What Is Health?
Nothing like a good ol’ flu virus to remind you how important your health is. (p.s. I’m recovering, it wasn’t bad, and I thank you all for your concern!) Like many, I tend to take some parts of my health for granted, and other parts receive so much attention. There are actually 6-10 different health categories, depending on your source. But all agree that health is so much more than just the absence of disease or illness.
The fact that there are so many categories of health means “good health” might be more of an individual art than it is a hard and fast science. The six main categories are: physical, mental, emotional, social, environmental, and spiritual. If you want to read more about them, check out this article.
Yoga and its many components are excellent at touching upon most, if not all, of these main categories of health. When we couple yoga with Ayurveda, then we really are setting ourselves up for excellent health.
The benefit of Ayurveda is in its automation of daily habits that keep us in healthy cycles. In Ayurveda we can rely on daily, monthly, yearly, and even lifetime cycles to promote health. Some examples of this are changing what you eat based on the season, and practicing yoga to balance how you’re feeling. In Ayurveda, opposites balance. So if you’re agitated, do things that soothe and quiet. If you’re lethargic, do things that heat you up and get you moving.
Going back to the art of health, I want to remind you that we are all very different. So there is some experimentation that occurs even within the framework of yoga and ayurveda. As I started to feel run down, I knew I was out of balance. I started amping up my immune-boosters, and spending more time in active rest. As a naturally fiery personality type, resting is not my strong suit. But, as discussed above, resting restores balance for me. You may be a different “type” so you may actually need less rest and more activity to restore balance.
I encourage you to consider what you can do to move toward your personal, most healthy self. And if you need some encouragement, or direction, let’s talk. I offer a free, no obligation, 15-minute chat on my website, or simply email me with a time that works. Maybe you’ll want to continue with some Wellness Coaching, or maybe the 15 minutes is enough. I leave it to you, because ultimately I want you to be in charge of your health!