Let’s talk about “holistic health”.

By Andy Haycroft

What do you think of when you hear the term “holistic health”? 

I genuinely believe it’s one of the most important concepts that exists in any form of health practice. It means you approach every patient/client as the whole, strange, wonderful and sometimes confusing person. As a health practitioner, not taking this approach could mean you miss something important for the recovery of your patient, and well, that would kinda suck.

So if every health practitioner should be taking this approach, why does it feel like a buzzword?

Honestly I’m not sure.

Potentially, over the years the term “Holistic health” has gotten a strange association with marketing campaigns. It makes you (at least me) think that “a holistic approach” to health means one person in that one modality can solve all your problems associated with the ailment you are experiencing. That may be true on a case by case basis sometimes, but it doesn’t give you much wiggle room if you don’t quite know whats wrong. 

So with that in mind I would like to reclaim the phrase “holistic approach to health” to what I believe it should be: Helping a person by doing whatever you can with the skills you have, the people you know, and the self awareness that it’s about you (the patient) not us. It’s remembering as a practitioner that your skills are limited, but you might know someone to who could apply different skills that might help. It’s about you (the patient) feeling better.

I feel like I can speak for the whole Performance Medicine team when I say that we are in this business to help people feel better in every sense of the phrase. Sometimes to really feel better you need a good, caring Psychologist so that you can perceive what feeling better is. Sometimes, you need a good doctor to consider the right medications for you. Sometimes, you need a gym that affirms your gender if you are figuring out who you are and need exercise. Sometimes you just need a place to go where it’s about you.

We put in hours and hours into building a community around Performance Medicine so that we always have your back even if it’s not us doing the physical work. I believe THAT, is what it takes to strive for a holistic approach to health and why I’m proud that I work where I work.