“The equipment used in connection with this operation will consist of the following items: 1 unopened newspaper; 1 sterile can opener; 1 large sterile plate; 1 sterile fork; 1 sterile spoon; 2 sterile brushes; 2 bars of soap; sterile paper towels.”
This is the beginning of a long memo from Howard Hughes on how to open a can of fruit without contaminating it. The memo continues with exacting directions for meticulously scrubbing the cans before opening them. Then it itemizes steps for washing the hands, down to getting every fingerprint on each finger clean by twisting it in a soapy palm (four thorough washings of the hands are required). Hughes describes how to spear the fruit out without having it touch the sides of the can, and reminds his helpers not to stand over, breath, cough, sneeze, or talk near the fruit.
These demented directions are from a book about Howard Hughes, Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters, by Richard Hack. Hughes’ exaggerated anxieties about germs caused him to spend the last two decades of his life sealed in hotel rooms, attended by a staff of six male aides. He communicated with them and the outside world by telephone and intricately detailed notes about the precise, arduous, and onerous steps that his helpers were required to take to avoid contamination of anything that would come in contact with Hughes.
Obsessed and compulsive about health
Any modern psychologist would recognize that Hughes was displaying classic symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Students of the mind-body approach to health don’t have to look far to notice similar health obsessions and compulsions gripping so many unwary—or overly wary—minds today. This obsessive-compulsive approach to health is promoted with the idea of “scaring you for your own good” by medical authorities and pseudo-authorities of every stripe.
While perhaps not quite as extreme as OCD, our health obsessions and compulsions fit many aspects of this disorder. OCD is defined as “an anxiety disorder where a person has recurrent and unwanted ideas or impulses (called obsessions) and an urge or compulsion to do something to relieve the discomfort caused by the obsession…. Compulsions are behaviors which help reduce the anxiety surrounding the obsessions.”
Public health, the media, and advertising flood consumers with recurrent ideas about what can go wrong with health, amplifying feelings of vulnerability to health dangers. These seemingly helpful sources then suggest behaviors to reduce the health anxieties they have caused. They recommend getting checkups, buying health products or services, eating particular foods in regulated amounts, and sanitizing hands and household in certain ways with special products.
But any reasonable person would agree!
Just like Howard Hughes and most people with OCD, modern consumers of anxiety-producing health ideas don’t think their concerns are excessive or unusual. Nor do health-obsessed individuals notice that life is disrupted by behaviors prompted by their obsessions. Instead, like most people with mental illness, the public is convinced that this unhealthy focus on health is sensible and useful—the only way to stay safe.
Those selling health anxiety make sure to underscore the conviction that health paranoia is a normal, responsible, adult reaction to the inevitable dangers of everyday life. The end result is that, like Howard Hughes, most of us see nothing funny about our over-the-top health obsessions. Instead we believe that only a careless or ill-informed person would willingly flout the current rules for good health.
So we have come to think that it is sane and health promoting to scrutinize nutrition labels on packaged food; obsess about fat grams; discard the crispy and delicious skin from our chicken dinners; consume precisely calculated amounts of herbs, vitamins, and supplements with meals; douse everything that will hold still for it with antibacterial soaps and sprays; and refuse to drink ordinary tap water.
Health is hard and then you die
Whether the health-conscious consumer takes a conventional or “natural” approach to health makes no difference. The underlying message is the same: eternal vigilance, diligence, and plenty of spending are the price of good health.
To turn up the volume on our health anxiety in order to motivate us to buy more “solutions,” we’ve been led to believe that dangerously toxic substances are everywhere, collecting in our bodies and undermining the health of the incautious. Health-diminishing allergens lurk in the most unlikely places. Germs are not only rampant, but mutating to evade our feeble attempts to protect ourselves from them.
We have been sold on the idea that food no longer supplies us with adequate nutrition to keep us healthy enough to resist these dangers of everyday life. Instead, we are convinced that in order to thrive, we must buy water filters, air purifiers, special vacuum cleaners, dust-mite inhibiting bed linens, and countless supplements and immune-enhancing herbs.
But you can’t just lob down a handful of vitamins and supplements willy-nilly. You’re told that some contradict the actions of others when taken together. Some require that you take them before, during, or after meals, or in combination with certain foods or other supplements in order for them to be properly utilized. Like a Howard Hughes memo on avoiding germs, the details of proper nutrition would try the patience of anyone who didn’t fear for his health.
With science producing new health-related data almost daily, the rules that govern our protective health rituals are in a constant state of flux. Whatever you know about staying healthy today may be proven wrong tomorrow. Why, it almost seems that trying to stay healthy may be one of the most stressful aspects of modern life.
We have become the Worried Well
Not surprisingly, we have not become healthier as a result of all this health-related getting and spending—a fact that the health-obsessed never seem to notice. On the contrary, the more we learn about health, the less healthy we think we are. Our bizarre health rituals have only made us more anxious by keeping our minds focused on what can go wrong. We are the Worried Well, convinced, like Howard Hughes, that the slightest misstep could doom us to illness.
Believing that health isn’t natural to us, but has to be acquired through effort and vigilance, we believe it’s something that money can buy. Anyone who works with mental illness will tell you that this outside-in approach to dealing with anxiety is never successful—in fact, it only exacerbates the problem. The obsessed compulsively feeds his habit of fearfulness with ever-escalating rituals, convinced that the reason he doesn’t feel okay yet is because the rituals were not done correctly or enough. “What I need is more vitamins, a different kind of water filter, a new program to rid my body of toxins, special chemical-free carpeting, this new herb, more antioxidants…”
The major source of our health problems can be found in our perceptions, not in the outside world. Attempting to soothe our anxieties by throwing money and ritual behaviors at them is like pouring gasoline on a fire. Howard Hughes, a man with enough money to have his every bizarre health obsession satisfied, could not buy himself peace of mind about his health. Neither can you or I.
It’s health-promoting to be relaxed about health
How can you change your mind about what constitutes a reasonable approach to health in a world that thinks a loony, obsessive approach is only good sense?
Start by turning your attention away from worrying about germs and nutrition and become an observer of how you are affected by infectious negative “health” propaganda. Then put your energy toward gathering information that supports a saner way of looking at health by studying the power of the mind body connection. Next, notice that good health is the norm and ill health is the exception. Commit yourself to focusing on evidence supporting the fact that good health is a dependable and natural outgrow of a balanced and sane approach to life.
Remember, we didn’t use to be obsessed with health and yet people were healthy. So why not try a mid-century approach to health for a while and see if retro grows on you. It’s a health-promoting way of practicing simplicity, where less is the new more.