Beyond the Plate:
Embracing Multidimensional Health
Have you ever considered
that your overall well-being might be influenced by more than just what you eat and how much you exercise? What if there were other dimensions of health that are equally important but often overlooked?
The Holistic Perspective of Health
Most of the time people consider themselves healthy when they are not sick. But health is much more than just the absence of illness. Hippocrates, who is considered the father of modern medicine, promoted the idea that health requires balance within the body. His overarching concept of health is the foundation of functional medicine, which requires looking at health from a holistic perspective.
The Interconnectedness of Well-being
Multi-dimensional health is a holistic approach that acknowledges the interconnectedness between our physical, mental, emotional, and social aspects of well-being. It recognizes that neglecting one dimension can negatively impact the others.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), inadequate sleep increases the risk of obesity by 89% in children and 55% in adults.
Furthermore, adults who sleep less than six hours per night are at a 48% higher risk of developing heart disease. This highlights the significant impact that sleep, a key aspect of our physical well-being, can have on our overall health."
Beyond Diet and Exercise: The Importance of Lifestyle
Often when people want to make positive changes in their lives and start having a healthier life they focus on losing weight, doing physical exercises, lowering their alcohol consumption or quit smoking. These are great places to start working on our health and well-being, but other aspects, overall lifestyle can play an active role in your health and must be considered as well in order to achieve optimal health.
I used to be one of those people who would consider that to take care of my health and wellness I just needed to pay attention on my diet, have some supplements when needed, do regular physical exercise to be in shape, have enough sleep and then I will be healthy and well.
And for 2 decades it did serve me really well, but not because I was focusing only on these areas of my wellbeing, but because I was taking care all other dimension in a natural way. I had my social network, if I wanted to spend time reading I could, if I wanted to go to bed early I could, I had a job that I enjoyed and gave me financial security.
Recognizing the Missing Dimensions of Well-being
It was during the Health Coach training at IIN when we were introduced to the concept of multi-dimensional health when I realized that the reason behind me feeling so exhausted, feeling lonely, disconnected, and overwhelmed was not due to the hormonal chances I experienced due to pregnancy and postpartum, but because I was not looking at my health and wellbeing from a holistic approach.
Hormonal changes still played a very important part in my mood and general well-being, but the multi-dimensional health concept made me realized that I was neglecting some dimensions completely that affected all other areas in my life.
When I became a mom I entirely put my own needs and necessities behind. I never had time for myself, stop being in touch with friends. I cared for my baby and our home, but didn´t care for myself, except for making sure I was well fed and nourished.
I experienced from first-hand what they often said during our coaching training:
“You can eat all the kale in the world, but if you don´t address problems like stress management or feeling lonely, your health won´t improve. Just about the opposite can happen.”
Navigating Life Changes with Multidimensional Health
There are times in our lives when there are big changes that throw us off balance. It can be a very stressful and demanding job, it can be for moving away from your usual environment, losing someone near to us, or having a baby. All these changes can have a huge impact on our well-being and health on their own, but if they are paired with lack of selfcare and health care, then can have huge negative impact on us.
Exploring Primary Foods: Beyond Nutrition
Multi-dimensional health encompasses the many areas of our lives that impact our health and well-being, not just our nutrition and physical activity! At IIN, we call these areas primary food –making the food on our plate secondary – and how well we nourish ourselves with these “foods” will determine our overall wellness.
Tools for Assessing and Balancing Your Life
There is a tool called the “circle of life” that incorporates all these primary foods into one visual image and can be extremely helpful and powerful to become conscious and aware of the areas in our lives that are working really well and the ones that needs some care and attention.
For each area you need to place a dot that represents your satisfaction with that area.
Once you have all dots you connect them that will be your circle of life that represents your current situation. In coaching from this point I can start to work with my client in a very effective and bio-individual way.
Is there balance in your life?
Discover what areas in your life might need some extra care and attention.
If you are curious about your circle of life, visit the following link.
Doing this exercise will illuminate which areas need strengthening, and you might find there are crossovers, such as finances with career; home cooking with home environment; or relationships with social life and joy. Our well-being is interconnected, and optimal wellness will depend on the balance of all areas together. We find balance by strengthening each area on its own in addition to all the areas as a whole.
Looking Ahead: Delving Deeper into Each Dimension
In my following blog post I am going to talk about each dimension in details, providing you with a better understanding of each of them and helping you make positive changes by offering you easy-to-adopt tools and recommendations.
All of them are from my own experience, they are tools I have been using in the past few years and have been helping me feel healthier, more energized, vibrant and connected in life.
Take the Next Step Towards Holistic Well-being
If you would like to start to work on your health and well-being in a holistic way in a one-to-one setting, let´s connect. You can book a free first consultation that I call discovery session, during which we talk about you, your vision for life and health and see if we are good match for each other to work together. You can book your session on the following link
Multidimensional health or holistic living supports all aspects of one’s life. Living holistically looks at treating the root cause instead of focusing only on treating symptoms.
Symptoms can help tell us what’s going on, but unless the root cause is diagnosed and addressed, the symptoms will keep reappearing.
Holistic health looks at more than just exercising and healthy eating. It looks at how your overall lifestyle can play an active role in your health!
With much love,
P.S.
🎙️ In my podcast of “In Harmony with Vitality” with the show´s co-host, Marta we discuss the multi-dimensional health in details in this episode:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3vivaYUIXECmgTm0E4CXEi?si=393e3f2200a944b9 https://open.spotify.com/episode/3vivaYUIXECmgTm0E4CXEi?si=393e3f2200a944b9
