind of quirky anxiety that is just too embarrassing to talk about even with your closest friends.

None of these debilities means you can't be a highly effective human being leading a meaningful life. They just mean that you have to work harder at it, and you need to pay attention to warning signals guiding you to seek help you when you really need it.

2. Effective people embrace their struggles.

Russians are famous for their endurance. Americans tend to surprise people with their endurance. People who are convinced of the worth of their lives "keep on keeping on" despite pain and disability.

READ Anxiety, Depression and Self-Abandonment

Would you be surprised to learn that a famous Canadian athletic coach reports that 48 percent of the athletes he trains take prescription medications, and not to enhance athletic performance? Would be surprised to learn that chain of gymnasiums in North America found that 23 percent of their male customers and 33 percent of their female customers take prescription drugs for anxiety or depression? Have you ever seen an 80-year-old person at the gym, or mowing the lawn, or scraping ice off the windshield to get to work?

The key to being "good enough" is showing up for your life. You succeed after you make your attempt.

Five More Characteristics Of Effective People In Every Country

Here are five more characteristics of people who lead effective lives.

3. Effective people learn how to be OK with not being OK.

In Russia, not everyone drinks, but there is a famous, if somewhat exaggerated, drinking culture that emphasizes vodka. In the United States, hardly everyone uses heroin, but there is newly reported culture of hard drug abuse. Hiding from not being OK is not just unhealthy, it is a poor way to lead a life. People who live well are reconciled to the fact that things are not always the way they should be.

Rather than drowning sorrows in drink or hiding your disappointments by getting high, it's best to ask yourself:

What can I do to make my life simpler?
What can I do to bear with pain or inconvenience temporarily?
What can I do to stretch my abilities just a bit, not so much that I risk near-certain failure, but taking on sufficient challenge to result in real change?

4. Effective people pursue all things in moderation, including moderation.

Effective people are happy take small steps toward change. There is a lot of invisible suffering in the world. There is a lot of invisible success, too.

Maybe nobody but you will know when you work out with kettlebells at five o'clock in the morning before you go to work. Maybe nobody but you will know that you have to focus all your mental energy to overcome anxiety to meet your daily fears. Maybe nobody but you will see you pass eighty-seven varieties of Oreos on the grocery shelves without putting any of them in your cart. These are small victories, and no one will congratulate you for achieving them, but you make a difference in your own life.

5. Effective people choose good role models.

There are more good role models around than most people imagine. Maybe your grandmother has steel teeth, drinks too much vodka, lacks modern fashion sense, and saved her little sister by hiding out in the woods in the war. Maybe your father eats too much fried chicken, needs to lose 60 pounds, never gets any exercise except for work, and cares for his father and mother and is always there for the entire family. A kindergarten may get all her exercise corralling 24 children at recess twice a day, or a poor person may walk miles to the bus stop to get to work and to church and stores and social activities. Every role model does not have to perfect. It is not necessary to be exactly like good role models. It is possible to borrow what is best for them and become the expert at your own life.

6. Effective people find ways to work around their difficulties.

Part of success in life is finding the right work-arounds to deal with life's problems. Much of the world operates on a kind of "I have a friend who" system. People ask their friends and neighbors for help, and make their way through life being the kind of friend that they themselves need. Most people aren't naturally good at most things. They embrace the opportunities to make small changes in their lives and the lives of those around them for the better.

READ Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Health

7. Effective people know how to reboot their expectations.

Some people choose impossible goals that become a quixotic quest doomed to failure. Some people never try to do anything at all. Effective people choose goals that just out of reach, and make a series of choices along the way to improve themselves. If you need to lose weight, you don't try to lose half your body mass in a month. You resolve to make a habit of mindful eating for the rest of your life. If you need better lung function, you don't wage a holy war on cigarettes. You make many sensible choices, including exercise, and getting cleaner air, and, yes, quitting tobacco. If you are afraid of cancer, you don't move to the Andes to avoid air pollution. You make daily lifestyle choices for good health and you see your doctor regularly to get early treatment if you need it.

People in places like Russia and the United States don't enjoy the best national health statistics. However, life isn't about being a statistic. Life is meaningful, or it is not. If your life is meaningful to you, you have a way finding the improvements you need to make to live a little more meaningful life, and a little more, and a little more. Constantly refocusing your control over life is what gives you the health outcomes you need. Health outcomes are not declining in any nation where people choose to live their lives well.

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