The Importance of Holistic Health And Wellness In Your Life

When you hear the word holistic what immediately springs to mind? For many people, the word is a reminder of hippy or new age practices that shouldn’t be taken too seriously but the importance of holistic health and wellness is a growing phenomenon in general health care.

The is a growing recognition that in order to help a patient or person with their health and wellness medicine needs to look a little further than just their physical well-being. For a person to truly be healthy it is necessary to address a wider approach to healing which is where holistic health care becomes important.

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What is Holistic Well-Being?

So what exactly does holistic well-being actually mean? Well, the term is generally used to mean looking at the whole person instead of just a component part of their life or lifestyle.

A holistic approach recognises there is a body-mind connection and that our overall health is often dependent not just on the presenting problem but on other factors as well.

An example of this in practice could be a person coming to see a doctor complaining of having problems with insomnia. A doctor can check to see if that person is experiencing an illness or pain that might be causing the problem but what about if their lifestyle was to blame? Anyone working late into the night or partying too much could be causing the symptoms by pushing their body to the limits.

Holistic health and wellness doesn’t just look at a narrow range of physical issues to get the answer it looks at the bigger picture to incorporate strategies for well-being,

What Are The 5 Components of Holistic Health?

There are 5 key components that relate to the importance of holistic health. These are Emotional, physical, social, mental and spiritual health. All of these need to be addressed so that you are dealing with the whole person rather than parts of their health and well-being.

Holistic health is a methodology of looking at the body-mind connection, lifestyle, physical health, mindset and social interaction. When the balance between all of these elements is working well then a patient or therapy client is going to feel happier and healthier.

Traditional therapy or medicine has a tendency to overlook the bigger picture and because of that holistic health practitioners and coaches felt it was time to plug the gap and create an alternative approach.

Incorporating Holistic Practices Into Your Life

Trying to incorporate holistic practices in your life can make a huge difference to your physical health as well as your mental health. Holistic living isn’t a fad or something to be overlooked but an important part of wellness that can change your life.

As an example are you going to feel positive benefits if you get enough sleep each night? Well of course you are as your stress levels will lower, your body has time to recover each night and you will have more energy the next day. Your immune system will also function better and that can help with healing, reducing inflammation and your medical wellness. It may also mean that you eat less as people who are tired are more likely to reach for sweet sugary snacks for energy.

With this simple example getting enough sleep can have a huge impact on your overall health, physical body and mental health. Now imagine that you decided to alter your life in other areas as well. What benefits could you get by taking alternative steps to improve your overall wellness?

So how can you incorporate the five areas of holistic health into your life? Well here are some ways that you can make a difference to your health and happiness.

Holistic Care In Mental Health

How our mental health is can actually be thought of in three ways. First, there is the genes that we are born with, secondly the problems and issues we encounter as we are growing up and finally the lifestyle that we are choosing to lead today. Whilst there is little that can be done to change your genes it is possible to address your past and take care of your wellness in the present.

The importance of holistic health in helping you to have a more positive and happier mindset is making sure that you are doing the right things to keep your emotional state well. If you follow some basic simple steps you can make a big difference to issues such as anxiety or depression. If however, you continue to do the wrong things you will cause problems.

Firstly make sure that you reduce your stress levels. Lowering your stress means that you are preventing problems such as anxiety from triggering. Lower stress levels will also mean better sleep and as we touched on earlier that can impact your entire body, mind and spirit. A simple way to do this is to take time out regularly to deeply relax. Our guided meditation for stress reduction and relaxation can really help to reduce stress symptoms.

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Eat the right foods and nourishing your body can also help you to be healthy. Good nutritious foods give you energy and keep you physically well which in turn help your mental health.

Sleeping well is also important as when you suffer from a lack of sleep it has an impact on your mental and emotional health. Aim to get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep a night. Do you want to know how to get sleepy when you find it hard to switch off? Well, the link to our article can help. We particularly love our sleep meditation download and a good weighted blanket to help with relaxation.

Also, remember that how you treat your body has an impact on mental health issues. In particular drinking too much, substance abuse and so on. Leading a healthier lifestyle can reap big benefits and change your life.

Physical Holistic Health Care

Perhaps the importance of holistic health is best known when it involves the physical body itself. Everyone knows that if you don’t look after your physical health it can cause problems elsewhere. However whilst doctors are increasingly becoming aware of the mind-body connection they don’t always put it into practice.

Holistic medicine doesn’t just treat the presenting problem or symptoms but issues elsewhere in your life or environment. When you treat those areas it can alter your physical health.

Food is a prime area where you can make a difference. Eat to Beat Disease is a best-selling book that teaches you to eat properly to help reduce inflammation and help your physical health. The right food can help with healing and keep you healthy yet so many people are eating junk food which is having the opposite effect.

Getting enough exercise is also important to help your body, mind and spirit. Staying active and moving your body every day helps to keep you healthy and supple. Plus exercise is known for helping create good mental-emotional health. You don’t need to run marathons or exercise excessively to get a benefit but you do need to move your body each day. Why not get a treadmill to use at home and walk every day at pace. That alone can make a difference.

Spiritual Holistic Health and Healing

Nurturing your spiritual self is important when it comes to holistic health but this area is often the most overlooked. By spiritual health, we aren’t just talking about religion which is of course important for many people but doing activities that nourish your soul to make you feel happy.

If your faith is important to you then by all means practice it and make sure that you have in place a way of making sure this is not neglected. For others yoga, meditation, retreats and charity work could all be considered spiritual self-care ideas.

Take a look at your life and make sure that you have some form of spiritual activity in your life so that you nourish this part of your soul. If you haven’t got something then start by looking at something such as yoga which can help you physically and spiritually. All you need is a simple yoga starter kit to begin.

Emotional Holistic Health

Emotional and mental health go hand in hand. Looking after your emotional health and how you deal and process your emotions is essential to your well-being. Emotional health does not mean being upbeat and bursting with happiness every day but it does mean being resilient to life’s ups and downs, having emotional intelligence and so on.

Therapy is one approach to holistic health as it can help you to understand more about yourself and assist you with finding ways to alter your emotions.

Lowering stress which we have already talked about also goes a long way to helping us to process things in a calmer and more rational way. Whilst we can’t cut out all stress from our lives we can find ways to manage and lower it if we take the time.

Think about creating a personal stress management plan to help your stress levels and take back control. Our personal stress management plan printables can help you make changes to your life so that you come up with better alternative actions.

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Social Health

Finally, last but not least we can’t forget the importance of holistic health in the social sphere. People thrive when they have a good social balance and are not lonely or feeling left out.

The problem is that work can often get in the way, deplete our energy levels and prevent us from interacting as well as we should with others. We may neglect our family life, spend less time with our friends and reduce our community involvement because we lack the time of the motivation to involve ourselves with others.

Make sure you find the time to maintain your support networks and stay in touch. If you are feeling lonely start to join some groups or organisations to help you make friends. Get involved in local community projects or charities to meet new people. Just keep working at those connections because if you let them they can easily slide away.