What is Foundational Health?
Foundational health is the belief that your current state of health is based on an inherent system that supports your highest needs and goals at any given moment. This inherent system is made up of your body, mind, and spirit working together to achieve your most pressing needs and goals, whether they be conscious or subconscious. The benefits of adopting a foundational wellness lifestyle are numerous. This lifestyle can positively impact all aspects of your life from your physical health, mental health and even your spiritual health.
Physical Health
Taking care of your physical health is so important as it is truly connected to every aspect of your life. The current state of your physical health is heavily influenced by the following four main factors: your diet, your level of physical activity, the quality of sleep you get each night, and the amount of water you drink. When you adopt a foundational health lifestyle, you begin to focus on eating a nutritious diet, exercising regularly, getting 7-8 hours of quality sleep each night and staying hydrated. This leads to a number of health benefits, including:
- Lowered risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers
- Enhanced immunity
- Reduced levels of stress and anxiety, as well as reduced risk of depression
- Improved brain function and decision-making skills
- Decreased joint pain and inflammation
- Improved bone, skin, teeth, and eye health
- Improved ability to achieve and maintain a healthy weight
- Improved reproductive health
- Improved digestive health
Mental Health
When we talk about mental health, this includes your emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Adopting a foundational health lifestyle positively impacts all three of these areas of mental health. When you are emotionally, psychologically and socially well, you will notice amazing benefits!
Emotional Health: Emotional health refers to how in-tune you are with your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and your ability to truly understand and control them. Those with excellent emotional health are better able to cope with life’s challenges, can keep problems in perspective, and are more resilient from tough times. Those with strong emotional health also have signs they are in good physical health like lower blood pressure, reduced risk of heart disease, and a healthier weight.
Social Health: Social health refers to the relationships in your life and how they affect your well-being. Relationships can be among friends, your significant other, or with your family. Being socially well will help you live longer due to the strong sense of belonging relationships offer. Relationships bring joy, provide support to get you through difficult times, keep you from
feeling lonely, and help you with relating to others due to the various backgrounds we all have.
Psychological Health: Psychological health is your ability to find satisfaction reasonably and continuously throughout your life without the need for outside sources of approval. Working to improve your psychological health can uncover many benefits for your overall health such as reduced anxiety, improved moods, clearer thinking, a greater sense of calm or inner peace, increased self-esteem, reduced risk of depression, and improvement in relationships.
Spiritual Health
Last but not least, is your spiritual health. This area involves having a purposeful life, transcendence, and actualization of different dimensions and capacities of human beings. It is realizing that you are a small piece of the puzzle of life. Even though you are just one piece, you understand that you have meaning and you can fit in with others. The benefits of improving your spiritual health through a foundational health lifestyle include stress relief, feeling a sense of purpose, feeling connected to the world, being able to recognize that you cannot control everything, expanding your support network, and an overall a healthier and more fulfilled life.
Foundational health is a topic we covered in our August edition of HDHeartbeat. If you would like to learn more about foundational health, tips for adopting a foundational health lifestyle, or just don’t want to miss exclusive content in the future, then a subscription to HDHeartbeat is just what you need. Contact us today to learn how to subscribe.
