Holistic Lifestyle-What It Is and The Benefits * Spotlight My Health

What does Holistic Mean?

I think the first thing we need to do is understand what holistic means. That seems to be the beginning of learning about a holistic lifestyle. According to Webster’s dictionary, holistic means “medicinal attempts to treat both the mind and the body together”.

When you research further you find out that holistic treatment for one ailment is not the real goal. Instead, it is to find the underlying problem causing the symptoms so treatment can be done from the ground up, so to speak.

In simple terms “holistic” medicine means looking at a person wholly, rather than just the medical problem at hand.

To me “holistic” means moving from a place of disease or imbalance to a state of wellbeing through looking at the person as a whole, not just their symptoms

That said, let’s look at a good overview of what it means to live a holistically healthy life.

What Is Holistic Living – Your Natural Wellbeing

This lifestyle leads you to live in a way that you look at your whole life all together, not just one part of it. And you take care of yourself, body, mind, emotions and spirit. No band aides to hold things together, but instead you get to the root of any problems that may arise and work from that conclusion.

In a nutshell, a holistic healthy life would mean that you are eating a healthy based diet of protein, veggies and fruit. You would also spend plenty of time out in nature and do some type of daily movement and get plenty of restful sleep.

I’ve been interested in alternative wellbeing for several years now. After a lot of research, that interest began to include holistic or natural living. I’ve always wondered why our Western Medicine didn’t also take into consideration the Eastern practice of medicine that has been around for thousands of years and is based on holistic views.

Why don’t these two modalities of taking care of people come together to address people’s physical and medicinal needs. Both modalities have their pros and cons, so why not marry them to complement each other.

Benefits of a Holistic Lifestyle

Stronger immune system

Less inflammation and pain

More energy

More restful sleep

Life of positivity

More motivation

Increased creativity

Decreased stress

Stronger self-awareness

Parts of a Holistic Lifestyle

Let’s take each of the areas of our lives and look at them from a holistic viewpoint.

Know that each of these parts depend on the others, just like your chakras do. For instance, if your body is falling apart, this will definitely affect your mind along with your emotions and spirit. And our minds, well, our minds are strong enough to definitely effect how your body works.

When your body is physically healthy or your emotions are in check, then your soul/spirit feels like it can fly and smiles at the world. This all makes it easier for you to evolve and grow. Balance produces growth, something we should all be striving for during our whole lives.

Our Body (Physical)

This is the cornerstone of holistic healthy living. Eating whole foods, movement, sleep and sunlight are all crucial to our bodies. And since our bodies are so important to us rather living a holistic life or not, it doesn’t hurt to try natural remedies and healing first before surgery or drugs from “big pharma.”

An example of what I mean—I burned myself quite badly several years ago ending up with a second degree burn about 6 inches long on my calf. I used manuka honey on it and bandaged it before I went to the doctor.

The doctor surprised me and told me to keep using the raw honey and bandage for about a week and see what it looks like. I couldn’t believe it. I had a huge blister, and I thought the honey was an “old wives’ tale.”

But low and behold, the doctor said the manuka honey had been a good idea and should help the burn nicely. And it did. I don’t even have a scar to show where the burn was. That was my lesson learned about holistic health.

To me, it doesn’t hurt to try something new and if it doesn’t help, you can always try something else, including going to the doctor. My family and I don’t hesitate to do that when necessary.

Mind (Emotional and Mental)

With today’s stress, negative thoughts and trauma that can happen, is it any wonder that these things affect us physically. Because each part of us is affected by the other, we need to beef up our self-awareness. Keeping our mind as healthy as our body is just as important.

Stay open-minded and always learning. It does your mind good. Exercise your brain by reading, doing a puzzle, learning a new language or taking up a hobby that uses your brain. Learning something new is exercising your brain like running three miles would be for your body.

We also have to turn our self-awareness inward and watch our self-talk. For most of us women, our self-talk can do more damage to our self esteem and confidence than anyone else could do. Cut the bad talk as soon as you realize you are doing so and turn the positivity on. Only you can turn the negative self-talk off, and you are worth all the positivity that you can throw at yourself. It will do your emotions a world of good.

Soul or Spirit

Many are not in touch with their spirit—they may not even know what I mean when I say that. But to feel truly happy and have a fulfilled life, you need to also recognize and know your spirit. Do you know your life purpose, or do you connect with a higher being on a regular basis? If you do, you will thrive rather than just exist because personal development and self-reflection is good for the soul.

Creating a balance in your life ensures you achieve your highest potential. This is because a holistic lifestyle means you are guided by the principle “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” We need to create harmony between all parts of our life.

A Holistic Lifestyle Is Different For Everyone

Many of us have our own definition of what a holistic lifestyle means. So basically, you need to decide what health and holistic means to you, before you can make a basic plan and move forward. And there is no right or wrong as this lifestyle is different for everyone.

Living a holistic lifestyle is something you have to decide to do and then go for it. I suggest figuring out how important it is to you and then start living holistically by intention.

Intention is right up there with other elements of holistic living. And deciding on being intentional with your holistic life means you are also intentional with your thoughts, words and actions.

Being intentional with your thoughts doesn’t mean with just your life and what’s going on around you. It means that you are also intentional with your thoughts toward yourself and your self-talk as I mentioned earlier.

Does your self-talk continually tear down your self-esteem and confidence? Is that your intention? Not much happiness down that road. Thoughts and words affect how you look at the world around you. They also affect your self-esteem and how you interpret life events. So, make your intention to be positive and the self-esteem high so more happiness comes into your life. That’s living with intention.

Guiding Principles for a Holistic Lifestyle

The things that are most considered the principles of a holistic lifestyle are: movement, good sleep, gratitude, personalized nutrition, self-care, positive connections with others and holistic or alternative medicine.

The trick with these principles is to figure out how to work them into your life so you just do them. Like brushing your teeth, you get up in the morning, go to the bathroom and brush your teeth. Next you go out for your morning walk. You just do it, killing two birds with one stone.

The walking becomes a habit, you get your movement in, and you spend time in nature. Working these principles into your life helps them to contribute to your overall wellbeing.

Movement

Try and make your movement joyful or at least something you like doing. This is important so that you continue doing it. After all, if you don’t like the movement or exercise you have chosen, what are the chances you will stick with it. Find something that you may look forward to doing. Experiment with different things until you find something you like and can live with.

I actually do several different things, basically because I hate being hot and sweaty and I get bored easily. I keep track of my steps during the day. On breaks at work, I’ll take a quick walk around the block. Or if I’m at the copier for any length of time, I step in place while I’m standing there.

When I get home, I have a step glider that I do for 10-15 minutes, or I put on a playlist of music that I can’t keep from getting up and dancing around to. Something like “Uptown Funk”. I just can’t, not, move when that song comes on.

I’ve got a couple of 10-minute playlists that I will put on and dance and move around too.

Movement doesn’t have to be boring and doing something you like makes it much easier to be consistent.

Holistic Based Medicine

This is something different for everyone. You may like plant- based medicine or Eastern medicine. You can also add in some of the healing modalities like Reiki.

Or you may decide like I have, that I like a combination of both Eastern and Western Medicine. That’s the good thing about a holistic lifestyle, it allows me to know and decide when it is appropriate to use something like the Manuka Honey I talked about earlier or go see my physician when I need to. I love being able to use a natural cure when I know I can. To me it creates a perfect balance of Eastern and Western Medicine.

Plenty of Restful Sleep

Americans tend to not get enough sleep. We work too much, and stress seems to be the name of the game. But to have balance in our lives, we need good, restful sleep. It should be a routine. Try doing the same things every night in order to get ready for bed. Then go to bed at relatively the same time each night. This prepares your body and mind for sleep.

You can also try something like meditation. It helped me by calming down my mind enough to fall asleep. If you are new to the thought of meditation, see my article on Meditation for Beginners.

Self-Care For A Holistic Lifestyle

Don’t say no to self-care before understanding why it is so important. Taking care of yourself is vital to the balance of your mind, body and soul. If you don’t take care of yourself, how can you take care of the others in your life the way you want to. And it’s the balance that helps create the happy, holistic lifestyle that you want.

Self-care is simply practicing and engaging in activities on a regular basis to effectively reduce your stress and enhance your wellbeing.

It is to lower or prevent stress, exhaustion and burnout. When living a holistic life, you need to listen to your body and what it’s trying to tell you. Be intentional for the good of your body and your wellbeing. There is no wrong here, just what is right for you. When you start to veer off track, just remember the basis of this lifestyle is intentionally taking care of your complete self, body, mind, spirit and emotions. Be intentional about your choices.

And relax. A bubble bath, reading a good book, spending time with friends or watching a good movie are all good for relaxing.

A cup of coffee or a glass of wine on the deck for an half hour isn’t a bad idea either. It’s OK to spend time on yourself. It’s good for you in the long run.

Gratitude

There’s nothing better that the universe likes than someone showing gratitude. Believe it or not, gratitude is good or your soul because it makes you feel good.

Each evening try to come up with three things that you are grateful for. Start a gratitude journal and write those three things down. Besides the universe hearing your gratitude, it will remind you of the good things in your life. And when the universe feels that gratitude it will send us more of what brings us happiness.

There’s no one thing that will make us happy, but showing gratitude will certainly cause the universe to notice, you will feel good and better things will come your way.

Positive Connection With Others is Good for A Holistic Lifestyle

How we get along socially also contributes to our wellbeing. This is because our “health” encompasses more than just how we feel physically or the food we eat or the movement we do. Our emotions also come into play for balance and that balance sometimes depends on how well we get along with others.

And to function at our best we need good social support. This support includes family, spouse, kids and friends. You need to determine those that help you rise to your potential and bring positivity into your life and those that don’t. Only you can decide if changes need to be made.

Specific/Personalized Nutrition

What we put into our bodies makes a big difference in the way we feel physically. Our food makes its way into every single cell of our body. So it’s important to pay attention to what fuel we use and why it should be specific to our own bodies. It’s like trying to run a high classed car on regular leaded gas. It may work, but not very smoothly. What foods work well for my body may not give your body the same results. We need to pay more attention to how our bodies react to the foods we eat.

My husband and I are a good example. He can eat consistently and never gains any weight. On the other hand, I need to be very careful as its easy for me to gain weight, but yet at the same time if I don’t eat enough of the right foods, I feel the difference.

For one, I’ve always gotten shaky if I don’t eat on some type of schedule, but since my weight loss surgery, I’ve begun to realize my body also doesn’t like it if I don’t eat the foods that it actually needs to function at its optimum.

I can tell when I need protein, or I crave a salad. It took months for me to start realizing this, but once I started really paying attention to my body rather than just eating what everyone else is eating, I was able to tell the difference. Try listening to your body. It will tell you what it needs.

Ways to Begin Living A Holistic Lifestyle

A holistic lifestyle is a very sustainable and healthy way of living your life in a balanced way. It’s you deciding to take charge of your own health and wellbeing.

You just need to be intentional with the choices that you make for yourself in reference to the principles I have already written about. All the principles are already part of your life. You just need to make the choice to heal every aspect of your life to change for the good of your wellbeing. And then do it consistently.

With this type of lifestyle, you choose to become self-aware of the “bigger picture” of your life in that all the smaller parts of your life are interconnected and therefore need to balance. It is a mindset and a way of life that is much more than just taking care of your physical self. Let’s look at how to do that.

**Being mindful and self-aware of what fuel you are putting into your body.

Remember to start paying attention to what you put in your body and how it makes you feel. Then make adjustments.

Don’t forget the water. Did you know that we should be drinking half our body weight of water each day? For example: if you weigh 150 lbs. divided by 2 would be 75 oz. of water, daily.

**Practicing techniques to bring stress levels down or finding healthy emotional outlets.

Find ways to break down the stress in your life. It will do your body, mind and spirit a ton of good.

Meditation, deed breathing, grounding, massage, energy work such as Reiki, bubble bath, aromatherapy, walk in nature or even yoga are all excellent for helping with stress. Anything that brings some relaxation and make you feel good.

**Journaling for Yourself or About Gratefulness

This is something to do for yourself. Write whatever comes to mind, what you are grateful for, how your day went or how you felt throughout your day.

Journaling can become part of our day. Work it into your day. For instance, write during your commute to or from work. This would be fairly easy if you are not doing the driving.

**Being Intentional During A Holistic Lifestyle

This includes what you do, say and think. It also has to do with who you hang out with and where you spend your energy. Remember your Mom or Dad telling you that you are who you hang with. That applies to adults also. Positive, upbeat friends won’t bring you down.

Being intentional also means you are taking charge of how you want to live your life. You are making a conscious choice to heal yourself and all aspects of your life to create the wellbeing that you want for you.

**Sustainable, healthy habits

Good, healthy habits that become a way of life bring about change. As I said earlier, taking care of you has to be something you eventually do without thinking about it. That’s a habit. So go slow with the changes you may want to make to live a holistic life. Eventually, the changes will just be you. Healthy, consistent habits are what leads to success.

**Never Stop Learning

It is important to keep our minds in tip top shape throughout our lives. Your mind actually likes thinking through problems and/or learning new things. Learn about whatever you are interested in or about yourself. Just keep the mind working like you move your body.

**Set a “do not disturb” time an hour or two before bedtime.

This is something I had to start several years ago with my daughter. Due to a car accident, she has a TBI and no edit button because of it.

She thinks nothing of coming in my room at all hours which resulted in not much sleep and I had to get up the next morning for work.

I’m usually in my room by 9:00 pm and after that time, I’m done for the day. I need the hour or so, to calm down from my day enough to sleep.

It took several months for her to get used to me not being available after that time. When she would come into my room and start chatting about nothing in particular, I’d remind her what time it is.

She now knows and respects that if my bedroom door is shut and it is after 9:00 pm, the day is over for me. The only exception is if she needs me for medical reasons. Otherwise, she is also in her room for the night, and I think she likes her own down time now too because she announces when she is going to her bedroom. 😊

This is also your time to “turn off.” Set aside whatever you may have been doing or working on and all techie stuff including your phone. Pick up a book for some reading or do some journaling. Anything that helps your mind to quiet down for the night.

When you’ve done this for a while, your body and mind get the message that it is time for sleep.

Final Thoughts On Living A Holistic Lifestyle

Are you stressing out about things you can’t control? Do you scroll through social media until you are angry? Are you spending your energy on people that do nothing to lift you up?

Try to intentionally change to living a holistic lifestyle and see how you feel. Then be aware of where you spend your precious time and energy and realize how you can turn it around for your own wellbeing. Your choices matter every single day as the days are accumulative for how your life works. And that choice should be up to you.

I’m so glad that I decided to write about holistic living as lately I had veered of my chosen path. Writing and sharing about a holistic lifestyle has reminded me what I want for myself. Sometimes we all need reminded to take care of ourselves.

I hope you decide to take charge and start making the life you want for yourself. If you do, let me know and we can get a chat going and share things we both have come up with to make our holistic lifestyle even better. I hope this post has helped you.