Salutogenesis – The ability to stay healthy

What is health? From the perspective of salutogenesis, it is not a question of either illness or health. Srather, illness and health are two ends of a spectrum. That is the health–illness continuum. What distinguishes a healthier state from a less healthy state?

Salutogenesis research refers to this as coherence. Coherence means that everything flows together in the same direction. Everything is vibrantly interconnected and ordered. It is dynamic and powerful while also being structured.

It is not mechanical—that would be incoherent. Nor is it chaotic—that would also be incoherent. It is a living, pulsating order, just like our heart when it is healthy: sometimes beating faster, sometimes slower, like a kind of dance.

We have an organ for coherence. Salutogenesis research often refers to this as a sense of coherence, but it is not actually a feeling; it is a sensory organ, a sense of coherence. We have a sensory organ for coherence.

And with this sensory organ for coherence, which we will also examine in detail later, we can locate ourselves on this continuum between illness and health, orient ourselves, and sense precisely whether we are currently moving toward coherence or toward incoherence.

This sense of coherence, or meaning in life, is buried within us. We were trained out of it through our upbringing and through becoming estranged from our bodies and our feelings. But we can regain this sense. More on that later.

The salutogenesis model describes illness and health as two ends of a continuum, with many intermediate stages in between. It speaks of a sense of coherence that we can cultivate. And it speaks of resistance resources—the things we need to move in the direction of coherence.

Salutogenesis is not just a model, that is, a theory about health, but they is a skill. The ability to start over again and again, to continually discover, activate, and nurture resources, and to use these resources to integrate life's demands—the stressors and pathogens that constantly pour in on us—into our lives.

Resistance resources can be of different kinds. They could be physical resources. For example, having a roof over your head is already a resource—a major resource. A good tool could be a physical resource, or money. There are also psychological resources, such as optimism, enthusiasm, and trust in life.

Alles skills that can be systematically trained. As the work of Martin Seligmann shows, who wrote a book called Learned Optimism. Pessimism is the normal state for many people. This has biological reasons related to our survival system. And optimism can indeed be learned. So that would be a resource.

Then there are spiritual resources as well, such as an unwavering faith or a trust in a deeper meaning of existence or a living relationship with a source that is greater than myself. And there are social resources. Social connectedness is even the strongest resistance resource, according to Antonowsky.

Those were just examples of different resources we can draw on. I invite you to take a look at yourself and ask: what are your resources, and are you already using all of them? Because your resources, your resistance resources, are precisely what help you move along the spectrum from incoherence to coherence, or from illness to health, in the direction of coherence.

Now let us take a closer look at the sense of coherence. I said that it is a sensory organ. Antonowsky does not speak of it as a sensory organ, but I do, because I believe that is actually what it is. When we do something, we sense in the act whether what we are doing feels right.

Of course, it is not always so easy to distinguish, because then we have a desire, and then we follow a rule, and then we are confused, and so on, but deep down inside us there is an aesthetic sense of life and of what feels right. This sense of coherence, as Antonowsky describing it has three elements. These are comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness.

When what is happening around us cannot be understood, our sense of coherence is disrupted, and we need to work on understanding it so that we can simply grasp it. The incomprehensible is also what leaves us speechless, and the moment we begin to put it into words, understand it, and place it in context, our sense of coherence already increases because we can find our way again and orient ourselves again.

That does not mean our optimal state consists of always knowing our way around. On the contrary, we constantly have to expand our area of life and, ideally, even voluntarily venture into new territory where we do not yet know our way around. Then, through learning and growth, through greater coherence, we expand our scope for action and the area of our lives.

It is not merely about always being coherent; it is about repeatedly finding our way back to coherence. Training, for example, actually involves actively entering a state of incoherence so that we can emerge from it even more coherent, That would be hormesis. When I train my muscles, they are initially damaged, then they regenerate, and afterward they are stronger than before.

This should not be understood too simplistically. It is not only about coherence; it is about actively and continually expanding the area in which we can gather experience. This area of comprehensibility has more to do with the head and with our thinking. The second area is manageability, which is primarily connected with our autonomy and our will. When we have no possibilities for action, our coherence declines.

Here, too, the art of salutogenesis lies in repeatedly finding possibilities for action, even in the seemingly most intractable situation. For example, someone is in prison and, instead of despairing, writes a book. When he gets out, he becomes famous. Or something like that. andSometimes they are small things that one might not think of when moving through life in such a robotic automatism, as we often do, if we are honest with ourselves.

WWhen that succeeds—when comprehensibility can be restored again and again, when manageability can be restored again and again—this is also a huge topic that could be discussed further: learned helplessness and the learned self-efficacy that counteracts it—then meaning emerges. That is meaningfulness. And creating this meaningfulness is essential because it concerns our heart.

People often speak of head, heart, and hand. The head is comprehensibility, the hand is manageability—manageability is already contained in the word itself. And meaningfulness is our heart. When that meaning collapses, that is the moment when people die inside or sink into deep depression. Only when that meaning reappears—the light at the end of the tunnel—does life begin to bring joy again.

A great example of this meaning-making ability is Anne Frank. This is an example I briefly looked into because I wondered what writing can actually do. Anne Frank kept a diary with the intention of becoming a writer. She died in a concentration camp, but her book survived. This writing gave her life meaning. She could imagine a future, and from that future she could draw strength in draw from the present.

Viktor Frankl did that too. He was also a very famous psychologist who later developed logotherapy, who was in four concentration camps, and who later mentioned two things that got him through. One was his wife, who was already dead at the time, but whom he felt very deeply in his heart and always had the feeling that his wife’s gaze rested on him.

And the second thing was that he imagined giving lectures to young psychology students after the war about how one could actually survive a concentration camp. This enabled him to adopt a different perspective and create a sense of meaning that carried him through this suffering.

Frankl also describes how concentration camp prisoners were there. You could see that when they exchanged their food for cigarettes, it was a kind of inner death. Three or four days before they starved and died, you could already see in their eyes that their hope had gone out, that meaning was no longer there. Viktor Frankl then based his entire psychotherapy on this creation of meaning. He said that this is above all the work we do for the world and the relationships we maintain. But that would be another topic. Today I really just wanted to give an introduction to the topic of Saluhealth.

What you can remember is that there is a continuum between health and illness, with many intermediate stages. There are resistance resources that help us move toward coherence. And there is this sense of coherence, which is a sensory organ that we can practice, even though it is usually buried.

And this sense of coherence itself, in turn, has a kind of threefold structure: thinking, feeling, and willing—or comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. When these interconnect and contribute to creating meaning, we are on the path to Saluhealth, regardless of our external circumstances. It doesn’t matter whether we have little or a lot of money, whether we’re in prison or lying in a hammock under a palm tree, whether we’re single or in a happy relationship.

External things then play an increasingly smaller role. Even our physical health may become secondary. Because independently of our physical health, we can also develop mental and emotional well-being. And in the long term, mental and emotional well-being is often correlated with stable physical health. Especially when it comes to chronic processes—aging processes, not acute injuries.

Finding the sources of health within us, nurturing, honoring, and discovering our resources. That could be an exciting task on this path toward individual health. Because what we have learned and what the whole world tells us is pathogenesis. The doctor has now said, “You have diagnosis XYZ.” And now you identify with diagnosis XYZ. And then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

1% of humanity are psychopaths. So-and-so many percent of humanity suffer from depression. So-and-so many percent of humanity suffer from chronic back pain. So-and-so many percent of humanity suffer from anxiety disorders. So-and-so many percent suffer from, I don't know what—it doesn't really matter. That means one is always placed in some kind of species-like category. There are so-and-so many horses. And there are so-and-so many sheep. etc.

So suddenly one becomes part of some group. And as far as pathogenesis is concerned, that is also true. WWe are simply human beings. And each of us tends in a different direction in our pathology. One person may be more prone to one thing, another to something else. But it is not at alls individualit within it. It is genetic, epigenetic, and shaped by society.

But in salutogenesis—in the process of becoming healthy—we are individual. Because how this particular person overcomes their cancer, if they overcome it. Or how this particular person emerges from this persistent exhaustion. Or whatever it may be. Or difficult life situations. This how is individual. There is no model for it.

That is a path all its own. And the salutogenesis model can serve as a kind of compass, a kind of reference point. But figuring out exactly what works for me. And who, specifically, can help me take the next step. And where I tend toto sabotage myself. And how I deal with it and then manage to set things right again. And how I now solve it creatively. And follow my own calling more closely. In other words, restore my coherence and thereby also come closer to my purpose. Or my essence. What makes me unique is individual; only I can do it.

II claim that if we look at what makes us unique, what makes us impossible to confuse with anyone else— It depends on ME. – what only we can do, jthe closer we come to it, the closer we also come to coherence. And the farther we are from it because we want to conform to certain ideas or expectations, or follow implanted beliefs that are not really ours, the farther away we are from it.

Salutogenesis is that is synonymous with individuation, mit Self-actualizddevelopment. This is a term coined by Carl Gustav Jung. He says that as human beings develop, they increasingly become themselves. They move ever closer to the to, what a human being could be. In this respect, they also develop beyond the animal-like. And beyond the Childish. And from all regressive forms of existence. Into which we are repeatedly invited today as well. To gather in some kind of group or collective, into ar way Tribalism. We are the good ones and they are the bad ones. Or to behave childishly to behave, the other person is supposed to do it for me. Dhe is to blame.

We can see that it does not work. Even though it is still widely practiced today. And you can keep falling back into it. A system that is extremely stressed tends to regress into older states. It only that not good in the long run. Because at some point it ends in a dead end. And then a leap must come. Into this future. The future that Viktor Frankl went through the concentration camp with. The future with which Anne Frank also wrote her book. Even though she herself died, her work has survived.

I invite you to seek out this future. If you are someone who asks the question of salutogenesis, then you are someone who is concerned with their health. Someone who has had enough of conventional medicine. Someone who has had enough of alternative medicine. And someone who realizes that there must be more. And there is more. There is your individual path to greater health, greater coherence, greater connectedness, more love, and more meaning.

That was my thought for Friday. I hope you enjoyed thisr text be pleasing. You can it would like to share and comment on. I am delighted about that, to hear, what you how you feel about it and think, wwhat your experiences with the subject are.