Why is holistic health important?

In modern days we measure health in a series of numbers and diagnosis, which look at the body in groups of individual symptoms and separated entities rather than as a whole system.

Western medicine has indeed brought many lifesaving advancements and technologies over the last few decades, however it has created a deeper than ever gap from the traditional body-wisdom approach.

Holistic healing or holistic health is often defined as a more traditional form of healing that looks at the whole person: body, mind, and spirit. This approach often involves multiple complimentary medicines and alternative healthcare practices that can overlap with modern-day western medicine, but will go beyond the limitation of treating individual symptoms, in favour for a wholistic approach.

Traditional medicine has been adopted since the times of indigenous cultures is often called complementary or alternative medicine.

It is a combination of ancient knowledge, skills, and practices used to maintain health, as well as to prevent, diagnose, improve, or treat physical and mental illnesses.

Another name of alternative medicine is herbal medicine as at the centre of it all are the natural herbs and plants that nature has been providing since the begging of it all.

Plants typically contain mixtures of different phytochemicals, also known as secondary metabolites that may act individually, additively, or in synergy to improve health. Indeed, medicinal plants, unlike pharmacological drugs, commonly have several chemicals working together catalytically and synergistically to produce a combined effect that is often greater than the ones of the individual plants.

Other commonly used practises in traditional medicine are:

When all these traditional practises are adopted complimentary the chances for a person to experience a deeper wellness and inner happiness are much higher.

While today the life expectancy is much higher, the levels of chronic stress and fatigue have skyrocket.

Today we are all consuming nutrient poor foods, we are exposed to hundreds of potentially harmful chemicals through the air, water, cleaning and personal care products on a daily.

More and more people, who are suffering with chronic disease or undiagnosable symptoms are starting to turn to the traditional holistic practises, as the modern healthcare has been failing to provide a concrete cure - instead it focuses on masking the symptoms.

The5 pillars of holistic health: physical, emotional, social, spiritual,and mental.

When it comes to holistic health we are looking beyond the physical body. We are, in fact, talking about physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual health. All of these 5 pillars of holistic health are what empowers a person to truly live each day in the healthiest, happiest way possible. It goes beyond saying that if one of these elements is compromised, most likely other areas will be as well.

Physical health is what most of us instantly associate with the concept of health and its the easiest one of the 5 pillars to measure and diagnose as the body is the first to show us any signs or symptoms if theres something wrong.

When it comes to supporting your physical health, its important to ensure time and space for as many of the below activities in your lifestyle:

Too often overlooked our emotional wellbeing is as important as the physical one, especially because it can impact negatively on our physical health when ignored.

The below practises are all great way to look after your emotional health:

We are all born social creatures and we thrive when interconnected with other humans.

Researches have shown that the happiest people on earth have all deep and meaningful connections with their family, friends and community.

Ways to care for your social health involve:

Spiritual wellbeing does not necessarily mean that you need to be or become religious, although the two often have overlapping effects. Instead your spiritual health should focus on how you are connecting with your inner soul, with nature and the greater world around you.

Ways to support your spiritual health:

The last but not least aspect of holistic health is our mental health, which can often overlap with both our emotional and physical health. The main difference between mental and emotional wellbeing is that while the first refers mostly to our daily mood and emotions, our mental health refers to the cognitive abilities that affect how our brain functions.

Ways to support mental health:

This is why its so important to look at health from a holistic point of view, because to truly achieve optimal wellness in the physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual sense we have to be viewing and supporting the body as the incredible system it is.