Health is Holistic: So Let's Treat it That Way
You might be wondering - what is holistic health? Well, to help explain, let me share with you a little story that will illuminate what is not holistic health. My friend was struggling with some pain in the part of her cheek next to her nose. She went to the eye doctor, who did all the eye tests and cleared her. She then went to the dentist who checked her teeth and also cleared her, remarking that she should visit the eye doctor even after she mentioned she had already gone (insert eye roll). She went back and forth between these two doctors a few more times since the pain was not subsiding. Finally, she had an unrelated dentist appointment to take out one of her back teeth. During this procedure, when they took out the tooth, a lot of bad discharge came out, revealing the cause of her initial pain. So it turned out that the cavity in between her eyes and teeth was filled with dangerous matter that would have eventually leaked up into her brain had she not caught this lucky break. The point of this story is that when even the human body is seen as separate segments (neither the dentist nor the ophthalmologist considered to check the space just adjacent to their specialty of care), it can lead to seriously bad results.
Holistic health not only treats your body as a whole, but also your physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual being as equal players when it comes to your overall health.
Our health is not only composed of our physical well being. Holistic health not only acknowledges this but also believes in the interplay and connection of these different elements of health.
Physical Health
This is the type of health that people are most familiar with. But even physical health is often not treated holistically. It’s broken up into specialties, into different clinics, among different doctors who (unfortunately) are not closely collaborating. There wasn’t a phone call made between the dentist and the ophthalmologist in the case of my friend above. And I have a suspicion that if the doctors had talked, they could have solved the issue without luck having to play such a big role. But this should not just be on the shoulders of individual doctors - our healthcare system is not set up to treat patients holistically (which is a whole other story for another day). The main takeaway here is that we, ourselves, should start seeing and treating our body as an ecosystem rather than a collection of individual parts sewn together.
Even though we may take our physical health for granted when we are in good physical health, the question of “how is your health?” is more commonly asked in the context of physical health and thus society treats it as a real thing. Most people are aware that they have physical health, even when it’s in good shape. Less people are aware that they have mental, social, emotional, and spiritual health until things go south. And sometimes not even then.
Mental Health
If you are breathing, you have mental health. You may have very good mental health and thus are not aware that you have mental health. But you do. And just like physical health, it’s important to take care of your mental health. Your mental health is composed of mainly three elements: your social well being, your psychological well being and your emotional well being.
Mental health is also not just mental illness. You may not have a mental illness, but you can still be experiencing poor mental health. The same is true that a person could be diagnosed with a mental illness and still experience social and emotional well-being.
Social Well Being
Social well being can be defined as “The ability to communicate, develop meaningful relationships with others, and maintain a support network that helps you overcome loneliness.” Feeling connected to others, having safe people who you can be open with, having a social support system when you need some extra help, are all things that contribute to our health. More than some would believe. Just do a little thought exercise: let’s imagine that you broke your shoulder. This is an obvious physical health set back. But this broken shoulder also means that you can’t go on your long awaited backpacking trip. A huge disappointment! Especially after all the work you’ve done to put the trip together. Not only that, but you can’t effectively cook anything, and all the daily tasks become way more difficult than before. Imagine how this situation would impact your mental state of mind. Now, let’s say you have friends and family who listen and share the disappointment in the cancelled vacation, who take you to your doctor’s appointments, who bring over food and help you clean the house. So does support from a social network impact your recovery? Yes.
Emotional Well Being
Emotional well being is related to your ability to cope, recover and manage difficult emotions and the ability to generate emotions that lead to positive feelings such as peace, ease and joy. Again, you don’t have to have a mental health illness to be in a poor state of emotional well being. As we move through life, we can face increasingly difficult and/or different situations than we had in the past. Coping mechanisms that might have worked before stop working or even get in the way of emotional recovery. Life setbacks and tragedies can lead to a spiraling out and the effects of unmanaged stress leads to not only mental health decay but also physical issues such as digestive issues, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc.
Psychological Well Being
This part of well being touches on things like your outlook about yourself and your life, having a healthy sense of self, being satisfied with your own life, being good at managing and functioning in your daily life. Low psychological well being can come into our lives for different reasons. A tragedy, trauma, loss, depression, anxiety, as well as many other things can make it hard for you to get out of bed. You stop taking showers, you are constantly late for work. Symptoms such as these can show you the state of your mind. And as mentioned above, all of these elements of well-being are interdigitated. So when this part goes, it can have a negative effect on all the other aspects of your health.
This is why it’s important to see your health as holistic. And to take care of the other parts of our health just as much as our physical well being. Because it’s not just one of these elements that determines our health. It’s all of them and their interplay that make up our health. This is why a holistic therapist is different from a specialist - they take all the elements into account.
More on holistic health soon…until then, check out how Reset brain + body is offering a holistic approach to mental health care
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