How can we explain health in terms of the ‘ 4 wheel model ‘ ?

by Posted on

I always thought doctors are the healthy people as they treat the patients. This was my thought when I was in medical college. Now I feel doctors are the specialists in the disease but not in health, as they too face health challenges as the patients. This is not the problem of doctors, as the medical curriculum is designed in such a way that we are trained to look at the disease in a holistic way rather than the health.

After long introspection for a few years, I found health is very simple yet a holistic concept that can only be learned through life experience rather than books or from the people around. Thus we cannot preach someone to be healthy. We can live a healthy life so that others learn from our lifestyle.

Even now, most of us think health is to be fit & look slim. It is only a part of the health. Can you try to define what health is? You may take a pause & think for a while. Is it staying calm? or looking lean? What do you think is to be healthy? After prolonged contemplation, I came across this concept called “The 4 wheel model” for defining the health. It means if each one of us is like a car, then health has 4 components like 4 wheels, so that we need all the 4 wheels in good condition to keep our life going.

Can you guess what these 4 wheels are? Let’s see :

1.Physical health

2.Mental health

3.Emotional health

4.Financial health.

Physical health :

It is being fit in terms of strength, stamina & flexibility. This is a visible form that people can see, but this is not as important wheel as compared to wheel 2 & wheel 3. Most of us are born with a healthy physical body & we tend to ignore it due to improper handling of the wheel 2 & wheel 3. As all these wheels need to be functioning together, the effect of one falls on others. Our mind tends to give more importance to what is more obvious, so we give more weightage to the physical appearance.

Mental health :

The 2nd wheel is important as in this information era; we are fed with too much information leading to too many thoughts, thus creating a monkey mind that cannot focus on one thing at a time. This leads to the changing of professions, not contended with few things & we always want more information, more friends & more money without knowing why we want them. The core mental muscle of patience is being lost, thus altering our hormonal balance, thus creating a condition of chronic stress due to elevated cortisol levels. As most of the bellies we see are cortisol/ stress bellies. Our brains & bodies are designed to work on one task at a time so that it can work for sustainable periods to get best results. As our brain overestimates the results more in the short run & underestimates the results in the long run, we fail to look at long term picture of our actions. We need patience & clarity to think & do things with a long term perspective. Thus when we are clear we will be patient enough to wait. Isnt it ?

Emotional health :

This is the most important but neglected wheel when it comes to health. All the relationship matters come under emotional health. In the information era, all the information started eating our TIME, the most limited & valuable asset which we can give to our family & friends. Thus the roots of the relationships are not deep enough to maintain long term, contended relationships. Most of our time is taken away by WhatsApp, Netflix, Social media & others. Thus giving less time for our family & friends. Do we really have enough time to build deep relationships, which our parents & grandparents had?

Financial health :

Unfortunately, this is the 4th & last wheel, the biggest wheel of the vehicle as per one’s perception. In simple terms, when the wheel is too big when compared to others, it goes against the balance of the vehicle & the vehicle may topple. What do you say? We definitely need finances to take care of the physical, mental & emotional aspects of our family & friends. This was how our grandparents lived. Unfortunately, there is a “Rat race” going on to earn money. Indeed money inherently does not have value unless it delivers something.

What do you think ?

The real game starts when we have to keep moving our vehicle & keep repairing the damage incurred to the wheels simultaneously, as life doesn’t stop. The game gets complicated as we live with our family & friends. Our vehicle is not independent & every one of our family & friends has their own vehicles. We move in groups like a Mandala system.

E.g., I have my own vehicle & surrounded by a circle of vehicles of my mother, father, brother, wife & husband. Thus we only move in groups. So any wheel gets stuck in the whole system, the system comes to a halt. This makes life a very fun & complicated game, as we are all intricately linked to each other.

All these 4 wheels of health make or break our health. They improve or deteriorate based on small acts that we do daily like How we sleep, eat etc. These habits help us make us healthy, wealthy, wise & happy.
Can you guess where does the impact happen when any of these 4 wheels are effected ? You are right. All the effects appear only on the physical health & more obvious.We tend to correct the physical health ignoring the root cause which may be Mental, Emotional or the Financial. So we have to work on the root causes not the outcomes.

Come lets build some habits for strengthening our 4 Wheels..

Are you ready ?

44 Replies to “How can we explain health in terms of the ‘ 4 wheel model ‘ ?”

  5. Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he just bought me lunch as I found it for him smile Thus let me rephrase that: Thank you for lunch! Milan Tabor

    Reply

  7. Hello! I could have sworn I’ve been to this blog before but after browsing through some of the post I realized it’s new to me. Anyways, I’m definitely happy I found it and I’ll be book-marking and checking back frequently!

    Reply

  9. I am actually happy to read this webpage posts which consists of lots of helpful information, thanks for providing these kinds of data. Sheba Donalt Guarino

    Reply

  11. If some one desires expert view about running a blog afterward i suggest him/her to pay a visit this weblog, Keep up the good work. Randene Gherardo Zebadiah

    Reply

  13. I was looking at some of your content on this internet site and I conceive this website is very informative ! Keep posting . Roxie Maxim Rheba

    Reply

  20. Hello! I could have sworn I’ve been to this blog before but after browsing through some of the post I realized it’s new to me. Anyways, I’m definitely happy I found it and I’ll be book-marking and checking back frequently!

    Reply

  21. clearly explained about all factors of health..nice
    exactly if one of it gets down all will go down eventually
    and tats really true..
    emotion wheel…is most vulnarable wheel for me..everything will get screwed if it get punctured by any cause..
    thanks a lot for giving clear insight.

    Reply

  22. Superb, Amazing.
    100% agree to everything what have you written. I have introspected the same in last decade.
    Thank you so much for writing

    Reply

  23. It’s well written and simplified version of what is health. Health is a complex topic varies with every individual and it’s really worthwhile going into details of health even more.
    Thank you.

    Reply

  24. Hi! I just want to give you a big thumbs up for the great info you have right here on this post. I will be returning to your blog for more soon. Steffane Worden Eliott

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *