The Enlightened Holistic Lifestyle

Enlightened Holistic Lifestyle

Dear Valued Kevala Customer,

As a Kevala customer, you identify yourself as a health-conscious individual. In what follows, you may recognize much that you already know. We’re confident that, as future Health Updates occupy this website section, you will encounter and appreciate helpful advice and good ideas. In fact, we invite you to participate!

Understanding “holism” and “holistic” provides important insights into the workings of our universe on all levels, including our individual lives. Holism is an understanding based on this enlightened insight: the universe, including all of nature and all living systems, is correctly seen as a continually interacting organism — a whole — rather than separate and separately-functioning parts. Optimal living is achieved through ongoing attentiveness to all realms of our existence: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

Simply put, what I do with myself in any of these four realms affects me in every other realm, at least subtly and very often substantially. How does what I watch on television affect my emotional health? How does my exercise regimen, or lack thereof, affect the sharpness of my mental activities? How does the food I eat affect my belief systems?

As we create and maintain wellness in these four realms, we experience the continual blessings of a holistic lifestyle. The concept can be extended, of course, and we are wise to pay attention to financial wellness, relationship wellness, and so on — but no need for complication. As we cultivate and enjoy wellness in the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual areas of our lives, any and all other “wellnesses” will be easier to understand and integrate as healthy elements of our ongoing reality. Here’s a brief introduction…

PHYSICAL WELLNESS

Holistic Nutrition encourages a natural approach to a healthy diet, as well as using foods to address health conditions. “You are what you eat” remains valid, and today we must be attentive to quantity as well as quality: Americans in their 60s today are about 10 pounds heavier than Americans of the same age just 10 years ago, and a typical woman in her 40s now weighs 168 pounds, versus 143 pounds in the 1960s. Holistic Nutrition encourages some education in basic nutrition to develop a diet incorporating natural and organic foods, along with natural holistic supplements, like those available from Kevala. Since 1981, we have provided exceptional nutritional therapeutics (natural medicines and supplements) to thousands of holistic health care practitioners. You can rely on Kevala products to benefit your physical wellness and, as a holistic consequence, to benefit all other areas of your life.

Holistic Exercise can take many forms. From one perspective, all exercise is beneficial, though some forms are more beneficial to our mental, emotional and spiritual lives.Yoga is a sound holistic choice for most people. A recent study included 37 randomized, controlled clinical trials involving 2,768 people through December 2013. The study compared yoga with no exercise and with aerobic exercises. The yoga participants had significant improvements in systolic blood pressure, cholesterol levels (both “bad” and “good”), heart rate and bodily weight — similar to the improvements among people who did aerobic exercise instead. Yoga practitioners tend to notice additional benefits, such as improved self-awareness, strength and balance, stress control and relaxation. Many other forms of exercise can be holistic in nature and benefits, and some will be discussed in future Health Update editions.

Holistic Medicine consciously treats the entire person, taking into consideration all aspects of life. Modern medicine (“allopathic”, rather than holistic) focuses on treating the symptoms rather than root causes of any illness. The holistic approach attempts to discover why and how a health situation has been developing over time, requiring evaluation of the patient’s history and lifestyle. A holistic treatment and recovery plan includes building a strong foundation for better health over the longer term.

MENTAL WELLNESS

If we experience our own individual consciousness as a vast field, capable of limitless wonders, would we not nourish and maintain it with great care? Why would we put into our consciousness any content, including any thoughts, that pollute and degrade it? We are what we think, what we watch, what we hear, and what we read. Closer attention to mental content, and mental function, produces noticeable, lasting benefits. Computer science is aware of the “Garbage in, garbage out” syndrome that results in erroneous or otherwise undesirable output from faulty or inappropriate input data. Can humans do a periodic mental “housecleaning”? The foods and supplements we ingest can assist, as can healthy exercise and maintaining a good balance between work, rest and play. The simple act of meditation can help us cleanse our consciousness. As a regular discipline, meditation will relax our entire being, release stress, and produce measurable physical benefits (lowered blood pressure, better cholesterol counts, and many more). Anyone interested can explore a wide range of meditation styles, sure to find one or more that result in happy appreciation and the occasional spiritual insight! Researchers, including neuroscientists, have found that meditators shift their brain activity to different areas of the cortex, thus decreasing the negative effects of stress, mild depression and anxiety. Brain research continually produces new affirmations of the value of meditation, and it makes sense that beneficial meditative states endure and enhance other human activity.

EMOTIONAL WELLNESS

The holistic perspective becomes more clear as we explore other realms. Our emotional life is enhanced as we improve our physical, mental and spiritual wellness. With reasonable effort, we can discover and embrace techniques and disciplines sure to produce more stable and satisfying emotional well-being. What are some of the ways we can invigorate and, if desired, rehabilitate our emotional selves? A wise and helpful orientation is seeing positive thoughts and actions as more than just good ideas. Examples are Generosity, Patience and, especially relevant to Emotional Wellness, Forgiveness. What if we make Forgiveness a practice, rather than just a possibility? What if, on a regular basis, we review troubling life situations and actively forgive? The more we practice this discipline, the better we’ll be at it. It’s like any other exercise, and forgiveness will, with time and sincere effort, directly increase happiness. If it’s another person we’re forgiving, that person’s life will improve as the direct result of our kindness (whether or not they even know we are extending the blessing of forgiveness). From a holistic perspective, everyone and everything is intimately connected, so with our thoughts and actions we help create a better world. Especially important is blessing ourselves with forgiving — we need and deserve sincere and loving forgiveness. We will notice how much better we feel, and how much better life works. When good ideas become regular practices, powerful growth and transformation permeate our emotional, physical, mental and spiritual realms of being. Future Health Updates will investigate other pathways to enhanced Emotional Wellness, providing suggestions for its joyful optimization!

SPIRITUAL WELLNESS

The spiritual realm is mentioned herein as the last (though hardly least!) of the four realms. Not surprisingly, Spiritual Wellness is intimately connected to the other three realms. To a remarkable extent, our potential for spiritual insight, awakening and evolution depends on how well we maintain physical, mental and emotional wellness. Every individual who achieves what can be called a meaningful spiritual life is vividly aware of how much their spiritual life was created by choices they made in the other three realms. Every individual’s journey is different, and you are probably aware of milestones along your own spiritual pathway. Did you read a book that inspired you to be better to yourself and others? Did you give up cigarettes or alcohol, or make better nutrition a priority? Did you join a gym and find that exercise soon became one of your day’s highlights? Did you begin, end, or positively transform a love relationship? From a holistic point of view, can you see how your choices in one realm facilitated or directly caused positive progressions in one or more other life realms?

WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

Kevala is honored to support and be a part of your personal commitment to good health and wellness. Extending the holistic principle: to the extent that we, as individuals and groups of all sizes and compositions, take responsibility for making healthy choices, we can and will directly improve the wellness of our world. It is easy to see just how much our natural environment, and all living systems, depend on our support and assistance! We’re all in this together, and each of us can make an important positive difference!

This Kevala Health Update website section is intended to provide you with valuable information and good ideas. As mentioned earlier in this Health Update, we invite your participation in making this a helpful free resource for any and all visitors. We wish you and yours a year of good health, good fortune and an abundance of all that you cherish. We are here to serve you, so please let us know when and how we can be of assistance.

With Appreciation and Best Wishes,
Kevala Management and Staff

© Copyright 2015 Karuna Corporation. All Rights Reserved.