Dr. Attaway has worked in Holistic Women's Health for nearly 20 years. Her clinical experiences are now translated into coaching groups, workshops, and written media. She promotes simple strategies for getting and staying healthy.
Everybody wants a life makeover, only some know what to do. Finding the idea overwhelming, we let it flounder and just keep living the same way.
How do you build an awesome life? You want to wake up feeling motivated, connected, and ready for action. You want to soar in your career. You want to look good in your clothes, take amazing trips with friends, and fall asleep each night feeling great about yourself.
A life of abundance requires a holistic approach because how we feel and function has many variables. Today’s fast-paced world makes it harder to reap the benefits people used to get from simply living. (No one was trudging to the gym after plowing the fields)
Isolation from family, high-stress jobs, long commutes, and overfilled schedules drain our life force.
Without a strong foundation, we easily feel burned out, bored, unmotivated, and lonely. A holistic approach brings balance and renewed spirit!
These five pillars are the foundation where our mental, emotional, and physical health originate: food, sleep, physical activity, relationships, and spirituality/creativity/mindfulness. Each pillar provides a necessity for living an authentic and abundant life.
1. Food/nutrition
Nutrition is more than just food.
We tend to think of nutrition in terms of diet and weight. Western medicine is slowly acknowledging that what we consume has serious implications for our bodies and minds. Although not all things can be solved with diet, almost any symptom can be improved by it.
Vitamins are the “Vital amines/proteins” discovered as metabolic catalysts. Without the vitamins from whole foods present your metabolism suffers. You don’t have the necessary equipment to process all the hormones, neurotransmitters, and enzymes to feel energetic, strong, and satisfied.
Providing abundant vitamins through a whole-food diet will activate the cellular machinery that energizes the body and mind.
Minerals are chemical elements also found in whole foods. The plants eat the minerals from the soil, and then we eat the plants to absorb the minerals. They are the building blocks needed to put the molecules of good health together.
Every gland of the endocrine system needs a particular mineral to make it’s product, as do your red blood cells, collagen fibers, and muscle cells. When minerals are absent your body breaks down and can’t repair the way it’s supposed to. Missing minerals starve the nervous system and brain. Your endocrine system can’t produce and distribute hormones. You feel bad.
To feel energetic and strong eat a diet rich with colorful fruits and vegetables.
Carbohydrates, fats and proteins are also necessary to maintain life. Diet gurus around the world argue over the specifics, but longevity studies from around the globe teach us that there is no one particular food that does the trick. A well rounded diet is proven to be the best way to live a long and healthy life.
Sharing the table with friends and family is the best part of the meal.
Things to try: Worry less about macronutrients and get excited about color, flavor, variety, and sharing a meal with loved ones.
2. Sleep
Who isn’t knocked off balance from a single night of poor sleep, let alone several weeks or months of it?!
In Chinese medicine we learn that the daylight hours are for being active and the dark hours are for quiet. This doesn’t mean sleeping 12 hours in the winter, however it suggests that once the sun has set we should follow it to a place of rest. A bright house with a loud television and video games is a sure way to destabilize your body’s natural rhythm.
The rising and falling of the sun and moon help us keep the pace with natural time. Honoring this cycle over the seasons perpetuates a healthy nervous system.
Sleeping allows your cells to repair and regenerate. Without the nervous system dropping into REM and deep sleep, we loose restoration and age more quickly. There’s no time to do the hard work of rebuilding cells and cleaning up debris. Health, appearance, and brain function suffer.
During sleep the mind finds peace. When the mind goes quiet the body is free to relax, opening up space for healing. When the brain and nervous system aren’t allowed time to retreat from stimulation it creates chronic stress mode. This is a straight shot to anxiety and panic. Sleep makes us feel safe, which turns off the alarms in our heads. We wake up feeling refreshed and settled.
That’s why people say “sleep on it.” Because after a night of rest everything feels better.
Things to try: Add calming minerals to your night time routine. Eat a protein rich snack before bed to maintain your blood sugar levels, and have a cup of nighttime tea with a good dose of coconut oil, cream, or ghee for healthy esential fats.
3. Physical activity
Studies show that people who exercise tend to be healthier overall, more productive, and happier. No matter what kind of movement you enjoy, simple physical activity is very effective at promoting overall health and wellbeing. Research shows that walking, not even “fast” walking, does the job for physical activity. No need for your “get sweaty” clothes, just stand up and take off.
Stretching, dancing and practicing tai chi examples of effective movements that bring big health benefits. Maintaining and impvoving your flexibility are important in preventing falls and reducing injuries of all kinds.
Bicycling, swimming and playing team sports have extra benefits when you practice them friends. These activities build community in addition to their physical benefits, and although they might be seasonal where you live, it gives you something to look forward to.
Research shows that groups moving together stimulates special kinds of happiness chemicals from the brain. Feelings of bonding and safety increase, reducing isolation, loneliness and anxiety. You might join walking group or go line dancing to feel the extra benefits of people moving together.
Even if you feel like you’re not an athlete or someone who likes formal exercise. That’s okay, you don’t have to go too far outside your comfort zone. An afternoon stroll still counts, or walking the dog, or strolling around the indoor mall enjoying window displays. As long as you’re attempting to move around more than you sit, you’re going to feel better.
Social media has made it much easier to access free classes, groups and instructors to satisfy your movement goals. From bowling to break dancing, there’s a world of ways to get moving and be with your people.
Move when you can, as often as you can, in all the ways you can.
Things to try: Find a specialty or recreation center that offers an interesting form of exercise and take classes or join a group. It can be structured like yoga or Pickle ball, or creative like salsa dancing.
4. Relationships
Coming off the global pandemic we realize the need for close connections and healthy relationships.
Belonging is one of the key words in people with high-self esteem, and it’s an important part of feeling life scores.
A healthy partnered relationship is wonderful and promotes longevity. But if you’re unpartnered, or uninterested, that’s okay. The bonds of friendship and family can deliver much of the same satisfaction without the pressure to find “youperson.” Don’t fear flying solo, but be sure you have strong groups from other areas to support you when you need it.
Close friends are hard to come by and worth the investment. Long-term friendships show some of the most profound feelings of acceptance, and a unique kind of intimacy that may not be available in an intimate relationship. Caring for these relationships is worth it, despite the years and miles that may come between you. Like a potted plant, you must allow room for growth and change, tend the soil, and recognize each other’s needs.
Family relationships bring stress and happiness, as we all know. Having a strongly bonded family doesn't have to mean that you agree on everything, but it does mean that you can reconcile your differences in support of one another. That might be pretty hard these days, and many families have fractured in recent years. But forgiveness is powerful action and does it’s own work on enriching your life, allowing yo to move forward.
And finally, as much time as we spend at work and building careers, it is important to recognize the need for healthy professional relationships, too. Business colleagues and mentors bring connections you might not get from those outside your industry. Having a friend at work to lean on is comforting. A mentor to offer guidance saves time and mistakes, even if the relationship comes with a pricetag.
Things to try: If you need more social relationships join a book club or hobby-centric group. If you need work support look to online forums like LinkedIn where you can mingle with others in your industry.
5. Spirituality, creativity and mindfulness
These are the most intimate and uniquely shaped aspects of an individual. They coexist and synergize, but remain distinctive in their roles for purpose and fulfillment.
Spirituality transcends religion. Whether you practice a particular religion or not, you develop spirituality by connecting with your life’s higher purpose. Spirituality seeks understanding, deeper meaning, and a search for something bigger than oneself. A spiritual pursuit often takes us places that we never imagined we would go, and allows to to connect with our own vulnerabilities. It helps us see the world through others’ eyes and open our hearts to what’s possible.
Creativity buoys us from the doldrums of everyday life. When stifled people tend to feel bitter, skeptical, jaded and uninspired. Reigniting creativity generates passion and inspiration for life, and can lift people from the depths of loss, despair, and burnout. Creativity invites us to explore, to play and lose track of time. It relieves social pressure to conform and enriches the zest for life.
In creativity, we find freedom of expression.
Mindfulness is a behavior to relax your nervous system, stay in the present moment, and reduce worry, anxiety and depression. It’s a practice that teaches us to slow down and focus on who or what is right in front of us. We learn to limit distractions and tune out the noise of the world. This brings better concentration as well as peace. From feeling the wind on your skin or listening to the space in between piano notes,, mindfulness helps us settle down and bring all our pillars into focus.
Joy is the goal of this system, pure and simple. It is the top of the pyramid, the icing on the cake. By achieving a balanced foundation of nutritious food and company, good sleep and deep relaxation, physical activity, healthy relationships and spiritual, creative, mindfulness, we build a castle to withstand the tests of time.
A joyous life springs forth by practicing behaviors that connect us to self, each other, our environment, and life itself.
The 5 Pillars give us the roadmap and the mindset to live a rich and wonderful life, full of good health, abundance, support and joy.
If life is weighing you down, take stock of what you can and can’t control, and take action to bring joy back.
Read more from Dr. Erin Attaway
Dr. Erin Attaway, Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine
Dr. Erin Attaway is a leader in Women’s Health and fertility medicine, A busy mother, business owner, and entrepreneur, she promotes reliable and accessible resources for women to integrate into their lives. She believes good health is simple if you’re willing to do the work. Her mission is to empower women everywhere to care for themselves how they deserve.
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