Holistically, Completely YOU.

My own journey to health didn’t start off as a holistic enterprise.  I was a pimply pre-teen who desperately wanted to have a face like a Neutrogena model.  I tried every cream, wash, and ointment that doctors or commercials told me I needed, but nothing made a dent in my personal pubescent apocalypse.  

At the same time, I started to develop wicked anxiety.  I don’t mean the kind that makes you bite your nails or hold your breath; I mean the kind that knocks you swiftly into hysteria and sometimes out of consciousness.  I spent my teenage years seeking the secret ingredient for a radiant face and the magic friend, boyfriend, or hobby to fix my anxiety and bring me eternal happiness.  Some solutions did bring temporary relief - a change in moisturizer would reduce my blemishes for a week, and one boyfriend did give me a sense of long-sought peace.  But the fix for my skin was short-lived, and when the boy went away, the anxiety returned.  I never healed, only concealed.  I addressed symptoms, not causes.  I worked to treat, not to prevent.

“Holistic health refers to an approach to health care wherein the psychological, familial, societal, ethical, spiritual, and biological dimensions of a patient are accounted for in the evaluation of their wellbeing and ongoing care.”

This is how the National Institute of Health defines the holistic attitude towards individual wellness.  Though this definition does list the many faces of holistic health, it is an incomplete understanding of a much more complex and discerning movement.  In my life, my skincare issues and my anxiety were connected, as we’ll see later on.  With that in mind, holistic solutions are unique to each person.  

Holistic (or naturopathic) health finds its roots in millennia of the Eastern tradition of medicine.  It is not at odds with modern Western medicine but is a complementary and preventative practice.  Western (allopathic) health and pharmaceuticals, relates to the use of treatments - including surgery, drugs, and radiation - to address symptoms and ailments.  Though it does include some preventative measures, they are typically external to the body, such as vaccines and screenings.  This is different from holistic medicine, which uses preventative practices to fortify the body’s natural abilities to protect itself, with remedies such as foods or vitamins that strengthen the immune system.  We live in an era that has dismissed the value of any solution outside the Western model.  As such, it is so important that we do our own research and observe how our mind and body respond when nature and intuition guide our health journey.

If naturopathic health is applied consistently and mindfully, the need for modern medicine should be less.  The holistic route is concerned with regularly supporting and improving an already healthy body and strengthening the body’s natural resources to defend and heal itself when under stress.  It is not only concerned with the treatment of existing problems. As nationally renowned doctor and author Casey Means holds, naturopathic medicine should be the first response to a health problem, whereas modern medicine should be the response only when there is an emergency or need of immediate intervention.

For example, if you have a family history of depression, you can be proactive about limiting the likelihood of and severity with which it may affect you.  Through diet, habits, environment, and countless other factors, you may be able to mitigate triggers, depressive episodes, and severity of those emotions. You might start off your day with a fruit and fiber rich oatmeal instead of your usual processed cereal or baked treat.  This can help your body delegate its energy properly to production of “happy” chemicals.  Even lifestyle choices such as petting and walking your unconditionally loving dog, or the daily conversations you have with your best friend can be accounted for in the holistic model of health.  

The same factors that may influence depression (or many other matters of mental health) can easily contribute to physical health concerns as well.  The switch from sugary cereal to fibrous oatmeal might just make that afternoon headache or the hives on your forearm go away.  While healing yourself holistically can actually be this simple, it’s important to pursue your own exploration of available natural health resources.  As the holistic model gains traction, helpful information can be found anywhere from increasingly popular and well-informed social media influencers to more in-depth best-selling books and documentaries.  You may also consider finding a physician with a naturopathic orientation.

Warning: the accumulation of natural health knowledge combined with the acquired skill of listening to your own body might start with your desire to heal one pesky symptom but will probably result in an accidental improvement of your overall quality of life, health, and happiness. 

If I spilled sweet coffee on my laptop but only dried the spots I could see, a reasonable person would warn me that my keys will stick until I fully clean the keyboard.  If my screen started malfunctioning the next day, you would know it’s because I didn’t take any action to keep the liquid from seeping underneath the keys.  So… why don’t we embrace the same thinking for our mind and body, which are connected as one and the same?

You remember earlier, when I talked about my quest for glowing skin and glowing confidence? I didn’t have bad skin and abnormal mental regulation; I had a singular health issue.  The “sweet coffee” had spilled and shorted the wires of my system.

In an era of viral information, everyone has found some ingredient or other to remove from their pallet; virtuous veganism, bio-hacking carnivores, energized raw-dieters… every ‘health’ movement comes with its own convincing package of information.  As a teen, I listened to each voice and tried to adhere when that information seemed convincing.  I became well-practiced in eliminating the ‘enemy’ foods.  It wasn’t until I stopped listening to the wisdom of someone else and started listening to my own body that I found a solution - one factor that affected many parts.

Test this in your own life right now, or after you finish reading this. Try walking for a few minutes after each meal, and observe that both your brain and your tummy find relief in that small act.  

Eventually, my own body taught me that not only my acne and anxiety, but also many other minor issues in my life came from sugar.  While sugar isn’t good for anyone, I happen to be notably more sensitive.  Add that to the rapid hormonal fluctuations of young adults and the way in which sugar is proven to disrupt the regulation of hormones, and you get… one teenage girl with a face like a map of the Hawaiian Islands and panic attacks that could knock out a horse.  

In the years spent searching for a cure, I’d been prescribed countless items to treat my skin and mind, but not one to treat my whole body - to treat me as the singular unit of being that I am. Because the doctors only considered one part of the body, they ended up treating only one part of the body.  The result?  The rest of the body is forced to play catch-up, taking on the averted burden of an ailment while the source remains unhealed.

Without viewing myself holistically, it would be impossible to know that one common ingredient could wreak havoc from the inside out.  Proverbially cutting ourselves into pieces for a diagnosis could never result in an adequate solution, let alone the discovery that the solution was not to add more treatment, but instead to subtract a root cause.

Even now, years after resolution has been found, I find that an excess of sugar can make me feel seventeen again, in the worst way possible.  My calmly functional adult self can disintegrate into a teenage girl sobbing over a celebrity crush, and my voice of reason becomes the devil’s advocate with just a spoonful of sugar. When something is going wrong with my emotions or my body, I look first to unify those issues and discern what could cause all of them, rather than turning to Web M.D. and finding eighty-two things that could cause a headache.

Did you know: A tired mind and sore toes can both be caused by the same allergy.  Depression and an achy neck can both be treated with sunlight and oranges.  Your toddler’s mid-day crankiness and her tummy ache might both just need a cup of warm water.  

When you accept yourself as a complete being, an intelligent body in which all parts communicate to become one living human, you learn to listen to what your body already knows.  To be holistic is more than just wholesome food choices and healthful supplements.  It is a validation of the wonderfully intricate and competent systems that have unified to become the one and only, perfectly complete, you.