Our modern world is hectic and stressful, and many of us have to live through it in a very reactive way. We go from one part of our life to the next, with little time to consider how things impact us.
Our work life is totally separate from our home life. Nutrition, exercise, and self-care are often afterthoughts. If you’d like to transition to a life where everything is a little more connected and your well-being is given more attention, you may want to consider a holistic lifestyle.
What is a Holistic Lifestyle?
A holistic lifestyle is a way of going through life with intentionality and the understanding that everything you do is connected. In particular, this approach focuses on how your spiritual and mental well-being impact your physical health and vice versa.
In practice, a holistic life incorporates aspects of physical, spiritual, and mental wellness into your day-to-day life as much as possible.
What is Holistic Health?
Holistic health is an approach to health that sees the full picture and focuses on preventing illness. Practitioners of naturopathy and functional medicine take a holistic approach, treating the person rather than the symptoms.
Instead of prescribing medications for illnesses, naturopaths look for root causes of imbalance in one’s life. Those who follow holistic living often gravitate towards holistic health practitioners, since the two approaches are complementary.
How to Start a Holistic Lifestyle
Starting to live holistically can seem like a big, scary project, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are our tips for getting started, one small step at a time.
1. Take Stock of Your Lifestyle
Before you can start living holistically, take a moment to examine your current life and habits. What are the things you do in life that you absolutely love, and don’t want to change? What are the things that aren’t serving your goals? By having a complete understanding of where you are right now and where you want to be in the future, you’ll be able to identify the ways in which you want to make changes.
2. Build New Routines Slowly
Our modern life is busy and stressful, so making big changes all at once just isn’t realistic. Instead, find the little areas where you think it’ll be easier to make change happen. That can mean finding 5 minutes to do mindfulness meditation in the morning or cooking at least one meal a week out of nothing but whole foods.
3. Introduce Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a practice related to meditation that is well-researched for its positive effect on mental health. It’s based on the idea of living and existing with awareness and acceptance of the current moment.
The positive effects of mindfulness on psychological well-being are well-documented. Practicing mindfulness is usually first done as a short, meditative practice. During that time, you learn the tools to calm yourself and feel more in the moment, which can then permeate through the rest of your day.
4. Eat More Naturally
One of the key principles in holistic medicine comes from Hippocrates: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” In the context of holistic health, that means eating foods loaded with nutrients that have protective, healing, and anti-inflammatory properties.
The best way to start is by finding ways to incorporate more plants into your diet since an all-or-nothing approach often fails. As you progress, you can aim for a more comprehensive holistic diet where plants have a predominant role, along with healthy fats, whole grains, and lean proteins.
Food should be minimally processed, as organic as possible, and free from unnecessary preservatives and other chemicals, but you don’t need to be perfect in order to feel like you’re doing something good for your body and soul.
5. Movement and Exercise
Incorporating movement into your life is really fundamental to a holistic lifestyle. Practices like yoga that allow you to connect your body and spirit are a classic choice, but any form of exercise is extremely important for both physical and mental health.
The important thing is to find a way to incorporate exercise in a way that’s sustainable for you.
6. Invest In Your Health
One of the most fundamental parts of holistic living is prioritizing and investing in your health. For some, that means quitting smoking or limiting drinking. For others, it means working with a naturopath to develop a nutritional and supplement plan that’s geared toward their body’s needs. What’s key is understanding that you only get one body in life, and it deserves to be well-taken care of.
7. Champion Your Mental Health
The mind-body connection is very real, so championing your mental health is just as important as physical health. In a way, mindfulness and exercise are both excellent ways of boosting mental health, but they’re not cure-alls. Prioritizing your mental health can mean seeing a therapist, cutting back on news and social media that stress you out, or quitting a job at a toxic workplace.
Live Holistically With a Naturopath’s Help
Anyone can make the transition to a holistic lifestyle. You don’t need to be a yoga guru or strict vegan to live more holistically. All you need to do is start with those tiny, little steps towards healthier living. Learning mindfulness will allow you to identify how every moment of every day can serve to nurture your body or soul.
If the idea of starting still seems daunting, consider enlisting the support of holistic life services! As a naturopath, I practice functional medicine, which is an approach to health care that’s preventative rather than reactive.
I can help you discover what kinds of foods and supplements will make you feel your best, and how to find sustainable ways to exercise and practice self-care. If you’d like to get started, schedule your first consultation.