Wellness: It’s Holistic

“Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

I often hear people say:

“I know what I need to do: I need to eat less and move more.”

I’m all for simplicity, but this statement isn’t simple—it’s simplistic. It completely misses the holistic nature of wellness.

Yes, nutrition and exercise are very important, but they’re far from everything.

You need much more than food and movement to thrive.

Nourishing Food, Nourishing Movement, Nourishing Life

If you pay close attention to their tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language when many people say, “I know what I need to do: I need to eat less and move more,” they’re actually saying something more like:

“I know what I need to do: I need to eat less (because I’m a gluttonous pig) and move more (because I’m a lazy sloth).”

It’s like they’re trying to motivate themselves with inner harsh taskmasters. They usually don’t make much progress because they eventually get tired of berating themselves and give up.

Several years ago, I was walking in a beautiful forest with an acquaintance. At one point, I said to her, “It’s so nourishing to be out here.”

She was surprised. She’d never heard the word “nourishing” used to describe anything besides food. I kind of surprised myself using it that way too. It just felt right.

The way it struck her that there are a lot of things we do to nourish ourselves reverberated back to me. I realized nourishing ourselves is exactly what taking great care of ourselves is about, and I realized nourishing ourselves is a holistic endeavor.

Later that day, “Nourishing food, nourishing movement, nourishing life!” became a mantra for me. It later became the tagline for my wellness-coaching practice/business.

It makes food and movement about nourishment not punishment.

It makes self-care and wellness about doing things for yourself not to yourself.

It makes self-care and wellness thoroughly holistic.

It makes self-care and wellness about living a nourishing life.

A fuller way of saying it is:

“Nourishing food, nourishing movement, nourishing sleep, nourishing rest, nourishing work, nourishing relationships, and more!”

This statement is positive and encouraging, and it accurately describes what it means to live well and thrive.

Do you want to have this in your mind?

“I know what I need to do: I need to eat less (because I’m a gluttonous pig) and move more (because I’m a lazy sloth).”

Or do you want to have this in your mind?

“Nourishing food, nourishing movement, nourishing life!”

Needs

Imagine you were away for a few weeks, and you forgot to have someone water your indoor plants.

When you got home, you’d certainly be greeted by some wilted plants.

Plants need soil, space, air, sunlight, and water to survive and thrive.

When these needs are met, a plant tends to thrive. When one or more of these needs goes unmet, a plant tends to wilt and can die.

You and I are basically indoor plants with complicated emotions who sometimes fly in airplanes.

That is, like plants, we have a clear set of needs, and meeting them is essential to our survival and thrival.

When we proactively meet most of our needs most of the time, we tend to get and stay well. When one or more of our needs goes unmet, we tend to get sick and can die.

Stress

When your needs go unmet, you experience stress.

Stress feels lousy and makes you sick. This is especially true when stress becomes chronic:

Chronic stress creates chronic inflammation, and chronic inflammation creates lifestyle ailments—which are, of course, chronic.

No amount of broccoli and hiking is going to do you much good if you’re constantly stressed and unfulfilled in your day-to-day life. To truly thrive, you have to live a balanced life and proactively meet most of your needs most of the time.

A wellness program that only deals with nutrition and exercise is only dealing with 50 percent of what’s important. In school, that would get an F. A well-rounded wellness program, an A-plus wellness program, employs evidenced-based approaches to nutrition, exercise, stress reduction, and holistic wellness.

The good news is you can learn to meet most of your needs most of the time.

Fulfillment

When your needs are met, you experience fulfillment.

Instead of fighting against stress, I encourage you to make fulfillment your North Star. Stress fades away in an environment of fulfillment.

I encourage you to orient yourself on your wellness journey by doing your very best to proactively meet most of your needs most of the time. To fulfill your needs.

I encourage you to do this with others. I encourage you to garner the personal and professional support that’s most helpful to you and to be of support to others in ways that feel good to you. Helping each other fulfill our needs is what we humans are wired to do.

Sleep

“Sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.”
—Thomas Dekker

One of your needs is sleep.

Sleep provides essential rejuvenation.

Literally everything gets thrown off when your sleep is inadequate, and literally everything works better when you get plenty of high-quality sleep.

Inadequate sleep comes with higher levels of catabolic hormones and lower levels of anabolic hormones.

With plenty of high-quality sleep comes with lower levels of catabolic hormones and higher levels of anabolic hormones.

Catabolic hormones break you down. Anabolic hormones build you up.

The fundamental importance of sleep is that simple and that powerful.

Sleep and hormones play a significant role in appetite and satiety too and greatly impact weight loss and weight maintenance.

Ghrelin is a hormone secreted by your stomach when there isn’t much food there. With high amounts of ghrelin, your brain sends signals of hunger. Ghrelin can be thought of as the hunger hormone.

Leptin is secreted by your fat cells when you have a sufficient amount of fat stored. With high amounts of leptin, your brain sends signals of fullness. Leptin can be thought of as the fullness hormone.

With inadequate sleep comes higher levels of ghrelin and lower levels of leptin. More hunger hormone and less fullness hormone. If hunger is the gas pedal of a car and fullness is the brake pedal, this is like having two feet on the gas pedal and nothing to slow you down.

With plenty of high-quality sleep comes optimal levels of ghrelin and leptin. This is like having one foot on the gas pedal and one foot on the brake pedal. As such, getting plenty of sleep is essential to maintaining an optimized appetite-satiety response and to weight loss and weight maintenance.

Getting seven to nine hours of sleep a night is a helpful general guideline.

To get high-quality sleep, I encourage you to:

1. Make sure your bedroom is comfortable: not too hot and not too cold. If you’re too hot or too cold, you won’t sleep as well as you can. A bedroom at 60 to 65 degrees at night is best for most people.
2. Make sure your bedroom is very dark. The darker the better. Make sure there are no lights from any electronic devices. Your body perceives this light as daylight, and this negatively affects the quality of your sleep.
3. Make sure your bedroom is very quiet. Complete silence or white noise from a fan, humidifier, or a similar device is best.
4. Avoid eating within a few hours of bedtime. Give yourself some time to digest your food before you go to sleep.
5. Don’t drink water in the evening. Drink water in the morning and throughout the day between meals, but don’t drink water in the evening.
6. Ideally, spend the few hours before bedtime resting. This makes it easier to wind down, fall asleep, and sleep deeply.
7. Ideally, avoid all screens the few hours before you go to sleep (or use blue-light-blocking tools). Artificial light, especially blue light from computers, tablets, phones, and similar devices, inhibits the secretion of melatonin, a hormone that impacts your sleep and wake cycles.
8. Reserve your bed for sleep and sex. If you associate your bed with things like paying bills and checking e-mail, it can be tougher for you to wind down and fall asleep. Use your bed only for sleep and sex. When you get in bed, you’ll get a strong signal that it’s time to doze off (or have sex then doze off).
9. Increase your exposure to light during the day. Get outside during the day whenever possible. When you’re indoors, let in as much light as possible.

Many people have trouble sleeping well not because of poor sleep hygiene but deeper challenges. For example, I’ve witnessed many clients sleep better after improving the quality of their work lives or relationships. Stress disturbs your circadian rhythms. Fulfillment optimizes your circadian rhythms. In this spirit, I encourage you to really lean into a holistic approach to wellness.

Rest

“We call it ‘dolce far niente’, the sweetness of doing nothing.”
—Eat Pray Love

Sleep is important and so is rest.

Rest is being awake but not being on.

If you get plenty of sleep, but you’re go, go, go from the moment you wake up until the moment you fall asleep, you’re not meeting your need for rest.

A helpful way to think about rest is in cycles.

For example, you could plan some rest into each day, each week, and each season. Each day, you might get an hour of rest in the evening. Each week, you might get a whole day of rest on Sundays. Each season, you might get a whole week of rest by taking a vacation.

You could also plan some rest within your workdays.

For example, you could take five minutes between your meetings to go for a walk and get some fresh air.

The quality of the rest you get matters too.

As the perfect complement to being on a lot, being fully off while resting is very helpful. For example, this could mean making yourself unavailable for receiving messages. The idea is to truly be off.

If you’re not good at resting, watch kids. Watch birds. Watch deer. Let them be your role models. They rest all the time and have no problem doing so. When they’re active, they’re active. When they’re resting, they’re resting. You can do that too.

Work

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”
—Woodrow Wilson

If your work life is unfulfilling, it’ll be a constant stressor.

If your work life is fulfilling, it’ll be a source of nourishment.

In fact, fulfilling work will keep you well.

For example, in a scientific study with results published in BMJ, people with higher levels of work stress were more than twice as likely to have metabolic syndrome. Here’s how the researchers summarized their findings:

“A dose-response association exists between exposure to work stress and the metabolic syndrome. Employees with chronic work stress have more than double the odds of the syndrome than those without work stress, after other risk factors are taken into account. The study provides evidence for the biological plausibility of psychosocial stress mechanisms linking stressors from everyday life with heart disease.” (1)

Because of body-heart-mind unity, your work life affects you on every level.

A useful framework for fulfilling work is:

1. Do work that’s enjoyable for you.
2. Do work that’s meaningful to you.
3. Do work that makes you enough money.
4. Do work that leaves you enough time and energy to do other things that are important to you.

If you really enjoy your work but don’t make enough money, you’ll probably be stressed.

If you make boatloads of money but have to work all the time, you’ll probably be stressed.

To lower your stress levels and experience more fulfillment, I encourage you to gradually work toward optimizing all four of these aspects of your work life.

Relationships

“There isn’t time, so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heart burnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant so to speak, for that. The good life is built with good relationships.”
—Mark Twain

If your relationships are unfulfilling, they’ll be a constant stressor.

If your relationships are fulfilling, they’ll be a source of nourishment.

In fact, fulfilling relationships will keep you well.

For example, in a scientific study with results published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, social isolation was identified as a risk factor for premature death as strong as other well-established risk factors. Here’s how the researchers summarized their findings:

“Substantial evidence now indicates that individuals lacking social connections (both objective and subjective social isolation) are at risk for premature mortality. The risk associated with social isolation and loneliness is comparable with well-established risk factors for mortality, including those identified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (physical activity, obesity, substance abuse, responsible sexual behavior, mental health, injury and violence, environmental quality, immunization, and access to health care). A substantial body of research has also elucidated the psychological, behavioral, and biological pathways by which social isolation and loneliness lead to poorer health and decreased longevity. In light of mounting evidence that social isolation and loneliness are increasing in society, it seems prudent to add social isolation and loneliness to lists of public health concerns. The professional literature and public health initiatives can accord social isolation and loneliness greater recognition.” (2)

Because of body-heart-mind unity, your relationships affect you on every level.

We’re extremely social animals.

Think about it:

1. We don’t have claws.
2. We don’t have fur.
3. We don’t have night vision.

We’re feeble compared to other animals. Our claws are each other. It’s our ability to band together and have each other’s backs that keeps us alive and well.

We’re better together.

A useful framework for fulfilling relationships is:

1. Cultivate fulfilling familial relationships.
2. Cultivate fulfilling friendships.
3. Cultivate fulfilling community relationships.

Through these various relationships, you have a good chance of meeting most of your relationship needs most of the time.

To lower your stress levels and experience more fulfillment, I encourage you to gradually work toward optimizing all of the relationships that are important to you.

Wait, There’s More

Many people also benefit from:

1. Spending time with nature
2. Experiencing solitude
3. Creating and taking in art
4. Employing relaxation techniques
5. Participating in a spiritual practice

Of course, anything else you consider self-care can be part of how you take great care of yourself.

A fun way to think about meeting multiple needs is two-for-ones and three-for-ones.

A two-for-one is meeting two needs at once. For example, you could spend time with a friend and spend time with nature at the same time by going for a walk together on the beach.

A three-for-one is meeting three needs at once. For example, you could get some rest, spend some time with your life partner, and take in some art by checking out your local art museum on Friday evening.

Two-for-ones and three-for-ones can easily become four-for-ones, five-for-ones, and more.

Complete Nourishment

A fun way to think about holistic wellness is to remind yourself to “take your holistic-wellness vitamins”:

1. Vitamin S: sleep
2. Vitamin R: rest
3. Vitamin FW: fulfilling work
4. Vitamin FR: fulfilling relationships
5. Vitamin N: nature
6. Vitamin O: other things that feel good to you and meet your needs

In addition to eating well and exercising, taking your holistic-wellness vitamins goes a long way.

(1) Chronic Stress at Work and the Metabolic Syndrome: Prospective Study. BMJ, 2006, 10.1136/bmj.38693.435301.80.
(2) Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality: A Meta-Analytic Review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2015, 10.1177/1745691614568352.

About Jason Gootman
Jason Gootman is a Mayo Clinic Certified Wellness Coach and National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach as well as a certified nutritionist and certified exercise physiologist. Jason helps people reverse and prevent type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other ailments with evidence-based approaches to nutrition, exercise, stress reduction, holistic wellness, and, most importantly, lasting behavior improvement and positive habit formation. As part of this work, Jason often helps people lose weight and keep it off, in part by helping them overcome the common challenges of yo-yo dieting and emotional eating. Jason helps people go from knowing what to do and having good intentions to consistently taking great care of themselves in ways that help them add years to their lives and life to their years.