What is health? According to the dictionary health is defined as “the state of being free from illness or injury” while this is certainly a good definition and gets us on the right track I want to go a little further with this. Health is one of those things that it’s hard to appreciate until you don’t have it anymore. Or on the other hand hard to appreciate if you’ve never truly experienced it before. When I speak of health here I’m talking health physically, yes, but also mentally and spiritually. Total health.
Most people are not healthy physically, even the young and what we’d call “in shape”. The modern world bombards us with all sorts of chemicals, fake foods, drugs, strange ways of living counter to our nature, and much more making health in the modern day and age almost an impossibility. In order to attain health and keep it we must be smart and we must be diligent. No longer can you just eat or drink whatever and expect it to be somewhat healthy as has been the case for the majority of human existence.
Now what most people consume is a poison of one sort or another and has poisonous effects of the body, even if it takes years to realize it. So again what do I mean by health? That is what I want to outline here, what is meant by health as well as the best way to achieve true and total health. How to heal and protect yourself physically, mentally, and spiritually. Naturally we’ll start with physical health as it’s generally the easiest to get your head around.
The Foundation Of Natural Living & Total Health
Physical health is what we generally think of when we think about health. Having a healthy body, free of disease and illness, have a proper ratio of fat to muscle, having strong bones, functioning organs, being hormonally optimized, having a brain that is functioning at peak capacity and all of that. Before going further understand that all health, physically, mentally, and spiritually are tied together. With that being understood let’s look at the first facet of health and that is diet.
You are what you eat the old saying goes and there’s much truth to that. Diet is profoundly important when it comes not only to physical health but mental health as well. When you don’t give you body the nutrients that it needs it can’t function properly. It’s no different than no giving you car gas or oil and expecting it to function the same. You need to watch what you put in your mouth and understand it affects a whole lot more than just how you look in a bathing suit.
Diet is the foundation, if you’re eating junk nothing is going to work right. Your body, mind, and even spirit aren’t going to work right. You want to eat a natural diet as much as possible. A good rule of thumb is that if humans have only started eating the thing in the past 500 years it’s probably best to put it down and find something else. If you don’t understand how what you’re eating came from nature, you should probably put it down.
Eat plenty of good foods. Organ meats, game meats, grass fed meat, real milk, cheese, and cream. Kefir, kombucha, and other natural probiotic drinks. Fresh grown vegetables that are prepared properly. Eat tail to snout, use the bones, ligaments, organs, and muscle meats. Bone broth and meat stock are great too. Fresh pesticide free fruit. And so on and so forth.
Again if you can’t find the foods relation to nature then don’t eat it. Don’t follow the standard western diet, that doesn’t lead to anything good. Try to limit the amount of drugs that you use. Always ask your doctor if something is needed or if you can do something to work off drugs. Sometimes you can’t but do what you can and always consult with your doctor first. You want as little unnatural things in your body as possible.
Big Factors In Total Health That Are Often Forgotten
After diet we have sleep. Sleep is so critically important yet in our go, go, go world we often forget this. The modern workplace and economy has everyone so desperate scrambling for dollars that they often forget their health. You need sleep and you need quality sleep. Eight hours a night is recommended but if you’re young it’s probably more than that. Going to bed and rising with the sun would be best but not practical for the modern world. Sleep repairs and restores your body.
Get blackout curtains, play relaxing music or nature sounds, stay away from alcohol and caffeine, keep your room cool at night, have comfortable sheets and a comfortable mattress. You spend roughly one third to one quarter of your life on the mattress, it pays to invest some money into it. Sleep is a big deal for physical, mental, and yes, even spiritual health. You can’t be healthy if you’re not getting enough sleep or good sleep. Do everything you can to facilitate good sleep.
Stress is another big thing. Chronic low level stress is not good for you. Your body was meant to be relaxed with certain times of stress that it dealt with and then went back to being relaxed. In the modern world most people are chronically stressed out. They have low levels of stress going on twenty four seven and this wrecks havoc on their bodies and their total health. So what’s to be done about it?
Always look to see how you can limit your stress. What can you do to avoid stressful people and situations? What adjustments can you make? Do you need to cut certain people out of your life? But often there’s not much you can do, especially with work related stress. So you need other options. Meditation is the single biggest thing I could recommend for mental health and the handling and reduction of stress. Mindfulness meditation is a must for most people in the modern world.
Reading fiction is another effective method to relieve stress and then of course there’s exercise which is the next part of our discussion about achieving total health.
The Physical, Mental, & Spiritual Benefits Of Exercise
We were all meant to be in motion in one capacity or another. We don’t all have to be championship weightlifters or run for miles or anything like that. But we all need to have some form of exercise in our lives. For our physical wellbeing, for our mental wellbeing, and spiritual as well. Exercise is a broad term if you’re doing combat sports or hiking, both things I recommend then you have this covered. But say you don’t have the capacity or time for that right now, even a walk around the block or around a park can be what you need.
Just get your body moving, muscles working, and blood pumping. I’ve partial to hiking and combat sports but you do what works for you. If its going to a certain class the gym then do that. If its going for a swim then do that. If its just walking around the neighborhood or your land then do that. There are tons of things that work, but the key is you have to do is on a consistent basis otherwise you’re limiting the results that you can get.
You have to be consistent with all the above things for them to have any true impact on your life. Doing them one day or even one month then stopping isn’t going to do much for you. We’re looking to forge habits, we’re looking to life a healthy lifestyle, not do something for a limited period of time. It’s about daily habits that become your lifestyle and it is healthy habits that lead to health lives and total health.
The Untapped Power Of Nature
Man was not meant to live in a box, even if he calls it a house or office. Man was meant to be outside with the sun beating down on him, the wind in his face, the ground underneath his feet. When man goes to long without nature he ends up wrong in some way or another. Don’t underestimate the power of nature for healing and strengthening you on every level. Nature is required for physical, mental, and spiritual health, for total health. Camping, hiking, swimming, or just being outside are required for true health.
So many neglect this aspect of health and wonder why they can never achieve true total health. You need to find a way to spend some time every week in nature. Even if its just a few minutes a day or a few hours on the weekend. Like I said before when you’re divorced from nature for too long things start to go wrong. The more you can align yourself with natural living the better your total health is going to be. Get in nature, run, jump, laugh, love, fight, hunt, tread, dance, sing, enjoy life, and watch your health transform.
I know this is a lot to take in but work at it bit by bit and make total health a habit.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it.
-Charles Sledge
