Foundations of Holistic Health

The more I can simplify things, the easier it is to wrap my head around them.

And it doesn't get much more complex than our overall health...

The term Holistic gets thrown around so much these days that it is becoming more and more redundant. Unfortunately, it is more often used as a Marketing ploy to sell you a smoothie rather than to actually offer anything worthwhile.

The more I have deepened my studies in Holistic Health over the past decade, the more I keep coming back to the same six foundational principles. These pillars are nothing new for us - they are already running our lives, whether we realise it or not. But it helps to bring some attention towards them;

• Thinking - the mindset you approach your day with determines how that day unfolds.
• Breathing - this direct line into our nervous system that most of us are not making enough use out of.
• Hydration - not just eight glasses a day, but coming to learn how much your body needs, and from what source, to maintain optimal functionality.
• Nutrition - eating right for your own body type and finding the foods that work for you as an individual, over the long-term.
• Sleep - hands-down our body's greatest healing capacity.
• Movement - finding practices that build you up, rather than break you down; beyond the hour you spend at the gym.

None of these function in isolation; they are constantly bouncing off one another. How much you move your body determines how much hydration and nutrition you need, how deeply you breathe determines how calm your mindset is, how much you sleep determines how much energy you have to put into your movement practice - each one interacts with every other.

It takes a lot of trial and error to balance these out, and I am far from finding that equilibrium yet. For most of my life I neglected the importance of sleep and hydration in particular, and it has been a learning journey to find out how these are just as important as eating right and moving my body.

As a yoga teacher, it can be so easy to put more importance on movement since it is the most visible and aesthetic measure of overall health, but it has been a journey to understand how many people can have an amazing movement practice, but are not necessarily healthy individuals. In fact, many people (myself included) become addicted to this physical aspect of the practice, and end up neglecting their body's signals for rest & recovery, which keeps our nervous system in a chronically stressed state, negatively impacting us over the long term.

Over the coming weeks, I am going to take each one of these for a deeper dive - where I have gone wrong myself, where to start if you're at zero, and how to know if it is an area you have been neglecting.

For this week:

• Ask yourself which of these you have been quietly ignoring?
• Choose the pillar you have been neglecting most.
• Spend just 10 focused minutes with it today.

If you'd like to work through these with someone alongside you, this is what the 1:1 Holistic Lifestyle Coaching is for - just reply to this email to book in for a 20-minute discovery call.

Much love,

Aaron.