I despise how charlatans within the health space have destroyed the public perception of ‘holistic.’ It’s a beautiful words with incredible meaning and application.
Individuals with no moral backbone and a predatory business practice use this word to lure people into their grip.
We must move away from this shitty assumption.
Yes, there are many people like that out there.
But there are also just as many people teaching the art of health and wellness in a way which respects the holistic approach. They take systems thinking seriously and take great care of their clients.
I aim for this within my own work.
Holistic and systems thinking are one and the same
Let’s first define these two phrases.
Holistic Thinking: “Holistic thinking is a cognitive style that focuses on the context of a situation, and the relationships between the disparate elements of that situation.”
Systems Thinking: “Systems thinking is a holistic way to investigate factors and interactions that could contribute to a possible outcome.”
As you can see, they’re essentially the same thing.
The priority is taking a comprehensive approach.
Instead of focusing on the tree, you shift your perspective to the forest.
I’ll be the first to tell you this philosophy is incredibly powerful, not just for health, but for every single domain of life.
If you’re a health novice, approaching it with the guiding principles of systems thinking will expedite your learning process and separate you from everybody else.
Connecting the dots
Let’s take a look at how this plays out with the sleep deprivation.
You’d think missing out on sleep has little to do with impacting your health, right?
Wrong.
Chronic sleep deprivation alone does the following:
Ruin your appetite through the dysregulation of leptin and ghrelin
Slow your metabolism
Create brain fog & fatigue
Causes chronic inflammation
Makes you more susceptible to injury during training
As you can see, sleep itself reaches far and wide. It touches everything.
This sort of phenomenon replicates itself often throughout health.. whether it’s nutrition. heavy metal contamination, chronic stress, so forth.
We should appreciate the holistic approach
A psychologically evolved individual takes a systematic approach to their life.
By definition, this sort of approach is holistic. It takes everything it can possibly think about into account, leaving no stone unturned.
These people are rare to find.
Most are reckless with their health.
They don’t understand how systems work, nor have they done the necessary research to understand what the fundamentals of health are.
To view your health from this perspective is a gift because it enables you to manipulate the system intelligently to get what you desire.
High energy? Tweak a few things here and there and you have it.
Better mental clarity? Same applies.
It gives you autonomy.
Most importantly, it forces you to apply these thought process to other areas of your life such as business, relationships, and external problems which plague society.
Much love,
Zaid
I was always interested in what happens behind the curtains (forest) and not that much on the display (tree).
Great article, Zaid, which led to improving my thinking and systems for my RECOMP clients.
Beautiful - starting a ‘not so holistic’ dinner then driving but will revisit the rest soon 🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶