Holistic wellness is a broad concept that encompasses mental, physical, and spiritual health. It’s an approach to overall wellness rooted in ancient medicine and various alternative practices.
This holistic approach to wellness goes beyond treating a specific health complaint or symptom and instead examines the entire person, from diet and exercise routine to stress and vitamin levels. It’s a way to root out issues that may undermine your ability to fully realize your potential and enjoy life.
Physical
Physical wellness includes proper exercise, healthy eating, sleep habits, and avoiding behavior that could negatively impact your health, such as alcohol/tobacco use. This approach to overall health can also help you maintain a positive mood and better cognitive function.
The key is to stay aware of your whole body, mind, and spirit so you can make informed decisions about what changes will be most beneficial for you.
For example, if you regularly experience stomach aches, traditional wellness practices often advise you to take medication. However, holistic medicine providers will seek to find the root cause of your symptoms to eliminate them.
The holistic wellness approach can help you overcome challenges, progress in therapy, improve stress management, and increase life satisfaction. It can also lead to greater self-esteem and confidence.
Mental
Mental wellness is a broad term that covers a wide range of topics, including self-care practices like meditation and mindfulness. It also includes a variety of therapeutic techniques focusing on healing the mind, body, and spirit.
Having holistic health is a pathway to healing that helps you develop resilience. It teaches you how to manage stress and avoid distressing thoughts.
A holistic approach to mental wellness takes a whole-body approach and looks at the person, not their diagnosis. It combines modern medicine using medications or prescriptions to stabilize brain chemistry with Eastern therapies, such as mindfulness and meditation, says Brooke Asbury, a mental health therapist at Mirmont Treatment Center, part of Main Line Health.
Emotional
We all know the importance of maintaining good physical health, but it’s essential to recognize that our emotional health also plays a vital role in achieving holistic wellness. People who feel emotionally healthy generally feel content with themselves and don’t need to change or be someone else.
Emotional wellness is about recognizing your feelings and appropriately responding to them. When you are emotionally healthy, you don’t get stuck in negative emotions and can easily ride the waves of ups and downs that life throws at you.
Spiritual
A holistic wellness approach takes into account many facets of health. It includes emotional, social, vocational, and intellectual factors and physical well-being.
Spiritual wellness connects with something larger than yourself and the world around you. It may include religion, meditation, or a sense of personal ethics and values.
Individuals who find spiritual wellness often have a clearer sense of their purpose in life and how their actions affect others within their sphere of influence and beyond. This can help them to become better people and inspire acts of kindness, compassion, and altruism.
Social
The social wellness dimension of holistic wellness involves creating and maintaining a healthy support network. This includes developing and nurturing relationships with friends, family, colleagues, mentors, and mentees.
A healthy social network can positively affect your physical and mental health. It can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and infectious diseases and decrease mortality rates, to name a few.
Maintaining a healthy social network is a lifelong process that requires attention throughout the entire journey of life. It’s like keeping a flower garden–it takes effort, time, energy, and care, but if you take care of it, it will flourish and grow.
