Holistic health
Although the utmost importance of health is universally acknowledged, there is still widespread ignorance as to what health really is, how health can be lost as well as how it can be cultivated and maintained. This ignorance is shared not only by the general populace but also by a large proportion of healthcare providers.
The word “health,” comes from the old English root: hǣlth – hãl, meaning “whole.” To be healthy, therefore means to be whole. Hence the WHO defines health as: “a state of complete, physical, mental, and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Health embodies a positive range of elements that make for total well-being such as: energy, vigour, stamina, mental clarity, happiness, positive emotions, productivity, creativity, harmonious relationships with others and a sound spiritual life. Thus true health is holistic and the approach to it should be holistic.
The holistic approach to health as practiced in some forms of medicine such as homeopathy and naturopathy, to name a few, is based on certain principles, namely:
- In holistic health the whole person is taken into consideration in all dimensions of being-(physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual,) in determining what may be wrong and what may need to be done to attain and maintain total wellness.
- Each individual is considered unique and it is the person that is treated or cared for, not a disease or a diagnosis. Thus in homeopathy, for example, ten people may have the same disease according to western orthodox medical diagnosis, and they may be given ten completely different remedies because of the differences in their persons, in their overall physical, mental, emotional and spiritual states as well as differences in the peculiarities of their complaints, their observations about themselves and the sensations they experience in themselves.
- There is a healing force of nature active in the maintenance of health and in restoration to health when disease sets in. It should be the aim of a holistic approach to health to support this healing force to bring about healing and to correct the root causes of illness, rather than to suppress symptoms (complaints). Complaints in illnesses have been likened to red lights on the dashboard of a car that alert the driver to the need to find the underlying cause rather than finding ways of switching them off!
- As much as possible natural methods and means should be used to restore balance to the disturbed harmony of the human entity, by increasing what is deficient (as in the case of nutrients, for example), decreasing what is excessive and eliminating what should not be there, as with detoxification ( removal of toxins from the body ).
1. A positive mental attitude ( a pillar embracing positive thoughts and emotions, as well favorable social and spiritual conditions)
This pillar turns out to be the main foundation for well-being and so many scientific studies have shown the mental attitude and state of mind in general to often prove more powerful than physical conditions and circumstances.
2. Healthy diet.
The wisdom in the admonition of Hippocrates (the father of modern medicine) that you let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food is being borne out more and more by findings that show that the larger proportion of modern day diseases have unwholesome diet at their foundation.
3. Healthy lifestyle
It is this pillar that has to do with how you use the body and mind, meet their healthy demands, avoid excesses and keep injurious agents away from them.
Thus under this pillar the concern is to how you exercise the body and mind how you maintain balance better work and rest, how much sleep you get and what your habits are with respect to drinking, smoking and use of stimulants.
4. Supplementary measures
By these are meant those additional measures which experience has shown could be vital for health in our day and age such as nutritional supplements, sauna, massage and detoxification in various forms e. g. with colonic irrigation.
Attention must be paid to all four pillars for the maintenance of health. Also when disease sets in all the four pillars are to be looked into to detect the contributing root factors and also to know what measures need to be taken to restore the disturbed balance.
The basis of this approach to health is that health is regarded to be the result of normal and harmonious balance in the elements and forces composing the human entity in the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions. Also that these various dimensions are mutually interactive and interdependent thereby constituting a whole and working together as such.
The correct aproach to the restoration of health therefore is the holistic approach that aids the healing forces at all levels of the human being.