Holistic – “incorporating the concept of holism, or the idea that the whole is more than merely the sum of its parts, in theory or practice”

or 

“of or relating to a form of medicine concerned with the care of the entire person in all aspects of well-being, including the physical, psychological, and social, rather than with diseases and symptoms in isolation, and often using natural or traditional remedies”

I find myself conflicted when I think about health, what does it mean to have good health, to be healthy, and I’ve realised that even though there are objective metrics that one can use to calculate if a person is in good health or not, the overall experience that encompasses an individual’s health is somewhat subjective. I say this because a person who is physically sound but dealing with a long-term case of melancholy may be less “healthy” than a person who is wheelchair-bound from an accident but in good spirits. So, to define health, it is important to think about how functional a person is and what their state of mind is, particularly around their health and what their perception of good health is. Regardless, the unprecedented rise in chronic illness gives me the impression that many of us underestimate the value of being healthy and the grievous consequences that come from neglecting one’s wellbeing, as an old Arabic proverb relays, “health is a crown that the healthy wear but only the sick can see”.  

I surprise myself when I notice how radically different our view of “health” is compared to our ancestors, who were content with getting a good night’s sleep and surviving. Now there are innumerable gadgets that claim to track your bodily metrics, such as quality of sleep, temperature, heart rate, and so on, and produce computer-generated reports that reveal how those metrics reflect your state of health. Additionally, the commodification of health has consequently given rise to an insidious wave of “gurus” who grift memberships, books, protocols, and programs, claiming to disclose the “secrets” or “keys” to longevity and health. As if good health was ever coded in secrets or complicated because in all honestly, it isn’t. 

The concept of “healthcare” is about as old as humanity itself, as disease is not a novel concept and humans have had to learn to treat and cure disease and mitigate risk factors for illness long before we came around. The use of medicinal plants dates to around 60000 years ago, back to the paleolithic age and the first recorded herbal text was written in ancient Greece, back in 4^th century BC, when the apothecary became the pharmacist and ample texts have been found to indicate that scholarly and educated Arabs, Romans, and Egyptians believed in the practice of nutrition and herbal medicine.

Due to the lack of technology, previous methods of medical practice focused on the individual, frequently referring to their “vital energy”, which the Greeks referred to as pneuma, the Chinese referred to as Qi (chi), and the Indians referred to as prana, but with advancements in scientific research and the commodification of healthcare, clinical practice changed into a reductionist model. This coincides with the shift in practice from focusing on the individual to focusing on the constituents in herbs, supplements, and drugs and their impact on diseases.

One of the fundamental tenets of natural medicine is to focus on the individual, “why” is there a disease, referring to the vitality and constitutional type of the person, instead of “what” is the disease, what strain of bacteria, etc. Referring to the definition of holistic, when applied to healthcare, it is a qualitatively different approach that respects the interaction between the mind, body and the environment, reaching beyond the allopathic approach of merely treating symptoms, it seeks to correct the underlying disharmony that’s causing the problem. 

This is where the most challenging but most rewarding aspect of holistic practice arises; what is the “underlying disharmony” behind a client’s malady, which nowadays is also referred to as the “root cause”. The brass tacks is that we generally do not know what the “root cause” of disease is, let alone what causes disease in the first place. Yes, we are aware of microorganisms that cause pathology, and we are aware of underlying mechanisms that drive many disease processes, such as inflammation, but if two people are exposed to the same pathogen or stress and only one of them develops a disease because of it, then why did the other person not develop the same disease? The possibilities are endless; one had a stronger immune system than the other, or better genetic resistance to disease, or was in better health than the other person because they were more health conscious, or they were taking supplements that support their immune function, or their deeply rooted beliefs rendered them impervious to illness before it can take hold, etc. So, it is apparent that health encompasses a multi-varied phenomenon, where the right or wrong combination of variables in motion can either sustain or destroy health.

The basis of holistic practice is that it is a dynamic and constantly evolving discipline, just like health. The experience in becoming healthy comes relatively easy for some and challenging for others but its essence is the same; developing self-awareness and the intuition to recognise self-destructive habits and patterns of behaviour that impede health, which may be unconscious in nature, and to know what you need, as an individual, to sustain health. The journey is completely unique to the individual as each person has their own “blueprint” of sorts, their compendium of health, consisting of the habits, activities, and behaviours that are ideal for that person’s constitution.

In practice, it is not solely about keeping up with latest health trends, diets, therapies, supplements, and all other health-related products, but about developing the intuitive ability to unveil these behavioural and lifestyle patterns to the client and guide them to a better place. Due to the complexity of factors that affect health and the human tendency to form habits, it will take detective work to ascertain imbalances and flexibility to accept progressive changes in oneself because arguably, all health maladies, to some degree, are self-induced, except when genetic aberrations drive biochemical anomalies, and these must be addressed before lasting progress can be made. Then, a person has to contend with variables that can make the journey towards health challenging, which leads me to the following point.  

Probability of change VS possibility of change 

The change conundrum is as follows; chronic health complaints are rarely caused by a single, objectively identifiable cause so it is likely that a mixture of variables led to the progressive decline of one’s health, to the point of becoming ill. To what extent does an individual need to change their ways to restore health? It can be complex but if it can be found, then now the work falls in the hands of the person in control of their health. The probability of change represents the variables that affect one’s likelihood of getting well, such as age (the older a person, the more rigid their habits and belief systems are likely to be), state of disease (extent of illness, co-morbidities, polypharmacy), state of mind (perception around their health and their ability to heal), and these variables then drive the possibility of change, where if an individual has the motivation and willpower, their guided efforts towards wellness will be fruitful, contingent on the probability of change being high enough so the journey doesn’t end up being too challenging and the person ultimately gives up and retraces back to their old ways.

In some cases, a chronic illness picture becomes terminal, in the sense that the course of illness has taken such a long course in the body of the afflicted that it becomes a part of their identity. In these cases, being comfortable enough to lead a functional life becomes the set point of their health barometer, whereas the individual may still be ill, or in a state of dis-ease, but they have the mechanisms set in place to cope and prevent a relapse or deterioration of their condition. 

In a hyper-industrialized and socially-isolating society, I don’t doubt that adapting to the world we live in comes with challenges that our predecessors didn’t face, even though they lived shorter lives than us. Their worries revolved around finding shelter, sourcing food, and fending off predators for long enough to be able to spread their genes. Fast forward some millennia in time and the average person has a laundry list of woes and worries so it’s no surprise that our set barometer for our stress hormones is probably remarkably higher than it was for them, and stress is arguably the single greatest driver of all chronic illness. A fundamental mistake that occurred in healthcare was the shift from emphasizing living well to emphasizing living longer. These advancements may have paved the way for an impressive increase in the average age of a person’s lifespan but the trade-off there was an increase in chronic illness.

However, we are far more resourceful as a species now and the tools that help us adapt to modern life are at our disposal. The bulk of what humans need to regulate health are based on ancestral tenets of health, fundamental and simple habits that we practice daily, not on expensive gadgets or “wellness” protocols online that do not place the individual in mind and it is clear that humans need a retracement, a renaissance of sorts, a back-to-our-roots approach to living, as, to quote Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England journal of medicine, “it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society”.