We created Arrae Virtual Care with the belief that optimal health is achieved by focusing on holistic health. Did you know that our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs have the power to control our biological functions? In other words, every negative thought or psychological stressor has the capability to make us feel physically ill. This is known as the mind-body connection, and honoring it is at the core of holistic healthcare. Holistic healthcare complements traditional medicine practices while integrating wellness and prevention to form a comprehensive healthcare plan, tailored to the individual.
Holistic health cares for the entire person—physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional needs. It is rooted in the idea that these aspects work in a delicate balance and being off-center in one affects you as a whole. Digestive and Mental health issues are good examples of this. While undeniably being physical responses, bloating, nausea, and abdominal pain, can also impact our self confidence, body image, and even willingness to socialize. Beginning as a physically altered state, digestive issues (and their unwelcome side effects) can affect our mental and emotional responses simultaneously. To counter these, we may try yoga, drinking peppermint tea, or our personal favorite, taking two Arrae Bloat capsules. This tends to our spiritual side, and helps to re-establish our body’s harmony.
Another example is anxiety. It’s a psychological response to a stressor, but also may cause an increased heart rate, digestive issues, headaches, and difficulty sleeping. It works both ways: having digestive issues can also lead to anxiety about what you can’t see happening within your body and can cause anxiety surrounding food. Meanwhile, your spiritual and emotional needs can be met by spending time with family and friends, playing with a pet, and meditation. See how these four core concepts were all affected differently by one mental stressor? Targeting the specific, affected stressor to regain the balance of the body and mind is exactly the focus of holistic health care.
Another unique component of holistic health is that there is no “magic pill”. Let’s use our example above, anxiety. A general practitioner may prescribe you an anti-anxiety medication while keeping the rest of your life the same. A naturopathic doctor, known as an ND, will instead work with you to identify the underlying causes of your anxiety and develop a personalized treatment plan to address them. By targeting the source of the illness and by using the four core subunits of the individual, an ND is able to restore your balance, as a whole. A variety of therapies will be assessed and used—including dietary changes, exercise, therapy, yoga, and even massage for adjunct supportive care. Put simply, rather than treating you as your symptoms, ND’s treat you as a whole. Through identifying and treating the root cause of your health concerns, an ND will provide a long term solution and benefit you as a whole.
It’s no secret that wellness is good for us. We know that we should drink enough water, eat nutritionally dense foods, sleep eight hours a night, and hit the gym all while prioritizing rest and relaxation. While these all manifest differently in everyone’s personal self-care routine, we understand how difficult these simple tasks become when life gets in the way. With more stress comes less time to care for ourselves, and sometimes, even when we know better, eating chips and ice cream while binging Netflix seems like the easiest and most accessible alternative. Holistic medicine will provide you with the education and motivation to feel empowered in making personal choices when it comes to your own health. This isn’t to say the days of relaxing on the couch have to be over forever, but you will have the tools to assess what your bodyand mind need in the moment, and tend to both at once.
Holistic healthcare aims to make caring for yourself accessible and doable. NDs will work with you and take an overarching approach to treat the entire you. They will ask about you—your overall health and life—in order to personalize a plan to improve both your physical and mental health. We have to work for, not against, our body and mind so they will work for us. By implementing holistic healthcare into your care regimen, you will learn to tap into and honor the sacred mind-body connection that we all have. You will form a strong relationship with your ND but especially with yourself. Holistic healthcare will give you the motivation to show up for yourself every day, and to be the best version of yourself that you can be. Visit our Arrae Virtual Care page to start your Holistic Health journey today!
“What Is Holistic Health Care, Anyway?” Dignity Health, www.dignityhealth.org/articles/what-is-holistic-health-care-anyway.
