NewsTarget survey results, part 3: Making health changes that positively affect work performance

Thursday, April 13, 2006 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: work performance, healthcare costs, corporate wellness

This is part three of the analysis of the NewsTarget readers' survey. The total number of responses for this section was 582. Here we asked people to rate whether their use of this health-enhancing information was positively impacting their work performance. The answer has come back as a resounding "yes." Of those who responded, 52.2 percent reported enhanced mental clarity or creativity at work. Approximately 34.5 percent reported improved memory and 34.7 percent reported improved work results. These are phenomenal numbers. I think every corporation in the world would be drooling at the possibility of boosting the mental clarity, memory or productivity of its work force to this degree. The question is, how was this achieved, and similarly, how can this be replicated?

It was achieved by making positive health changes in diet and exercise, as well as by avoiding dangerous substances (such as harmful food ingredients) and prescription drugs. Essentially, the readers who reported these results are the kind of people who always want to be healthier. They want to improve their results, so they took the initiative, taught themselves this information and applied it in a smart way that boosted their work results. This was not something that was forced upon them. This was not a work requirement; this was something done by personal choice, out of a desire to be a happier, healthier person.

But the question remains, how can health changes boost work results? This is not a subject that's really talked about much in the corporate world. In that world, there's a great disconnect between the health of employees and those employees' work results.

Healthy bodies and brains = increased work performance

For some reason, corporate America is slow to recognize that work is an extension of mental function, which is an extension of nervous system health. When you have a healthy nervous system, one that receives all the nutrition it needs -- including healthy oils, B vitamins and minerals -- you have a nervous system that is obviously going to perform at a higher level. That will translate into enhanced memory, creativity, moods and greater endurance on mental efforts.

These kinds of benefits translate readily from foods to work results, and our readers were certainly reporting remarkable improvements in work performance. At my software company, I actually buy fresh fruits and superfoods, like blueberries, for the employees to eat. This is something they see as a benefit, and I also see it as a way to enhance their health, their mental function and ultimately, their work performance. This is a great investment in employee health.

Corporate wellness

All of this comes down to corporate wellness programs. In the near future, corporations are going to become increasingly involved in the health of their employees. We're seeing this in many different areas right now. Some corporations are refusing to hire employees who are obese because of the increased healthcare costs associated with obesity or diabetes. What they are not recognizing is the decreased performance associated with poor health even when obesity isn't an issue, and part of the reason why this might not be easy to notice is because the vast majority of Americans are unhealthy, so diseased people often appear to be of average health.

Corporations are also afraid of the legal ramifications of discriminating against people based on body weight. It's really not a body weight issue, though; it's an overall health issue. Can a corporation refuse to hire someone because they have poor mental performance? Absolutely. That's part of your qualification for getting a job. But I don't think this should be about firing people. I think it should be about corporations enhancing the health of their employees wherever they can, in a way that respects the employee's privacy. For example, making healthier foods available is a good first step in any wellness program. An effective corporate wellness program can also reward people for lowering their overall body weight, lowering their cholesterol or making improvements that are easily measured by competent medical personnel.

The bottom line is that no corporation can force its employees to make positive changes if the employees don't want to make them. That's where the power of information enters. When a corporation makes information available to its workers -- free information that offers a variety of health tips like we have on this web site -- a certain percentage of those employees will automatically start reading that and putting it to work, boosting their own health, and therefore their work results, mood and outlook on life. As we've seen here, more than half of our readers reported experiencing enhanced mental clarity and creativity at work. That's a phenomenal number, and I think any corporation would be happy to see those kinds of gains in productivity, not to mention the enhanced quality of life for the people working there.

Reducing the need for medical time off work

Another big problem in the corporate world that's related to employee health is sick days or time off for medical reasons. In the United States, our corporations are going bankrupt due to ridiculous healthcare costs. General Motors, for example, is about to go bankrupt. It has already been reduced to junk bond status, largely because of the expense it has to pay for the health care of its employees. Part of that is the fact that we still have a pharmaceutical monopoly in this country, so everyone who buys prescription drugs in the U.S. is getting ripped off with 30,000 percent markups, but another part of it is because a lot of employees simply don't take care of their own health, so their corporations pay higher healthcare costs.

Both of these can be alleviated as employees are given more access to information about health. How much of an impact can it have? Well, in our survey, 27.3 percent of the employees reported that they reduced their sick days or medical days off after reading this information. Seventeen point eight percent reported receiving praise from coworkers about their level of improved health. These are very positive numbers.

The bottom line is that health information, when made available to people, whether they are employees or not, can boost their work performance. Again, it's because work is a function of physical, emotional, mental, and ultimately, spiritual health. If a person is not healthy or is not balanced in his or her own life, he or she cannot possibly have good work performance.

It also goes to show the global nature of making positive health changes. For example, when a person improves their level of health, it doesn't just change their cholesterol numbers, it doesn't just change their blood pressure or their body weight; it changes their whole life. It changes and improves the nature of their relationships. It improves their work performance, mental performance and level of awareness, and it boosts their level of enjoyment and optimism in life. It changes their self-image, which has tremendous long-term implications. It is a holistic change that affects every area of the person's life. None of these far-reaching benefits are achieved through the application of prescription drugs or surgical procedures that simply mask symptoms.

Free access to health information is vital for making nationwide positive health changes

Only through internally motivated, holistic, long-term health changes can a person radically alter their health outcome for the better. It has to be changed from within. It has to be a day-to-day commitment to that change, and ideally, it's something that produces visible results so the person undergoing the transformation can witness those positive changes as they are taking place.

Make no mistake: Health information is powerful. Free access to health information can change people's lives for the better. It can impact millions of people, as we are doing here at Truth Publishing. It can help them become healthier. It can improve their grocery shopping decisions, their work performance, their relationships, their optimism and their longevity, and it can dramatically reduce the costs that they will place on our national healthcare system, whether it's private insurers, hospitals or employers that are footing much of the healthcare bill. This is why the number one change that we need to make in this country is to focus on our health. If we get our health right, many other problems will simply disappear, such as our global competitiveness. If GM didn't have to pay healthcare costs, the company wouldn't have to shut down 12 automobile manufacturing plants and lay off 30,000 workers.

That's a direct example of how healthcare costs are reducing our global competitiveness and costing us jobs. The result is that if we don't make changes in our society, we will eventually wind up as a broke, diseased and drug-addicted nation that will never again rise to be a global leader.

Whether or not real health reforms ever happen at a national level, you can make them happen on a personal level. You can take this information and apply it in your own life. You can make positive health changes and reform your own health outcome, just like many of these survey participants have done. You can experience long-lasting, positive health changes as a result.

Thanks for being a reader, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to share this information in a meaningful way. It is your appreciation and application of this content that gives me the motivation to keep researching and writing. I humbly thank you for giving me the opportunity to help enhance the lives of others.