Triton 2025 - Magazine - Page 7
SEAFARER WELLBEING
behaviours are uncomfortable and stressful in the sense
that they are sweaty, or associated with taking on something
dif昀椀cult or challenging, physically or psychologically. A lot
of people avoid anything that creates a stress reaction –
climbing stairs, going to the gym – that would do them good.”
‘Promotive competence’ requires exposure to all the
influential factors that a human needs physically, chemically,
physiologically and psychologically. It complements
‘preventive competence’, where the body builds a defence
against other factors – for example, developing an immunity
against bacteria or viruses.
Malmström is concerned that medical professionals today
are seeing an increasing share of people reporting ill health
who are not in the pathological ill health zone and do not
ful昀椀l the criteria for pathological diseases and illness. These
people are in the mid zone.
‘Functional ill health’ is caused by having done too little of
something, he said. “When we develop a de昀椀cit, it creates
symptoms sooner or later; most often sooner, we will start
feeling in our hearts, guts, muscles, minds, that something is
wrong. And what do we call it? ‘I must be ill’.”
It is a daily stress for doctors and other professionals trying
to handle these patients fairly, because there is nothing to
treat. “They are not ill – they lack health.”
It’s a challenge for a professional to be blunt and tell a patient
they are suffering from ‘you have not taken care of yourself
recently’.
As Malmström said: “I can’t do it for you! I can’t take a walk
for you. I can’t eat a healthy lunch for you. I can order lunch
for two, but you have to eat one of them.”
Most people 昀椀nd it more dif昀椀cult to handle psychologically
challenging situations than the physically challenging ones –
it has been considered shameful and not something that you
easily talk about with other people, compared with talking
about physical resilience and strength.
People need to avoid the kinds of influential factors they
really can’t handle, understand the level they can handle and
not expose themselves to any more than they can tolerate, he
explained. However, a person who knows they are going to be
exposed repeatedly to a certain situation – public speaking,
for example – needs to increase their tolerance to this.
“That conscious exposure to such factors, having the
purpose that I want to increase my tolerance capacity, my
strength, my ability to handle these kinds of situations – it
takes a decision to deliberately challenge yourself.”
The challenges
of seafaring
Clas Malmström didn’t come to The Swedish
Club AGM as a maritime ‘outsider’ – he
understands some of the challenges of
seafaring through the experiences of his wife,
who started her career by going to sea.
The couple are both Ju-Jitsu and Karate
enthusiasts and originally met at a 昀椀ghting
camp near Stockholm in the 1990s. “That
explains some of her courage – she’s told
me about several occasions when other crew
members subjected her to attempted sexual
violence and other forms of assault,” he says.
“She was both mentally and
physically tough enough to just
knock them on the nose and say,
‘What the hell are you doing?’. But
not all women are able to do that,
especially if they are physically
weaker and feel completely
dominated by a huge strong man.”
Malmström questions the term ‘stress system’, which was
昀椀rst coined in the 1930s by Hans Selye. “The word ‘stress’
means taking a load; you can count on how much stress this
roof construction should be able to take or how many lorries
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