HQ (Health Quotient): An Intelligent Approach to Personal Health

Highlights of HQ Health Care
· Become familiar with the four main goals of personal health care: staying healthy, recovering fully from illness to avoid lasting disability, improving quality of life, and living longer in better health.
· Grab hold of the computer health loop; it may be the lifeline you need. Don’t let go until you have found out the myriad of ways it can help you to improve your health. Check out the resources section of this book (in chapter 10) for a list of ten excellent reasons for seeking health online-and ten reasons why you should be careful of what you find there.
· The four key characteristics that define hq medicine are holistic, integrative, self-caring, and evidence-based.
· Consider your personal health team. Do you need more health helpers onside? These might include a nutrition adviser, a fitness expert or personal trainer, a self-help group, or even your friends and family members if they are prepared to support your fitness goals.
· Chronic diseases are the scourge of our modern, self-indulgent world. Tackle them the hq way with my three-part plan: consult your doctor, research the best therapies from all the choices available to you, and take your hq medicine. That means improving your hq score, practising relaxation and meditation, making lifestyle changes and taking supplements if necessary.
· Each chronic disease has unique features that require different management strategies. Integrative hq-style medicine enables you to have an endless variety of combinations of different therapies from the choices available in mainstream, mind/body and complementary medicines. Regardless of what combination of approaches is used, it is imperative to practise self-care and to take control of and responsibility for your personal state of health.
· Coronary heart disease is an all too common killer. You can’t begin too early to find ways to combat its devastating potential. The choices you make regarding your diet, lifestyle and habits may well decide whether you become a victim or you vanquish this insidious disease.
· The health-care system is at a crossroads. In spite of remarkable advances in science, medicine and technology, our current system is outdated and a burden on society. Dissatisfied consumers are demanding reform and new approaches to care. The overall hq model is a new direction in medicine that can fill this void.

Key Points for Creating Your Personal Action Plan
· The three qualities required to take the information in this book and make it work for you are willpower, discipline and time management skills.
· Decide which habits you want to change and develop short-term and long-term action plans, allowing for constant re-evaluation. Be realistic.
· Commit your plan to paper, carefully listing the actions and strategies you need to reach your goals. Sign it and display it in a prominent place in your home or workplace-or both!
· If possible, share your action plan with a close friend or family member; this will help to boost your morale and reinforce your intentions. All the better if your buddy has an action plan too!
· Monitor your progress, but be patient: major changes in your life may take many months. Reward each achievement, however small, and keep on track by constantly visualizing the healthy person you are aiming to become.
· Whatever you do, start now! It’s all too easy to keep putting things off until tomorrow.
· Invest in yourself by making deposits in your personal “health account.” Build up your long-term savings for a healthy balance. At the end of the day you will reap health riches that will be more valuable to you than the money in your bank account.
· Use the wealth of resources available to you on-line, while being watchful for false or inaccurate information. Read everything you can that pertains to your health, and find out which groups, organizations and institutions might be helpful to you.
· Repeat the hq Profile questionnaire, make a commitment to progress, and take action to improve your scores as a means of building up your health account.