What is Holistic Wellness?
Holistic wellness strives to balance a person’s mind, body, environment, and spirit.
The two most common ways to think of holistic wellness are as a medical approach to wellness (also called holistic medicine) that promotes overall health, and more generally, as an integrative lifestyle practice that strives toward overall wellness.
Holistic wellness has become increasingly popular as more and more people strive toward balanced wellness, self-care, intentionality, and living a better life.
Generally, as the name implies, holistic wellness is about striving for being well in a way that utilizes every part of a person’s life, including the body and mind, emotional wellness and mental health, spiritual and social wellness, and overall wellness.
Holistic means knowing and valuing the interconnectedness of all the parts of something. So, rather than just focusing on symptoms or specific issues, the concept involves how every aspect of a person intersects to influence their overall wellness, including even their personal relationships.
Holistic care looks at many factors in order to design a whole-person approach that can improve a person’s whole life, in an expansive sense as well as down to the tiny details. If you were to go to a holistic wellness center, they would focus on a number of key factors, that would take into account a person’s:
Fitness
Diet
Intentionality
Spiritual healing
Mental health
Social health
Nutrition
Physical activity
Openness
Mental state
Physical fitness
Financial health
Environmental factors
Emotional health
Why is holistic wellness important
The Interconnected perspective promoted by holistic wellness allows for a deeper understanding of the root causes and underlying issues that may be contributing to physical and mental health conditions or general malaise.
Additionally, this holistic care philosophy hinges on the idea that untangling the issues that are preventing someone from living their best life is the key to achieving balance and optimal health in all areas.
The holistic approach is a way for individuals to find their voice and power in their lifestyle or healing process. It also emphasizes slow, meaningful healing over quick fixes, which leads to longevity and peace of mind.
How to achieve holistic wellness
Holistic wellness can be achieved through a variety of methods. In fact, it is often necessary to approach striving for overall wellness by pursuing many avenues of change in one’s life. Consulting holistic wellness centers and practitioners is a good place to start. You can work with a range of providers to make a plan that will foster spiritual and emotional growth as you finetune your mind and body.
Other ways to promote holistic wellness include self-care, optimal nutrition, breathwork, exercise, meditation, yoga, listening to music, mindfulness, optimism, stress management, and counseling.
Even small changes can result in big steps toward the goal of well-being. Additionally, many people find that once they get the ball rolling toward positive lifestyle changes, future changes become easier to start and maintain.
Origins of holistic wellness
The concept of holistic wellness, self-healing, and the importance of treating the entire person rather than just a specific illness or condition goes back millennia and has roots in many ancient cultures. Eastern medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, and traditional Chinese medicine are all based on this holistic, interconnected approach.
The term holistic comes from the Greek holos, meaning whole. Combined with wellness, you get the whole-person approach to health, healing, and happiness. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, who is considered the father of medicine, was also a proponent of this approach to health care. Its origins are said to be in Western culture and can also be traced back to Socrates.
Embrace Holistic Wellness
Those that embrace holistic wellness often find that they arrive at a state of health and happiness like they never imagined – and end up living a better life.