The president is really a dictator. His opponents are oppressed and the elections rigged.

Just a few of the reasons why it’s no bed of roses to live in Belarus.

What makes the country north of Ukraine germane today, however, is not its harsh political climate, but the country’s HALE. That’s the acronym for health-adjusted life expectancy, the average number of years a person can expect to live in full health and not be hampered by disabling illness or injury.

It’s why you could say at least one rose is blooming in Belarus.

According to the World Health Organization, from 2000 to 2021 HALE improved there by 2.89 years, increasing the average to 63.7 years. Because this second-tier country lacks the economy and overall development found in a first-tier country like the United States, those figures should strike you as pretty good.

And the ones about the U.S. as pretty bad.

During the same 21-year stretch, our HALE has decreased by 1.89 years, lowering our average to 63.9 years. Making it only two-tenths of a year better to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave instead of the country that’s Russia’s closest and most important economic and political partner.

But that can’t be right, you say. Americans have everything needed to live injury and illness free for far longer than that.

Is that really so though? Or is there one thing totally unrelated to our country’s tier that many Americans lack and adversely affects both mental and physical health?

Balance.

Become mentally unbalanced and you’re likely to feel depressed, and serious bouts of it in the U.S. are now commonplace. A 2023 Gallup Poll of American adults, for instance, revealed nearly 3 in 10 admitted to being diagnosed as clinically depressed at some time in the past.

In addition, about 18 percent of those surveyed acknowledged being depressed and/or receiving treatment for depression at the moment, a nearly a 64-percent increase from the 2015 survey.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness sees maintaining mental balance as the antidote to the sorts of serious stress that leads to “adverse health effects” and “75 to 90 percent of all physician visits.” An article at their website, “Mental Health Is a Balancing Act,” offers five ways to achieve that oh-so-important equilibrium.

To set priorities, plan ahead, learn to say no, stop wasting time, and always reflect.

The list sounds simple, I know. I also know when I reconsidered the last two weeks of my life and recalled the times when I felt less than my best, downhearted, or even a bit depressed, they all could be linked to failing to follow one of NAMI’s five suggestions.

Speaking of simple suggestions — and another type of balance — Dr. Peter Attia, host of The Drive, one of the most popular podcasts covering the topics of health and medicine, has one to help keep you as active as you’d like to be as you age. It’s to do as he does and devote the first 10 minutes of each workout to work on your balance as a way to improve or maintain stability.

Attia sees aerobic efficiency, anaerobic performance, strength, and stability as the “four pillars of fitness,” with stability being the “secret sauce.”

And to motivate listeners into giving the secret sauce a regular taste, Attia has cited this statistic more than once. If you lose your balance, fall and break your hip, and are 65 years of age or older, there is a 30-to-40 percent chance you’ll be dead in 12 months.

Attia also acknowledges, though, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to stability training because it needs to target your body’s individual areas of weakness.

So for me to share everything Attia does, or I do — and that’s a lot because of the metal rods screwed into both of my femurs — to work on stability wouldn’t work well. That said, there is one simple exercise that works for everyone because you can dictate its degree of difficulty by increasing the amount of time you do it or closing your eyes.

One-leg stands.

Simply bend one knee to lift your foot ahead of you until the knee is aligned with the hips. Hold that position as long as you can, and then repeat the move with the other leg.

If the time you can do so is no more than a few seconds, place one hand on the back of a chair and continue for a bit longer. Do this three or four times with each leg as you build up to being able to do a one-leg stand for a minute with each leg twice and without assistance.

When you reach this point, give yourself a real challenge. Try one-leg stands with eyes closed.

If doing any of this strikes you as a waste of exercise time, think again.

A study published in the October issue of PLOS One found the length of time you can maintain the one-leg stand can serve as a “reliable and gender- independent measure of neuromuscular aging.”