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We often assume that being healthy is a matter of not having a disease or not having any injury. But this is just one piece in a holistic concept of being healthy.
Most of us know that we can be healthy physically but still feel bad. And feeling bad is certainly part of being healthy or unhealthy. Hence, when you are mentally unhealthy physical health will hardly compensate for it.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as: “… a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
This is a good way to describe health but there is still one aspect missing, the spiritual aspect. What that means is to attend to your soul. To engage in spiritual practices the way we engage in physical workouts.
Being truly healthy is not only about the physical, mental, and social. There’s also the soul aspect of being healthy. Your soul has the desire to expand and experience itself.
If you never attend to your soul and treat it like it doesn’t exist, you will lack a sense of deeper purpose. Ultimately, you will feel like your health is lacking.
Disclaimer: Being truly healthy is an ideal. It’s not a goal that can be reached and checked off. Being healthy is a constant process. Because even when you are in optimal health you still do something for your health every day.
“When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied.” – Herophilus
What Are The Signs of Being Healthy?
There are many signs of being healthy. The most obvious one is that you are free of pain and able to function in the world. You can go about your everyday activities. This includes optimal physical, mental, social, and spiritual functioning.
You are able to use all the aspects of your being to their greatest extent. And you are not held back by any impairments that can be healed or otherwise overcome.
Being Healthy in Body, Mind, and Soul
This is the optimal state of being we all want to achieve. Being healthy in body, mind, and soul. You can also say bringing the body, mind, and soul in alignment. The good thing is that they are not operating independently.
This means that having a healthy body will positively affect your mental and soul state. But you can also turn it around.
Caring for your soul’s health will improve your body and mind. One reason is that caring for your soul will make you want to care for your mind and body as well.
You will have respect for all your aspects as a 3-dimensional being.
Healthy Body
Free of Disease and Injury
As stated before and probably obvious a healthy body is free of disease and injury. Although here we can say that this is subjective to every human. Someone born with a physical disability is going to have another standard.
Some might say that this person has a disease and is thus not healthy. But if this person is living their life, is physically functioning the best way he or she can, and doesn’t feel impaired, why not say that he or she is healthy?
Also, it’s not only about not having a disease or injury but about being resilient to those. If you have diseases or injuries frequently that’s hardly having a healthy body.
Although diseases and injuries can certainly originate from a psychological/mental plane.
Now, let’s go a step deeper.
Optimal Functioning
I argue that being physically healthy is more than just functioning “normally”. You should be able to push your body. To somewhat bring it to the limits of its best abilities.
If your body is able to run but you spend all your time walking, never investigating deeper into its potential is it really optimally healthy?
There are three factors that are part of physical functioning: strength, endurance, and flexibility.
I used to focus primarily on strength but this led to more injuries. And I didn’t feel like my body was in optimal functioning. But when I incorporated endurance and flexibility training it was like adding two more dimensions to my body.
When we come from a standpoint that we are infinite souls having finite bodies it is no surprise that we feel restricted by our bodies sometimes.
But when we enable our bodies for optimal movement through space, we can reduce this feeling of constraint. Our body is then a source of joy and freedom instead of constraint and restriction.
Of course, nutrition is another essential aspect of being healthy. Movement is one side of the coin. Nutrition is the other side.
If we combine regular movement with healthy fuel our bodies have the potential for truly miraculous feats.
One more thing I want to mention is that when we have an unhealthy body we are often preoccupied with it. As a result, we lack the resources to care for our mental and spiritual health.
“If we are creating ourselves all the time, then it is never too late to begin creating the bodies we want instead of the ones we mistakenly assume we are stuck with.” – Deepak Chopra
Healthy Mind
There are two main aspects of being healthy mentally. The first aspect of having a healthy mind is not feeling oppressed by your mind. Another aspect of a healthy mind is using your mind optimally.
Not being oppressed includes:
• Not overthinking
• Being able to observe your thoughts
• Not dwelling in negative thought patterns
• Letting go of self-destructive mental activity, like judgment and doubt
Using your mind optimally includes:
• Being able to focus and concentrate
• Consciously directing your attention
• Learning new things
• Having a flexible and open-minded view
While training the body is pretty straightforward, training the mind seems trickier.
Pushing too hard and pushing not hard enough are both traps to fall into. It’s about finding the middle way.
The first point I want to emphasize here is not taking your mind too seriously. If you take your mind too seriously it will become a source of suffering.
When you have a healthy mind, you have the freedom to discard the thoughts that don’t serve you.
With a healthy mind, you can focus and concentrate on one thing for periods of time. You are able to direct your attention. It’s you who directs where the attention goes, not your mind. Your mind is the tool that you are using.
An unhealthy mind works the other way around. You will become the tool of your mind and it will start using you.
Obviously, mental health includes many more aspects. You can break the two main aspects of a healthy mind down into more areas. But we’ll save this for another time.
Healthy Soul
Most of us heard about having a healthy body and mind but what does it mean to be healthy spiritually?
The first step is to accept that you are a spiritual being. You are spiritual even if you say spirituality is nonsense and I am not spiritual.
Your soul has a deep desire to expand and to have experiences. A healthy soul is about awareness and openness.
Your soul is the unchanging core essence of yourself.
And the more you get in touch with that part of yourself the more you’ll feel safe and secure regardless of what happens outside.
The soul wants to connect with other souls. In fact, it wants to connect with everything. That is why openness is so important. Opening yourself up to life is a big part of being healthy.
Seeking new experiences and moving beyond the known. These are things that will light up your soul and further your spiritual growth.
Being healthy spiritually also includes facing your trauma.
When you heal past trauma, you can heal your inner child. This enables you to rediscover your innocence. Another aspect is confronting your shadow. You look at all the parts of yourself you think are “bad” or “inappropriate” and accept them as part of yourself.
This will facilitate deep inner healing and turn you into a holistic being. There are many ways to attend to the health of your soul. We will get into tips on how to care for your spiritual health later on.
How Can You Say Someone is Healthy?
Now you might wonder how you can say if someone is healthy. To see if someone is being healthy is quite easy to spot.
You can see it by the way a person carries his or her body. How this person interacts with other people. And how present this person is.
When you are healthy on a body, mind, and soul level you don’t need to pay too much attention to those areas because you know they are functioning perfectly. They’re doing their job effortlessly without you having to navigate or to dictate them.
A truly healthy person has no reason to complain or dump their negativity on others.
This person is positive, optimistic, helpful, energetic, and open-minded. Because this person is healthy, he or she has the capacity to care about the health of other people.
So, this person wants you to be healthy, feel good, and is ready to help you to get there.
Why Being Healthy is so Important
There are many obvious reasons why being healthy is important. Everyone will agree that health is one of the most important if not the most important factor in life.
Being healthy is a prerequisite to enjoying life to the fullest.
Being Healthy Makes You Happy
As Arthur Schopenhauer said:
“In general, nine-tenths of our happiness depends on our health alone.”
When you are healthy physically, mentally, and spiritually it is virtually impossible to not be happy.
Take for example how happy you are when you recover from a disease or an injury. And now imagine your mind and your spirit are also free from disease and injury.
When you do and don’t do something to move to a healthier state every day, you are also moving to a happier state.
Hence, you can say that true health equals happiness. And isn’t happiness what we all strive for?
Functionality in Old Age
Another benefit of being healthy is being able to function far into old age. So that age truly is just a number.
I firmly believe that we can live much more active lives in old age and get much older than what we currently think is possible. Aging doesn’t have to be such a deteriorating process that it is for most people.
But to achieve this we have to care about our health in all aspects and preferably our whole life. Because being healthy is a lifestyle and long-term commitment.
Tips on Being Healthy
The following habits helped me to significantly improve my health in all areas of my life. And I believe they can improve your health too.
Caring for Your Body
I guess you could say that caring for your body is the most straightforward thing.
Tips on caring for your body:
• Moving daily: This doesn’t have to be a daily high-intensity workout. But daily movement is key to being healthy.
• Workout regularly: I won’t tell you how many times a week you should work out. That is something everyone has to figure out for themselves. It obviously also depends on your goals. A bodybuilder needs a different workout regimen than someone who just wants to be fit.
• Strength, endurance, flexibility: If you want to have a functional body you should incorporate strength, endurance, and flexibility into your workouts.
• Nutrition: Your food literally turns into you. So, be aware of what you want to become part of yourself. You know the saying: “You are what you eat.” Make sure that most of your nutrition is life-affirming.
• Rest: This includes good sleep, rest between workouts, and any other way you can think of to improve your body’s recovery.
• Hot and cold: Have hot baths or go into a sauna. And have cold showers or plunge into cold pools. This can improve your recovery. Also, studies are showing that thermal discomfort is beneficial for slowing the aging of the cells.
• Listen to your body: Learn to listen to the signals of your body. The better you get at interpreting your body’s signals the more accurate you can attend to your body’s needs.
Incorporate as much movement into your daily life as possible.
If you work in an office frequently get up from the chair walk around or do some stretches. If you are super busy find ways to train your body between activities. A 10-minute workout can be really beneficial. Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
In general, move your body.
Caring for Your Mind
Tips on caring for your mind:
• Learn something new every day: Even if it seems trivial or unimportant learning something new every day has tremendous benefits for your mental health and ultimately for being healthy.
• Observe your thought patterns: Be aware of when you find yourself in negative thoughts and then let go of them. There is no need to hang on to destructive thoughts. And they don’t serve you in any way.
• Read regularly: Make it a habit to read daily. Even if it is just for 10 minutes.
• Consciously decide what information you want to feed your mind with: Don’t just mindlessly consume TV or social media. TV programs are called programs for a reason. They program you. Make sure they are not negative programs.
• Practice focus and attention: If you regularly practice attention and focus as an effort of willpower you will get better and it will get more effortless.
• Let overthinking go: Whenever you catch yourself overthinking be aware that this is an ego defense mechanism to protect you from possible failure. Most of the time overthinking is not based on reality.
Whenever you question or doubt yourself or are stuck in negative thought patterns and judgment ask yourself these questions:
Why not? Who cares? So what?
Write them down and put them somewhere where you can see them frequently.
Caring for Your Soul
Tips on caring for your soul:
• Be aware and be mindful: Have a regular mindfulness and awareness practice. This can be meditation, yoga, breathwork, or any other spiritual practice. What you want is to become aware of the space between thoughts. The infinite space that underlies all and everything.
• Practice compassion, gentleness, and forgiveness: This will without a doubt have a healing effect on your soul. And being compassionate and gentle towards everything also includes yourself and your thoughts.
• Be present: Being in the here and now as much as possible will enrich your experience of life. And this doesn’t mean that you are not allowed to think about the past or the future. It means that you know that the present is the only moment that ever truly exists.
• Let go of thoughts, emotions, deeds, and desires: This doesn’t mean that you’re never supposed to think, feel, do, or have anything anymore. It means to not cling to them. Attachment is the source of suffering. And attachment to desires is often what keeps our desire from manifesting.
• Read spiritual literature: But be aware to not use it as a form of spiritual bypassing. Read it as a source of inspiration and reflect upon what you have read. Don’t mindlessly consume 1000 different self-help books. Choose a few that resonate with you and internalize their teachings.
• Go into nature: I think that’s self-explanatory. Spending time in nature can be a deeply spiritual experience.
Generally, spiritual growth is about getting in touch with your inner unchangeable core, your essence. A spiritual practice can help you to experience pure consciousness. It should involve an aspect that doesn’t need mind activity.
If you act from a place of compassion and understanding your relationships with others and yourself will improve. You will see that everyone around you is facing the same challenges.
Everyone is trying their best to live a good and happy life. Realizing that can shift you from me against you perspective to an us together perspective. We are in this boat together.
Final Words
By now you may be able to see that all the practices complement each other. Hence a practice for the body can then become a practice for the mind as well as a practice for the soul.
This is when we are in true alignment. And this is when the healthy is soul affects the mind and the body in a positive way and vice versa.
You might have had the experience of effortless functioning. Your body moved exactly the way you wanted it to. The mind was silent except when you needed it. And your awareness rested deeply in your core being, in your soul.
Ultimately, being healthy then means that our body, mind, and soul are in alignment. They’re all synchronized in a way that they function optimally individually and collectively as one.
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Don’t be intimidated by all that.
Once again, being truly healthy is an ideal. And it’s not about reaching this ideal. Because even when you reach it you are still in the process. As soon as you reach it you still have to keep up your practices to stay healthy.
In the end, it is about always giving your best. And to accept that your best varies from day to day. But by committing to it you have done the first important step.
Luka
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