I am guilty of what I call the ‘Amazon Prime Effect’. I ordered magnesium capsules at noon and by 4:00 pm they were neatly lying at my doorstep. I barely had to crack open the front door to retrieve my order. Call it instant gratification or whatever you like, technology has spoiled many of us. Right now, you can name so many examples from food delivery, and streaming our favorite TV shows, to so many other instant ways that technology swiftly satisfies our needs and wants. Technology has advanced; however, some things like seeing the impact of working out on the body, achieving the benefits of making positive nutrition decisions, and realizing the paybacks of proactive healthcare still take time and consistency.
It’s not surprising that Americans expect quick and easy solutions to health problems. The healthcare industry has made great strides in recent years, with advances in technology and medicine leading to faster and more accurate diagnoses, improved treatments, and better outcomes for patients. However, this has also created an unrealistic expectation that healthcare can be as simple and effortless as ordering something online.
Recently, a woman I will call ‘Doris’ came to my salt therapy business. Inhaling air containing microscopic salt crystals is called “salt therapy,” and it is used to treat respiratory problems. To continue: Doris is in her 60s and shared that she smoked a pack of cigarettes per day for 30 years. Doris has Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), a disease that is often related to smoking cigarettes and causes difficulty breathing. Doris’s insurance was no longer paying for visits to a pulmonologist, a doctor specializing in treating the lungs. Although I set the expectation of what to expect with only one salt therapy session, Doris emerged 45 minutes later, looked me in the eye, and said, “It didn’t make me breathe better”! For a second, I thought that Doris was joking! How could 45 minutes of anything impact 30 years of daily damage? And in that instant, I knew that I had to share this thought: Even in 2023, meaningful change to our body, mind, and spirit happens over time. It’s not delivered in a package at the front door.
I speak with small business owners in health and wellness often. As the business saying goes, “an overnight success usually happens in about 15 years.” While fortunately, changes to our bodies happen faster than 15 years, it still takes a considerable amount of time. With salt therapy, many of our successful clients visit two to three times per week, selecting either a 45-minute session or our 15-minute salt booth. At the two-and-a-half to the three-month mark, they typically have a noticeable improvement in symptoms. With the average lifetime expectancy for men in the upper 70s and for women in the 80s, three months seems like a very short span of time to start seeing a benefit.
The moral of my story, the demand for fast and easy healthcare solutions is understandable, but it is also unrealistic. True sustained improvements to our bodies take time and consistent behavior. While advances in technology and medicine have made healthcare more efficient and effective than ever before; we must remember that there are no shortcuts when it comes to our health. We must be willing to invest the time and effort required to achieve long-term health and wellness, rather than expecting a quick fix like an Amazon Prime package.
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