Adding more holistic health practices into your life can be helpful for increased health and happiness! Holistic wellness focuses on the connection between mind, body, and spirit. It isn’t just about treating symptoms, it seeks to find the root causes that create the issues. By living a more holistic lifestyle, you may be able to enhance your body’s natural ability to restore itself!
Admit it, we all feel better when we eat healthy foods and are more active, yet we find so many excuses not to do it. These holistic lifestyle tips will help to kickstart your new holistic lifestyle.
The Benefits of Holistic Health
While Western medicine provides amazing life-saving research and treatments, one of its potential downfalls could be a tendency to look at the body in sections or groups of symptoms, rather than as a connected whole. By contrast, holistic health usually embraces wellness in more of a physical, emotional, social, mental, and spiritual sense.
Holistic Health has many benefits:
- Higher levels of happiness and contentment with life
- Lessened physical discomfort
- A healthier body that is less susceptible to illness
- Improved natural healing abilities of the body
- Reduced stress levels
What is Holistic Health?
When people discuss holistic health, they’re usually talking about an approach to wellness that encompasses the individual as one whole system of body, mind, and spirit. A lot of people also consider “holistic” to mean a more natural approach to wellness with minimal invasiveness.
Holistic healing usually involves multiple complementary disciplines and alternative wellness techniques that may overlap with modern medicine, but are designed to look beyond the treatment of segmented symptoms to support the whole person on a physical, mental, and spiritual level.
The 5 Pillars of Holistic Health
There are 5 main components of holistic health and wellness. We believe each of these 5 aspects makes a major contribution to overall health and wellness, and together enable a person to be the happiest and healthiest they can be. If one of these aspects of holistic health suffers, the whole person may be affected.
- Physical Health
- Emotional Health
- Spiritual Health
- Social Health
- Mental Health
How to Start a Holistic Lifestyle: 20 Tips For Beginners
1. Meditation for Holistic Health
Start your day with meditation practice. This is a great way to clear your mind and connect with yourself before heading into the world. You might also take time to connect with your higher power during your meditation. There are many benefits to meditation, including reducing stress, feelings of anxiousness, and depression, while enhancing self-awareness, memory, and attention!
Follow these steps to start a meditation practice:
- Set up a comfortable space. You might want to sit on a pillow or cushion. Try sitting with your back gently resting against a wall, or even laying down if that’s more comfortable for you. Ideally, you’ll be somewhere quiet so that you can focus on your thoughts and breathing.
- Set a timer. Decide on the amount of time that is your goal for your meditation practice. It’s often recommended that you start with a fairly short meditation and build up from there. Try starting with 5 minutes, or even less if that feels challenging. Once 5 minutes is easy, you might try increasing your time to 10 minutes and so on.
- Try a meditation method. There are many different ways to meditate. The main goal is to clear your mind, so giving yourself one thing to focus on can be very helpful! You may want to try a guided meditation where a video or audio recording of an instructor guides you through one of these techniques (or others). This is especially helpful if you’ve never meditated before!
- Mantra meditation: choose a simple phrase, and repeat it over and over again! Choosing something positive and empowering can be a very nice practice.
- Body scan: This meditation is based on slowly focusing your complete attention on different parts of the body.
- Visualization meditation: Focusing the mind on a visual experience, you might conjure up a mental picture of a calm lake or a quiet field.
- Loving-kindness meditation: This meditation focuses on sending love and kindness out into the world.
- Enjoy the clarity and calm! If thoughts come up as you’re meditating, don’t worry. Just allow them to cross your mind and float away. Even if meditating feels uncomfortable, or your mind is really busy at first, if you continue to consistently meditate you’ll begin to access the benefits.
2. Breathe Deeply
Deep breathing has been found to help with stress, as it sends a message to your brain to calm down and relax.
Next time you start to feel stressed, try this breath practice:
- Find a comfortable seat. This could be at your desk, or perhaps you can head outside for a few moments.
- Relax your belly. Diaphragmatic or belly breathing is when you send your breath deep into your body. Relaxing your belly helps the breath to flow correctly.
- Breathe in and out through your nose. Breathing through your nose allows you to take bigger, slower breaths, enhancing the calming effects of your breathing practice.
- Try placing a hand on your belly. Feel the breath fill up that space, lifting your hand as you inhale, and lowering as you empty out your breath. This can help you focus on where your breath should go.
- Try to breathe deeply for 10 minutes. Even if you only take a few deep breaths, you’ll still feel the positive effects! However, if you have the time, 10 to 20 minutes can be especially beneficial.
3. Eat Nutritious Foods
Pack a healthy lunch! Nutritious, whole foods are an integral part of a holistically healthy lifestyle. Getting proper nutrition can help you feel better, avoid illness, boost your mood, and increase focus. Nutritional research consistently shows that eating less processed foods provides lots of health benefits. Focusing on eating fruits, veggies, whole grains, and legumes is a great place to start.
4. Get Enough Physical Activity
Making sure you move your body every day can have immense benefits for your physical health. Physical activity is an important part of a holistic lifestyle, since it benefits your body but also your mind and spirit. Try to aim for 30 minutes of physical activity every day (or more). There are many ways to become more physically active, so find something you truly enjoy! A few ways to add more physical activity to your holistic lifestyle include:
- Gardening
- Yoga
- Tai-chi
- Walking
- Hiking
- Playing team sports
- Swimming
5. Listen to Your Body
Our physical bodies are usually what we think of first when we hear the word ‘health’. Since it’s often the physical body that communicates the first signs of a problem, this makes sense. Physical symptoms are usually easy to track or measure, which is probably why Western medicine is so focused on them. It is important to listen to your body, and take care of issues proactively.
Energy healing techniques like the Body Code™ could help you investigate your symptoms as communications from your subconscious mind. Through muscle testing, you may be able to access a wealth of information about how your body is functioning. You could learn what your body is asking you for, or what imbalances may be affecting your physical health. Once you know what’s going on, the Body Code can help you work to resolve it.
Seeing health providers such as your doctor and dentist regularly is also an important part of a holistic health lifestyle.
6. Socialize with friends and family
Socialization is an important part of holistic wellness! Holistic health takes your social life into account as well. Having positive, supportive relationships can have a huge impact on both your mental and physical health. Nurture the positive relationships you already have by reaching out, prioritizing spending time with those people, expressing your appreciation for them, and actively supporting them as well. If your circle of friends is smaller than you’d like, consider picking up a new activity to widen your social network. Perhaps your town has a walking group, a book club, or a crafting group you can join!
Even when circumstances such as illness or distance don’t allow for in-person connection, a good telephone or video chat can go a long way to satisfying that need. Even going for a walk around your neighborhood and observing people walking their dogs, working in their yards, or coming and going can help you feel a sense of belonging to your community. Volunteer work is another great way to get outside of yourself and feel not only socially connected but socially responsible as you care for others.
7. Journaling for Holistic Wellness
A great way to support your mental health holistically is to journal before bed. Journaling can help support your mental health by identifying problems, fears, and concerns — as well as the things that are going well in your life! It can be an opportunity for positive self-talk and to identify what you’re grateful for. Here are a few prompts to help start your journaling practice:
- Write a list of things that you’re grateful for
- Write a list of things you love about yourself
- What does a great day look like for you?
- List a few activities that bring you joy (and perhaps make a plan to do one of them tomorrow!)
- Write a letter to your future self or to your past self
- What can you learn from a recent mistake?
- Write a note about how much you appreciate someone important in your life
8. Get Enough Sleep
Sleep is an important part of a holistic lifestyle! Rest is an incredibly important part of overall wellness. Aim to sleep 8 hours or more each night. If you’re not getting enough sleep, that has been found to dramatically reduce your cognitive brain function, ability to focus, ability to respond to situations, and capacity to cope with stress. When you do get enough rest, your body and mind are able to recharge. Your muscles heal overnight, your immune system recovers to help keep you healthy, and your mind gets refreshed so you can be alert and focused.
9. Address Emotional Issues
In our opinion, emotional health is just as important as physical health. No matter how healthy your body may be, if you’re emotionally distraught or carry a huge amount of emotional baggage, you can’t be truly happy. Besides that, emotional health can often affect physical health if it suffers for too long.
Practicing mindfulness and regular stress reduction techniques can help us manage the day-to-day ups and downs of life, so bad experiences or bad days don’t turn into bad weeks, months or years. Keeping a journal can help, as can regular meditation or simple mindfulness techniques.
Energy healing techniques such as the Emotion Code® are designed to help you uncover and resolve trapped, negative emotional energies from past experiences that could be holding your emotional health hostage. With a few steps and by asking a few simple questions, you may be able to unpack your emotional baggage and feel like yourself again. If you have severe emotional issues you are trying to overcome, professional therapy or counseling can help you and give you more tools to cope.
10. Make Time for Self-Care
Set aside a specific time in your day to care for your own needs. We’re all busy with responsibilities like parenting, working, and taking care of others, so this can be challenging to do! It’s important to make time for yourself. This time can be used for whatever will benefit you most – perhaps you’re feeling lonely, and using this time to call a friend would make you feel better! Or, you might need peace and quiet, and benefit from a few minutes of meditation. Try out different self-care methods, and see what makes you feel best.
11. Tap into your Spiritual Side
You don’t have to go to church to be spiritual. As long as you’re focused on your connection to your higher power and inner sense of self, you can have a spiritual experience. Aside from taking time to study and practice your own faith, some ways to support your spiritual health include spending time in nature, praying, and meditating. Getting trapped emotions out of your way by using the Emotion Code can help remove any blocks between you and your more spiritual self.
12. Ask for Help When you Need a Little Extra Support
Treat yourself to holistic health practices that will improve your daily life! There’s so much you can do on a daily basis to improve your life through holistic health practices, but what about when that’s not enough? If you’re experiencing issues that you need more help with, consider setting up an appointment to see someone who works in the holistic wellness field. A chiropractor might help if you have joint issues. A massage therapist can help with muscle tightness. An energy healer can assist with processing and relieving energetic imbalances that can cause many issues. Whatever you’re going through, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to a certified energy healing practitioner and receive the support you need!
There are several wellness practices in the realm of holistic health. Many people who live with day-to-day discomforts and mysterious ailments embrace these and other practices to help them feel better:
13. Take Well-Being Breaks During Your Workday
If you find yourself feeling stressed or upset during the workday, you’re not alone. In fact, 83% of American workers report suffering from work-related stress. Luckily, you don’t have to be part of this statistic! Holistic health can help with workday stress. Try taking intentionally planned wellness breaks throughout your day. Think about addressing one or more of the 5 pillars of holistic health with each break. Chatting with a friend while taking a walk is great for social and physical health! Pausing for a quick meditation at your desk is great for your spiritual and mental health.
These powerful daily routines are meant to enhance your health. They are not intended to replace health care practices but can support them. You should always speak with a medical professional before starting a new health routine. We hope these suggestions help empower you to make choices that benefit your body and mind!
14. Alter Your Mindset
For many people, diet and exercise habits are a result of a psychological mindset rather than physical wellness. It is important to identify underlying issues and how they manifest as unhealthy lifestyles. Changing your thought process can lead you to a healthier way of living. To help alter your mindset, try these healthy living tips:
- Track behaviors like eating, sleeping, and exercise
- Journal daily to help you identify triggers that lead to poor health decisions
- Identify and release emotional baggage that is weighing you down spiritually and physically
- Complete random acts of kindness, for yourself and for others
15. Set Your Holistic Health Goals
It is easy to tell yourself that you are going to start living a healthy lifestyle, but this vague thought or statement may not produce results. You need to set concrete short- and long-term goals and document them. Better yet, share these goals with a group and then you can work on them together.
The beauty of setting goals is that you can also establish rewards. As you see progress and meet your healthy lifestyle milestones, give yourself a pat on the back with a healthy reward. Get a massage, download a book you have been meaning to read, take a day off and have a picnic in the park—or whatever you want!
16. Create Your Holistic Diet Plan
Planning and preparing ahead is important when it comes to a successful healthy lifestyle. Think about the healthy foods you like to eat, and then plan menus and make grocery lists based on those foods. Do not try to incorporate foods you don’t like—it will be impossible to sustain long term. Some tips that may help you stick with a healthy way of eating include:
- Incorporate more fruits and vegetables, particularly superfoods like dark green leafy vegetables and berries
- Limit your meat consumption to lean meats and fish
- Know where your food comes from (shop at local farmers’ markets)
- Set aside time to intentionally create meals that you enjoy
- Try to food prep ahead of time so that you have nutritious meals available whenever you want them
- Work towards lowering your consumption of processed foods
- Read labels and consider avoiding things like MSG and genetically modified foods
- Keep healthy snacks on hand, such as nuts and fruits
- Use good oils like olive, coconut, or grapeseed
- Change your way of eating (no diets!)
17. Put Yourself First
One of the biggest challenges is going to be putting yourself first. We often sabotage our attempts at self-improvement trying to please others. You eat that cupcake at work because you don’t want to hurt your co-workers’ feelings. You skip a workout because a friend has asked to meet up with you. When you start putting your needs first, you will find that you have more time and energy to fulfill the needs of others. You will start liking and believing in yourself.
18. Find Accountability Partners
Having others to support you in your holistic health journey can make it much easier to succeed! Some ways you can ask others to help you include:
- Ask a friend or neighbor to walk around the block with you a few times a week
- Join a weekly exercise group, and befriend people in the community
- Convince your family to help you meal prep for the week on Sunday mornings, or take a family trip to the farmer’s market
- Join a healthy lifestyle social media group for online support
If you’ve been looking for a group to help you kickstart your healthy living lifestyle, consider joining Discover Healing’s practitioner community! Our Facebook group for those interested in energy healing is a great place to meet like-minded people.
19. Incorporate Holistic Health Practices into Your Morning Routine
A morning routine can be the perfect way to start your day in a positive way. Waking up a little earlier in the morning can help make time to incorporate holistic health practices. This can be a great time to read, journal, get in some physical movement, meditate, or make a healthy meal for the day ahead. Having a set morning routine can set your day up for success and productivity.
20. Celebrate Your Wins
Focus on consistency over perfection – it’s okay if you have a day where you don’t meet your holistic health goals. Instead of feeling bad about it, put your energy into your next health-promoting activity. Then, when you do meet your goals, make sure to celebrate yourself!
Take Care of Your Holistic Health and Wellness
Being mindful and proactive in caring for your holistic health needs can help you add life to your years, and may even help you add years to your life. When your body is trying to tell you something is amiss, make sure you’re taking good care of yourself physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, and mentally.
These powerful holistic health routines are meant to enhance your health. They are not intended to replace health care practices but can support them. You should always speak with a medical professional before starting a new health routine! We hope these suggestions help empower you to make choices that benefit your body and mind!
