Life satisfaction is a crucial component of health. People often seek a nutritional formula to make them slim, have less pain, better sleep and improve their mood, but they are surprised to find that many areas of their life influence the path to optimal health.

 

What we eat and how often we exercise are important factors of health, well-being and vitality, but nutrition and exercise account for less than half of them. Other important factors include self-esteem and quality of self-talk, job satisfaction, a sense of community and support, relationship to money and feelings toward a significant other.

Self-esteem and quality of self-talk are the largest factors because they set the stage for the way we do everything else. If we are eating carrots and celery and going to the gym because, “I hate my thighs,” we’re undermining some of the positive benefits to be gained from healthy food choices and regular physical movement. When we look in the mirror and say, “I love myself, and I’m worth the effort to eat in a nourishing way,” we are magnifying the positive benefits of that avocado, the beautiful bowl of dark berries or a side of roasted veggies.

Most adults spend the majority of their waking hours at work. The challenges of a job we love are less likely to make us feel stressed in comparison to a job we can barely tolerate for the paycheck, and it is well known that stress impacts every known variable of health.

Feeling supported, recognizing areas of abundance in our life and valuing the opportunity to spend time with someone special all build our resilience factor. When we are resilient, we are naturally less susceptible to illness. Addressing all the factors at work is the surest way to creating holistic health.

Dawn Dalili is a naturopathic doctor and the owner of Bluewater Natural Health, in Niceville. For more information, call 850-897-1177or visit BluewaterNaturalHealth.com.