In the next 50 years, it is predicted that people will face increasingly diverse and complex health challenges.
These challenges are the natural consequence of imbalances related to lifestyle, aging, chronic diseases, climate change, polluted environments, catastrophic collapses of natural ecosystems, reduced diversity of the gut microbiome, the high territorial mobility of the population, lack of education in this area, the impact of AI, and other new automated technologies that are rapidly penetrating various sectors of life, etc.
Those of us working in the health sector already realize that without an open, polyvalent, systemic approach, we are going in circles, and the results are uncertain, unreliable, and short-lived.
I’ve learned to view a person as broadly as my neural connections allow: physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically, or symbolically.
Recently, I’ve introduced the necessity of continuous learning for adults into the healing resources I recommend daily.
I believe it will play a vital role in managing health.
For centuries, the belief that education occurs primarily during the early stages of life, specifically in childhood, has been widespread.
In fact, this belief still persists in the collective mindset, divided into three main phases:
Childhood, dominated by education
Adulthood, focused on work
Old age, viewed as preparation for leaving this world
Gradually, industrial labor has significantly altered the entire content of life, making it necessary for education to extend beyond childhood.
The strong development of higher education at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century shows the necessity of continuing education and re-formation during adulthood.
I’ve encountered various definitions of education.
The Stoics believe that education is a process of improving the soul and preparing for life, not just a mere accumulation of information. For example, Seneca tells Lucilius that it’s important to dedicate time daily to reflection and study, even when it seems that a certain level of knowledge or wisdom has been achieved.
“Non scholae, sed vitae discimus” (we learn not for school but for life)!
He considers that to reach Virtue, that complex state of well-being that requires self-control, wisdom, courage, and goodwill, it is essential to learn to control passions and desires. This requires personal self-discipline, seen as a higher form of education.
Jean Piaget believes that education “transforms the psychological consciousness of the individual,”
Marc A. Quellet says that it “changes the meaning of human experience,” and Ioan Cerghit supports the “growth of the positive value of rational human behavior.”
In fact, education is the continuous construction and reconstruction of an inner model of knowledge, appreciation (perception), decoding of reality, and behavior in relation to the world in which we live.
It is also a process of humanization through which individuals acquire new human qualities that allow them to establish a relatively stable balance with their family, social, cultural, professional, and natural environments.
The necessity of adult education arises from the major imbalances that have occurred since the second half of the 20th century, especially between humans and the environment.
By introducing change as a means of adaptation, humans find themselves needing to change as well!
Transformation can only happen by modifying one’s own knowledge, the system of evaluating reality, scrutinizing beliefs/convictions, reevaluating thought patterns and action capacities, discovering and nurturing new existential abilities.
The difficulty of the concept of adult education stems both from the epistemological rupture that has occurred in our times and from the relatively weak understanding of the adult, perhaps even of the child and the young person. Often, education has been based solely on physiology, anatomy, and psychology, neglecting anthropological data.
It seems that educational theory has not yet incorporated the idea that within each individual lies a history of the evolution of the species.
Education is the ESSENTIAL FORM of human adaptation to the world and of the world to humans!
Adaptation occurs through a three-dimensional internal model of knowledge, receptivity, perception, and behavior.
Our entire activity from birth to maturity consists of building such an INTERNAL MODEL of the world, through which we think, act, and evaluate.
Since this model is specific to a given time/space, the change in knowledge, the hierarchy of values, and the modes of action require us to revise it every decade, according to neuroscience specialists.
Adult education involves supporting those major changes in the inner model of the world, under the pressure of internal or external events.
Quality learning today "costs" all sorts of resources, whether done with someone else or through self-study (depending on the field and the form adopted).
What is delivered for free on social media is not learning, but rather information and entertainment.
And from information to integration, the sedimentation of information, its implementation, and transcending the obsolete internal model, there is a path, a journey, and without a guide, the process can be difficult, with unnecessary, additional "costs."
Let’s consider some of the advantages of implementing education in the human health sector and in the intentional generation of a state of balance:
1.Continuous learning provides updated knowledge about how various factors can influence health. This knowledge can help prevent diseases and maintain an optimal state.
2.Continuous learning can enable adults to acquire self-care skills or learn how to monitor their health and make informed decisions about their personal care.
3.Continuous learning can facilitate adults' understanding of and adaptation to changes in the health system, including new scientific discoveries, technologies, or medical services. This improves their ability to access and use these services as well as manage their health more effectively.
4.Continuous learning facilitates the development of resilience skills, such as adapting to change and managing stress. These skills contribute to maintaining optimal health and reducing the risk of chronic diseases associated with maladaptation and resistance to external changes.
5.Continuous learning confronts you with yourself, with your limits.
6.Patient, dedicated learning builds osmosis between who you think you are and who you came to be, awakening through "nervous training" the great regenerative capacity of the human being.
7.Continuous learning keeps you cognitively engaged, moves energy-information flows along the highways of the nervous system, potentially preventing nerve degeneration and the onset of dementia, which the WHO informed us in 2021 affects 10 million people each year.
8.Continuous learning sends us to the doctor, to a health specialist, where we don't seek HEALING but LEARNING, to get a valid opinion about an established condition, about a dysfunctional organ, about its connections with other structures, about its rhythm and functioning mechanism, to support us in unlearning dependencies and mental addictions (sometimes very well hidden), to facilitate clarity in obscure areas where we cannot see.
I believe that Longevity Medicine primarily involves knowing who you are.
View education as a real generator of health.
Dare to learn every day about yourself and the world!
Without claiming a definitive answer or a complete analysis, I also ask you, if you’ve read this far, to enhance my perspective with your reflections, perhaps captured in the aroma of a vibrant coffee.
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