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Self-monitoring is pivotal for improving your health. However, you need to be realistic when it comes to your approach and expectations to avoid the pitfalls.

 

 

Health is a huge concern in the modern world on the societal and individual level. Detection and prevention of disease is an increasing focus and the responsibility isn’t just with your doctor. If you want to protect your health, then you need to take control. This is where health monitoring comes in. It can be an effective way to explore and understand your own health and avoid dangerous health risk factors. However, it shouldn’t replace medical assessments or advice. Because this is just another tool, not a guarantee of good health.

 

What is Self-Monitoring?

Self-monitoring is becoming ever more popular. It’s an effective strategy to address health concerns and safeguard your health over the long term. It will also help you get better informed about your health. And this is pivotal to getting the right diagnosis and treatment from your doctor.

 

Self-monitoring can be highly individual. You can tailor it to address your health problems or concerns. The activities you perform during health assessments can vary, but often include:

 

• Weight monitoring.
• Blood pressure monitoring.
• Blood sugar tests.
• Mobility tests.
• Heart rate assessments.
• Hearing tests.
• Eyesight tests.
• Cognitive ability testing.
• Body fat assessments.
• Lung capacity.

 

These are all important measures of your health. However, health monitoring doesn’t guarantee your health. That’s why you must be aware of its pitfalls and keep your expectations under control.

 

The Dangers of Self-Monitoring

One contentious issue is about the value of health assessment activities. On the surface, this seems like an easy answer. After all, objective and accurate health information is pivotal to early intervention and accurate diagnoses. But the issue isn’t as simple as that. The truth is that self-monitoring is rarely entirely objective. Your beliefs, your concerns, and your experiences color the results. You interpret the results of your self-monitoring results in your own way, for better or for worse.

 

Other issues that can arise with self-monitoring has to do with your expectations. You may think that your health will instantly improve when you do self-monitoring. This expectation can very quickly lead to disappointment when nothing happens. Another expectation that tends to cause problems is with the timing. No matter what changes you make, getting results takes time. You must be willing to give yourself that time, and not get discouraged. Otherwise, you’ll probably find yourself quitting your new health strategies. And this means that nothing will change.

 

There is one final issue that can arise with self-monitoring and that’s with how you measure your health risk factors. Unless you’re a doctor, chances are that you won’t know how to accurately take certain measurements. This means you may take results under non-standard, or even chaotic conditions. When you do this, your results may be chaotic as well. And this can be confusing, disheartening, and even frightening.

 

The Benefits of Monitoring

Monitoring can have benefits for key health risk factors if done properly. One possible example has to do with weight control. Numerous studies have shown that mindfulness can be pivotal to losing weight. Now, a new study shows that regularly measuring your weight may also help with weight control. This might seem counterintuitive. After all, your weight won’t change much day by day. But self-perception is key here. If you constantly remind yourself of the gap between who you are and who you want to be, it can lead to behavioral changes.

 

The Takeaway

Self-monitoring is an important strategy for better health and a deeper understanding of your body. It can give you accurate information about health risk factors and early warning signs of disease. There are barriers to the usefulness of the information you gather of course. And you also need to manage your expectations. But it’s still an important way to take control of your health.

 

If you’re concerned about a health risk, try using HomeLab to keep track of your condition and any preventative measures you take. And if you see signs of a significant problem, you should check with your doctor as soon as possible.

 

 

Tags: Health risk, weight control