Medical science has celebrated feats in the last century by reducing the incidence of communicable diseases through attack on pathogenic organisms directly or annihilating the factors that breed them. However, there is a new but growing concern about non-communicable diseases, which are mostly due to new trends in lifestyle, dietary habits and mental well being. For us in Africa, they were diseases of affluence because they were commoner in the prosperous developed nations of the world.
However, as a consequence of globalisation, there is an increase in the incidence of these diseases, even in Africa. Prominent among them are obesity, stroke, hypertension and certain kinds of heart diseases, to mention a few.
This new trend poses a great challenge to both the doctors and patients, as we attempt to develop preventive strategies. One of the implicated core factors, in my own opinion, is the imbalance in the rhythm of life as a result of work. I have compared photographs of some of our past leaders taken as they assumed office to those taken four years after; one does not need to be a medical doctor to observe the accelerated impact of the burden of office on their overall vitality and agility.
The demand of office hijacks their balance and drags them along a path of schedules and protocols usually beyond their conscious control. The growing population of our middle class professionals is also suffering from this imbalance, as well as our successful businessmen. The human mind and the body systems are intricately linked, such that this imbalance generates tension from the mind that resonates in the body systems with compensatory risky lifestyles.
The biological clock alerts that the system is violated; but it is usually ignored through the abuse of energy drinks, unwholesome dietary habits or other alternative stimulants. This is responsible for the development of these non communicable diseases. The implicating factor is not the work itself but the imbalance. We got a paradigm of work from the colonial masters, but neglected their culture of vacations to readjust to the rhythm of life.
In a primitive society like ours where the upper class is mostly a product of illegitimate accumulation of wealth, the lower classes scramble for the crumbs at a survivalist tempo. They engage in jobs that do not connect to their natural endowments and do multiple jobs that have nothing to do with intellectual contribution. The concept of career, which connects an individual’s temperamental and intellectual endowment to the job, is lost.
We have a large population of those employed as hustlers and drifting through life without any sense of balance. Work then becomes an identity item which suffocates other vital needs. Crucial relationships are seen as distractions once they have no direct relationship to work. Health is not crucial until we break down and work is disturbed. Wholesome contribution to life only becomes reasonable only in the context of work. Work has therefore become a defense mechanism for failure to satisfy other crucial needs of life.
Steven R. Covey, the legendary author and management consultant, once said that there are certain things that are fundamental to human fulfillment. If these basic needs are not met, we feel empty and incomplete. The essence of these needs is captured in the phrase — to live, to love, to learn and to leave a legacy. This is his description of the imbalance problem.
When our lives are out of balance, we are defined essentially by the work we do, and not essentially by what we are as persons. This disconnects us from the very locus of our mind that ensures we fulfill the tasks of life as embedded in our personal mission statements. For our businessmen, the story is not different, as they cannot relax because of the fear of possible drop in financial rating; while the politicians are constantly on the move as they strategise how to remain in office forever, leaving other aspects of their lives barren. Our celebrated religious leaders are not spared, as they run from pillar to post to ensure that the acquired wealth is not diverted.
The core reason for the imbalance is value-based, with a medical significance. There are concomitant psychological issues as a result. There is a need to learn the principles of delegation and detachment as we appraise our lives against the benchmarks of wholesome living. Career programmes should take into consideration personality profile assessment, not just the intellectual capacities.
Over emphasis of the material indices of success should be discouraged and leadership should encourage and reward long years of distinguished and meritorious service, rather than hitch-hikers. These strategies, if adopted, will modify lifestyle in the direction of balance and reduce the incidence of these non-communicable diseases.