Other important articles on health, fitness and nutrition can be found at www.DrDonnaHealthNewsToGo.com

Get info on Diet Makeovers

How To Get Your Husband to Take Care of His Health. Self-Care Tips

If you want your husband to start doing more for his health,
this self care article is for you.

How to get a husband interested in taking care of his health is always a big concern for women. Many women are worried that their husband will die from a heart attack or stroke, or worse yet, suffer complications from the diabetes such as an infection that leads to gangrene or an amputation. They feel saddened and powerless when they see that the health of their husband is declining fast and his death will leave them in a very bad economical situation, as well as create a state of grief.

There's not one simple answer to how you can get someone interested in the self-care that is necessary for their survival. There are a few suggestions here that may help though.

How the Self-Care Problem Starts

The problem of not taking care of oneself probably stems from childhood, especially if there never was an emphasis on self-care. Did your husband's parents focus on day-to-day survival or did they focus on having and creating a high quality of life? Most likely, it was day-to-day survival, which included his parents taking care of just the essentials, such as making sure the kids were at home in bed by a certain time and their homework was done.

High Quality of Life is Related to Self-Care

Focusing on quality of life, on the other hand, involves regular preventive visits to the doctor, chiropractor and dentist, regular checking to make sure the kids have taken a bath, scrubbed their hands before meals and make sure the kids got the soap completely out of their hair. It involves doing regular mental health checks on the kids and addressing their physical, spiritual and emotional needs appropriately, insuring that their vitamins and minerals are taken, that they get adequate sleep, and have plenty of recreation and vacation time. To have a high quality of life, you need a high degree of self-care.

Very few of us have experienced a high quality of life when it comes to health training for self-care as a child. To motivate someone who has not ever experienced a high quality of life and self care, you can use their past experiences. For example, if your husband's grandmother developed Alzheimer's disease and almost burned down her house several times because she didn't remember to turn off the stove burner, that incident most likely made quite an emotional impact on your husband. If your husband's grandfather had diabetes and needed his leg amputated, this is another good situation rich in emotional content for you to tap into.

Tie in With Your Husband's Emotions

The trick is to identify those situations in your husband's life that are rich in emotional content, then collect as much information as you can about each one of these situations. Do this in a non-obtrusive manner, by simply acting interested. Then write down all the info you gathered from the conversation.

Use this information to build your case of why he should take care of his health. Use the feelings that he felt during his painful times to anchor your pain about him not taking care of his health.

"Honey, remember how bad you felt when your Grandfather had his leg amputated? Remember how scared you were when you thought he would die during surgery? Remember how you felt you would never be able to go play ball with him again? And how sad you were when you saw him crying about his leg?" The more details you add here, the better.

Continue to state your position. "Well, I don't want to feel the same way if something happens to you (be specific here - if you have a stroke, etc.). I don't want to feel that my best friend is never going to be able to ________ with me again or that I will never see you smile again when we are ______." Lay it on heavy. The heavier you do, the greater the chance that something will sink in and you'll get what you want - him to change and start taking care of himself.

Remember that the key is to connect with his experience, not yours. He hasn't listened to yours in the past because he doesn't understand how you feel until you relate it to his life. Once you do this, that's when the light bulb turns on in his head.

Why This Method Works

This method works well because it is consistent with the way that the brain works. Your husband already has an established pathway in his brain for the whole experience about his grandmother and her Alzheimer's disease incident. He has another one for his grandfather's amputation. And he has hundreds of others for every other experience he ever went through. This same process works for you, too. You have an established pathway in your brain for every happy experience and every painful experience. It's how our brain works.

Have you ever noticed that whenever you try to learn something, it's easier to learn something if you are already familiar with the subject? This is because your brain can associate things together better if they are associated with something you already know.

By zeroing in on your husband's painful experiences and associating them with the pain you will be feeling when he dies because he won't take care of himself or associating them with the worry and fear you feel, you are associated an unknown thing to something he already knows. His mind will grasp the concept quickly.

Try it and see what happens. Expect that he may start taking care of his health!

Resources on Self Care Tips

1. Self-Care tips for survivors of a traumatic event Self Care Tips 1.
2. Self-Care Tips 2 If you are a caregiver, these tips may help.
3. According to researchers, self-care can improve health outcomes. Self-Care Empowers Patients to take more control over their lives.