What if a well-informed, trusted authority figure said you had to make difficult and sustained changes in the way you think and act? If you didn’t, you would die — a lot sooner than necessary. Could you change when change really mattered? When it mattered most?
You’re probably thinking yes, of course I would. But, you’d be deluding yourself.
That’s right. Scientific research has shown the odds are in fact 9 to 1 against you.
Pretty upsetting isn’t it? That’s exactly what the attendees of IBM’s “Global Innovation Outlook” conference thought too when some of the top healthcare scientists and professionals in the industry shared the disturbing truths about the root causes of the health crisis and why they couldn’t do anything about it.
Founder of the Global Medical Forum, Dr. Raphael Levey told the audience, “A relatively small percentage of the population consumes the vast majority of the health-care budget for diseases that are very well known and by and large behavioral.”
So essentially they are sick because of how they choose to live their lives – not because of some genetic or environmental condition beyond their control. I’m sure you can guess what the most common behavioral issues are – too much smoking, drinking, eating, and stress, and not enough exercise.
But the real shocker came when Dr. Edward Miller, the dean of the medical school and CEO of the hospital at Johns Hopkins University turned the discussion toward research done on patients with heart disease. Heart disease surgery and related medical care account for nearly $30 billion dollars each year. And, as Miller says “If you look at people after coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle – even though they know they have a very bad disease and they know they should change their lifestyle, for whatever reason, they can’t.”
So what does work? Why is change so incredibly difficult for people? What is it about how our brains are wired that resists change so stubbornly? Why do we fight even what we know to be in our own best interests?
Tune in tomorrow for the answer.
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