Living with a chronic condition: Why daily habits matter
A diagnosis can change the way you think about your health.
Suddenly, numbers that once seemed abstract, such as blood pressure, blood glucose or cholesterol, may become part of everyday life. There may be medication to remember, appointments to attend and new recommendations to follow.
But medical appointments are only one part of managing a long-term condition. Much of health management happens in ordinary life, from taking prescribed treatment and staying active where appropriate to eating, sleeping and responding when something doesn't feel right.
The scale makes this particularly important. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes were responsible for at least 43 million deaths in 2021, accounting for around 75% of non-pandemic-related deaths worldwide.
Living with a chronic condition can be complex, and no single habit determines someone's health. But appropriate everyday behaviours can play an important role alongside medical care.
Living with a chronic condition goes beyond appointments
Chronic conditions can be very different from one another, and so can the experience of living with them.
Some may have few noticeable symptoms for long periods. Others can affect energy, mobility, concentration, sleep or everyday activities. Some people are also managing several conditions at the same time.
The World Health Organization identifies tobacco use, physical inactivity, unhealthy diets and harmful use of alcohol among the major behavioural risk factors for noncommunicable diseases.
But that doesn't mean chronic conditions are simply the result of individual choices. Genetics, age, environmental exposures, socioeconomic circumstances and access to healthcare can all play a role.
The important point is that some everyday behaviours can become part of prevention and ongoing health management, alongside appropriate treatment and professional care.
Why everyday habits matter
Most of our lives aren't spent in a doctor's office.
For someone managing high blood pressure, care might involve prescribed medication alongside changes to movement, nutrition, smoking or other factors where appropriate. Someone living with diabetes may need to think about medication, nutrition, activity and blood glucose management. Other conditions can require completely different approaches.
There is no universal lifestyle plan for chronic conditions.
What they often have in common is that parts of the care plan need to happen repeatedly between appointments. Medication may need to be taken consistently. A health measure may need to be monitored. Movement or dietary recommendations may need to become part of an existing routine.
That is where everyday habits become important. Not as a replacement for medical treatment, but as part of making an appropriate care plan work in real life.
What does the research tell us?
Movement is one example.
Research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, involving more than 44,000 middle-aged and older adults, found that higher sedentary time was associated with greater mortality risk, while more physical activity was associated with lower risk.
That doesn't mean there is one exercise target suitable for everyone with a chronic condition. What is safe and appropriate depends on the person's health, abilities and medical guidance. But it reinforces the wider value of movement where it can be incorporated safely.
Nutrition matters too, although the right approach can differ considerably between conditions. The PREDIMED trial, for example, found fewer major cardiovascular events among adults at high cardiovascular risk following Mediterranean-style dietary interventions compared with the control group.
The lesson isn't that everyone with a chronic condition should follow the same diet. It's that what we eat regularly can matter, and nutrition should be considered in the context of someone's individual health needs.
Then there is one everyday behaviour that can sometimes receive less attention than exercise or nutrition: following prescribed treatment.
A long-standing WHO report estimated that adherence to long-term therapies among people with chronic diseases in developed countries averaged around 50%. There are many reasons treatment can be difficult to follow, including side effects, cost, complicated schedules, access and simply having to remember another task every day.
That's why difficulties with medication shouldn't be treated as a failure of discipline. If treatment is difficult to manage, causes side effects or creates concerns, those barriers should be discussed with an appropriate healthcare professional. Prescribed medication should not be stopped or changed without professional guidance.
Sleep also belongs in this wider picture. It is increasingly recognised as part of overall physical and cardiovascular health, although pain, medication effects, shift work and sleep disorders can all make rest more complicated for someone managing a long-term condition.
The bigger message is simple: health management rarely comes down to one behaviour.
Making health management work in real life
Knowing what you're supposed to do and fitting it into everyday life are two different things.
When health management involves medication, appointments, movement, nutrition, monitoring and other recommendations at the same time, even simple actions can start to feel like a lot.
It can help to begin with what matters most for your particular condition. General health advice isn't equally relevant to every diagnosis, so recommendations from your healthcare team should guide what needs your attention.
From there, routine can make some actions easier. If something needs to happen regularly, connecting it with an established part of the day can reduce the effort of remembering it every time.
Tracking can be useful too, but more data isn't always better. Depending on the condition and medical guidance, monitoring blood pressure, blood glucose, symptoms, medication or activity may provide useful information. The purpose should be to support care and decision-making, not simply to collect numbers.
And routines need to work on difficult days too. A plan that only works when you have plenty of time and energy may be hard to sustain. Sometimes the most useful question is: what does taking care of my health realistically look like when life gets busy?
If part of a care plan isn't working, speaking up matters. Medication side effects, confusing dietary advice or recommendations that feel impossible to follow are things to discuss with an appropriate healthcare professional.
Managing your health doesn't mean having to manage everything alone.
Managing a chronic condition at work
Chronic conditions don't disappear during working hours.
Someone may need to take medication, attend medical appointments, monitor a health measure, manage fatigue, eat at particular times or make other adjustments related to their condition. Many of those needs may not be visible to colleagues.
For organisations, supporting employees with chronic conditions doesn't mean managing someone's treatment or asking for unnecessary personal health information.
It can mean creating an environment where appropriate flexibility, access to wellbeing resources and respect for privacy make it easier for people to look after their health while working.
It can also mean recognising that people's health needs are different. A wellbeing initiative that works well for one employee may not be appropriate for another.
A healthier workplace isn't one where nobody has a health condition. It's one where having one doesn't automatically make working well more difficult.
Health happens between appointments
Living with a chronic condition can involve tests, appointments, medication and medical recommendations. But much of health management still happens in the ordinary moments between them.
No single meal, walk, night of sleep or healthy choice can control a chronic condition. What matters is how appropriate everyday actions support a wider care plan over time.
At VIWELL, we believe credible health knowledge becomes more useful when it can be translated into realistic action across the different dimensions of wellbeing. For someone living with a chronic condition, that also means recognising individual circumstances and knowing when professional support is needed.
Everyday habits can support health, but they should always complement, never replace, appropriate advice and treatment from qualified healthcare professionals.
Because managing your health isn't only about the next appointment. It's also about what happens between now and then.
References
- World Health Organization. Noncommunicable diseases. WHO Fact Sheet.
- Ekelund, U., Tarp, J., Fagerland, M. W., et al. (2020). Joint associations of accelerometer-measured physical activity and sedentary time with all-cause mortality: a harmonised meta-analysis in more than 44,000 middle-aged and older individuals. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 54, 1499–1506.
- Estruch, R., Ros, E., Salas-Salvadó, J., et al. (2018). Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease with a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil or nuts. New England Journal of Medicine, 378, e34. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1800389.
- World Health Organization. (2003). Adherence to long-term therapies: Evidence for action. World Health Organization.
- Lloyd-Jones, D. M., Allen, N. B., Anderson, C. A. M., et al. (2022). Life's Essential 8: Updating and enhancing the American Heart Association's construct of cardiovascular health. Circulation, 146(5), e18–e43. DOI: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001078.
