What is a Holistic Lifestyle and What Can You Do To Live One?
When you hear the term holistic lifestyle, what comes to mind? Is it a vision of running on the beach with a close friend, or crafting a healthful yet tasty recipe to share with your loved ones?
You might have heard the term holistic lifestyle tossed around before in the past, but it can be difficult to envision what exactly that could look like without seeing it in action. We’re here today to chat with you about the many benefits of holistic living, because who wouldn’t want to nourish your whole self?
Luckily, living holistically is not out of reach by any means. In fact, some might argue that it’s actually more attainable than ever, due to the host of resources provided by the internet to go out and seek whatever lifestyle you want to lead. We’ll dive into what exactly this lifestyle entails and beyond.
What is a Holistic Lifestyle?
In order to appreciate the definition of a holistic lifestyle, let’s first break down these two words.
First, holistic is defined by Merriam Webster dictionary as “relating to or concerned with wholes or with complete systems rather than with the analysis of, treatment of, or dissection into parts.” In addition to this, lifestyle is defined as “the typical way of life of an individual, group, or culture.”
If you put these words together, you’ll realize that a holistic lifestyle refers to typically living in a way that’s concerned with your life as a whole, not with smaller fractionated parts. In the context of wellness and nourishing someone’s well-being, this means that there’s going to be a multi-faceted approach to living life in a healthy way.
Now that we’ve ironed out a rough definition, you can start to figure out what that might look like in your own life. A lifestyle that’s focused on the whole instead of merely fractions takes into account how a variety of situations and beyond can impact our health and wellness. In fact, taking a look into the six dimensions of wellness could help describe and explain exactly how a holistic lifestyle works.
What Are the Six Dimensions of Wellness?
Wellness is multifaceted. That is, there are six dimensions that can contribute to overall wellness. Practicing working towards these can help equip humans with resilience and insight that’s particularly necessary during difficult times, but can be helpful at any time,
The six dimensions of wellness include:
- Physical
- Social
- Intellectual
- Spiritual
- Emotional
- Environmental (or Occupational; depends on which model you follow)
First, let’s talk about the physical dimension of wellness. This dimension demonstrates how vital it is to get your body moving. Without your physical health, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to look after anything else. That being said, incorporating physical fitness and activity should be the top priority for this dimension while working towards a holistic lifestyle.
The next dimension of living a holistic lifestyle is social. Because human beings are social creatures and do need a degree of human interaction, in order to truly be living a “well” life, there has to be some time allotted per week for even a conversation with a neighbor.
Up next comes intellectual. This dimension of wellness can be difficult to reach because it requires listening to people and hearing their opinion, often when it is different from your own. That being said, you are able to reach a holistically well lifestyle if you make a dedicated effort to not remain stagnant and instead continue to progress.
Another important and vital part of living a holistic lifestyle includes incorporating spirituality into your routine. While this doesn't necessarily have to be connected to a certain faith, there’s something to be said for spending time each day in a quiet place and meditating or contemplating life, the passage of time.
Emotional wellness is another part of living a holistic lifestyle that absolutely cannot be ignored. This particular facet refers to how you react when you have difficult days. Do you react aggressively, or do you sit with that feeling? Do you speak to a therapist if you feel that would be beneficial? If so, you’re demonstrating that you are emotionally mature.
And as for last but not least, you have to consider either your environmental or occupational wellness. (It depends on which model of the holistic wellness chart you look at.) If you’re taking care of your environmental wellness, you’re being sure to curate a space that feels supportive for your hopes and wishes. Finally, occupational wellness can refer to the way that you derive satisfaction especially relating to work.
In order to be truly well-rounded and have reached a high level of “wellness,” you have to have every single one of those boxes checked. If that sounds like a lot of effort, that’s because it is! No one ever said that wellness would be easy, of course, but it will be worth it.
How Can You Live a Holistic Lifestyle?
If you’ve decided that you want to pursue a holistic lifestyle, you’re going to have to commit to your vision every single day. There’s no time to waste -- living a holistic lifestyle is something that may be difficult at first but can ultimately prove extremely worth it.
While everyone’s idea of a holistic lifestyle looks a little bit different, there are some overarching themes that should be in common. For one, there should be an integrated approach to wellness. This includes physically moving and secondly, taking dietary supplements if you’re lacking any important vitamins and can’t get it already from food.
Vitamins are essentially organic compounds that your body requires but is unable to make enough of -- either because it can’t produce it on its own at all, or can’t produce it on the scale that it needs. Therefore, these vitamins must be obtained by either eating foods that are high in the vitamin, or through dietary supplements.
Here at Cosmos Vita, we believe that it’s impossible for you to live your best holistic life without ensuring that you’re not suffering from any sort of vitamin deficiency. That’s why we’re committed to helping people feel more excited about taking their (gummy) vitamins. Our vitamins, which are GMO-free, made without dyes, and vegan-safe, are truly out of this world if you want to tune into this one.
Our vitamins support a variety of bodily functions from gut health to immune support. Our Gutsy apple cider vinegar gummies support your digestive health, boost your energy and immune system, and support your metabolism all without actually having to drink apple cider vinegar. Our Supportive elderberry, zinc, and vitamin C gummies pack 100 percent of your daily recommended vitamin C alongside immune-boosting antioxidants and the heart-healthy healing powers of elderberry, while our Beaming vitamin D3 gummies support your immune system while combatting an issue faced by one-third of Americans—vitamin D deficiency.
We believe that without your body working at its very best, it’s impossible to do anything else. That’s also why we believe in taking vitamins in the first place; these vitamins can help ensure that we’re getting strengthened against common ailments and illnesses.
In Summary
A holistic lifestyle and what that means exactly is going to vary slightly from person to person, and that’s why it’s so special. Holistic lifestyles might be categorized by the presence of certain beliefs or activities, but each person’s experience with this will be slightly different as the result of our highly individualistic experiences.
You might be unsure of why a holistic lifestyle is more enriching than a traditional one, and that all comes down to the person in charge. A holistic lifestyle is focused on nurturing and uplifting the entire self. By contrast, other people might not be so focused on these several different facets.
There are six different dimensions of wellness, and you have to check all these boxes in order to truly be considered fully well. That being said, some of these overlap with the idea of a holistic lifestyle, and can provide inspiration regarding what you can do to live one.
Ultimately a holistic lifestyle means that you’re more interested and passionate about the whole of the parts than the splintered pieces. This way of viewing things is unique because it often allows for a greater understanding. If you’re interested in learning how you can live one, consider what excites you about the possibility of it.
Next time you’re thinking about living a holistic lifestyle, pull out a journal and flip to a blank page. Jot down exactly what your dream holistic lifestyle looks like. Does it include a lot of running on the beach? How about meeting up for coffee with friends?
If you set aside a little minute and make an outline regarding how you’re going to nurture your whole entire self, that will make it significantly more manageable. A holistic lifestyle is not out of reach for you. You simply have to believe you deserve it, and act on those feelings to build a beautiful life for yourself.
SOURCES:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/holistic