"Holistic" is used so often in wellness marketing that it can seem to mean everything and nothing. Underneath the word is a serious idea with a long history: health is more than the absence of illness, and a person is more than a collection of separate body parts. This article sets out what a holistic wellness philosophy can reasonably mean today, using three anchors: the World Health Organization's definition of health, the US National Institutes of Health's concept of "whole person health", and, for an older perspective, the way the ancient Stoics thought about health. It is general information, not medical advice.
Starting with a definition of health
A good place to begin is a definition that is older than most modern wellness trends. The Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) states: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."
That sentence contains the core of a holistic view. It names three dimensions (physical, mental and social), and it says health is something positive, not just a gap where disease would otherwise be. You do not need to accept any particular therapy to agree with that framing. It simply widens the lens.
The modern version: "whole person health"
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), part of the National Institutes of Health, uses the phrase "whole person health". It describes this as helping individuals, families, communities and populations improve and restore their health in multiple interconnected domains: biological, behavioral, social and environmental. It contrasts that with just treating disease. The NCCIH says research on whole person health includes understanding the connections between these aspects of health, including connections between organs and body systems.
That is a useful, grounded version of "holistic": paying attention to how sleep, activity, relationships, surroundings and medical care interact, rather than treating each in isolation.
Holistic is not the same as "alternative"
This is where a sound wellness philosophy parts company with some marketing. The NCCIH draws a clear line between terms that are often used interchangeably:
- If a non-mainstream approach is used together with conventional medicine, the NCCIH calls it complementary.
- If a non-mainstream approach is used in place of conventional medicine, it calls it alternative.
- Integrative health, in the NCCIH's description, brings conventional and complementary approaches together in a coordinated way, with an emphasis on treating the whole person rather than, for example, one organ system.
The NCCIH also notes that most people who use non-mainstream approaches also use conventional health care. A holistic philosophy, read this way, is about adding and coordinating, not about rejecting evidence-based care. The NCCIH's own mission statement puts the emphasis on rigorous scientific investigation of the fundamental science, usefulness and safety of complementary and integrative health approaches.
An older angle: what the Stoics thought about health
Holistic thinking is not only a modern idea. The Stoic school, which the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says was founded around 300 BCE by Zeno of Citium, had a distinctive view of where health fits in a good life.
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia, the Stoics held that virtue is the only good, and classed things like health, wealth and reputation as "indifferents". In other words, those things do not by themselves make a person happy or unhappy. But the mainstream Stoic view, the entry explains, was that some indifferents, health among them, are of a "preferred" type. They have value and are in line with nature, so it is appropriate to choose them over their opposites in normal circumstances. The entry gives a down-to-earth illustration: a virtuous person will typically pursue health and take the steps needed to obtain it, such as eating well and exercising.
This position was controversial from the start: the Stanford Encyclopedia notes that the Stoics' ancient critics called the doctrine incoherent. Still, it offers a useful balance for a modern wellness philosophy. Look after your health actively and sensibly, but do not make your whole sense of worth depend on it, and do not panic over what is outside your control. Our overview of Stoic philosophy goes further into the school's ideas.
Turning a philosophy into practice
A philosophy is only useful if it changes what you do. Here is one way to translate the ideas above into everyday choices. These are suggestions, not clinical recommendations:
- Check all three WHO dimensions. Physical (sleep, movement, food), mental (stress, mood, focus) and social (relationships, community). If one has been neglected for months, start there.
- Get the foundations right first. Before buying anything, look at sleep, activity and wind-down time. Our back-to-basics wellness guide covers the public-health guidance on each.
- Add practices, don't replace care. If you are interested in yoga, meditation or breathing work, see our guide to mind-body wellness. Follow the NCCIH's advice to tell your health care providers about any complementary approaches you use.
- Ask for evidence. When something is sold as "holistic", ask what it claims to do and what kind of research supports it. A holistic outlook is broad, but it should not be credulous.
- Hold outcomes lightly. Borrowing from the Stoics, put your effort into the habits you control and accept that health has limits no routine can guarantee.
The short version
- The WHO defines health as complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease.
- The NIH's "whole person health" looks at biological, behavioral, social and environmental domains together.
- In NIH terms, complementary means alongside conventional medicine and alternative means in place of it. A sensible holistic philosophy is integrative, not anti-medicine.
- The Stoics treated health as a "preferred indifferent": worth pursuing with care, but not what makes a person happy.
Sources
- World Health Organization, "Constitution of the World Health Organization": https://www.who.int/about/governance/constitution
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, "Complementary, Alternative, or Integrative Health: What's In a Name?": https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/complementary-alternative-or-integrative-health-whats-in-a-name
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Stoicism": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/