The Six Pillars of Health Management

(This article originally appeared in the February 8th, 2011 edition of the Century City News)

By Herman Kelting, PhD

Have you ever wondered about designing a life plan that gives you the most enjoyment for the remainder of your life? Of course you have! And now, I’d like to help you augment that plan with some ideas about health improvement. I’ve called the model “The Six Pillars of Health Management” because I have found that a combination of six categorical tangible and intangibles should be integrated in a manner that is unique to each of us. And while I can help with describing the six categories, only you can find, with the assistance of other professional assistance, the careful balance among the Six Pillars to promote your well being. Thus, strategic planning and risk assessment, stress and relationship management, environmental quality, and diet form complex interactions that are determinative of your achievements and happiness…and we must accomplish to be happy.

In this, my first article in The Century City News, I would like to begin by introducing each of the Six Pillars and, in future articles, provide more detailed information for each. Indeed, this material is introductory education material. It is ‘introductory’ in the sense of being inherently incomplete requiring further inquiry; but I sincerely hope that the ideas I share with you contribute to a greater awareness of health management issues, provide guidance to improve your health management plan, and permit you to evaluate better professional medical recommendations (e.g., influencing your choice of dental implant material and design).

The Six Pillars of health management are:
1. Strategic planning and risk assessment for improved health
Each day, it’s really important to review your strategic plan for the level of health you wish to have during your lifetime rather than living day-to-day with no long-term vision. Do you wish an active and robust life being professionally productive and doing the things that give you really enjoy…and are you prepared to discipline your daily actions to assure that your daily choices do not undermine your long-run goals? For example, very heavy exercise including contact sports and always eating for enjoyment may provide enjoyment when one is young, but may also promote very serious health consequences in the future. Thus, your daily application of the Six Pillars requires futuristic modeling.
Risk assessment, including both risk analysis and risk management, is an inherent part of a strategic plan. Risk analysis requires assessment of the prospective variation in benefits and injury from Six Pillar behavior, and risk management requires discipline to change behavior to reduce the variance in one’s prediction of good health and personal enjoyment. For example, the research of neuropathologist Dr. Ann Magee discovered serious long-term health problems from contact sports and risk management would suggest avoiding such sports.
In future articles, we would like to expand upon strategic planning and risk assessment because I believe they are under managed and because they drive substantially all human behavior.
2. Exercise
Exercise is a wonderful activity for personal recreation and to enhance one’s perception of well being; it’s important not only during the activity, but to raise one’s energy, focus, and vision in our personal and professional activities.
In future articles, we hope to offer some ideas on the frequency, types, and intensity of exercise and the interaction of exercise with the other Five Pillars.
3. Stress management
Stress management is as important as the food we eat because absorption of nutrients depend upon a general mood of relaxation, and that is often difficult to achieve in a world that seems to demand so much of each individual. Thus, we hope to discuss stress management techniques and show their importance to the other Five Pillars.
4. Relationship management
Our relationships are inexorably related to the other Five Pillars and particularly to our fundamental model of how we perceive others. Thus, it is crucial that one have a strategic relationship plan that results in the best possible voluntary and involuntary relationships. We must realize that it is important to live with a spirit of helpfulness and service to others and to smooth even the most difficult of relationships. Thus, we hope to offer some ideas for a relationship management model that permits one to improve their vision of others.
5. Reduction of pollution
Pollution is a major contributor to health and we hope to discuss its reduction in three general categories: (1) indoor air quality, (2) dental hygiene, and (3) a dietary plan that contributes to cleaning our drive train. Thus, for, example, I hope to discuss a few of the factors that contribute to the best in indoor air quality.
6. Diet and food supplements
A diet which complements the other Five Pillars is difficult to define because the global model of food and food supplements is amorphously large in its dynamic interaction with the other five pillars and our unique physical bodies; “dynamic” refers to daily changes in our physical attributes as we interact with food, undergo stress, have different relationships, and are exposed to environmental factors.
In future articles, I hope to discuss the causes of physical discomfort, different food groups (e.g., enzymes, fats and oils), and food supplements and show their importance to our well being.


Michael Douglas Carlin is the director of the movies Luvicide and American Federale. Recently he completed a ten-year stint as the Publisher and Editor of the Century City News. Here his articles turned into three books: Rise a Knight, A Prescription for Peace, and Peaceful Protests.