Holistically Beautiful, Naturally

Friday, 11 November 2016

Sunday, 6 November 2016

Natural Beauty

There are many natural beauty tips, tricks, and recipes that you can make at home, and your kitchen contains all the ingredients you’ll need.

Oil Cleansing

Use olive, coconut, or almond oil with Castor oil to clean your skin instead of a harsh soap. This will cleanse your skin naturally and keep from pulling out natural oils. My personal blend is 25% Castor Oil (don’t use straight!) and 75% sweet almond oil.

How to do it: Rub a small amount of oil onto dry face and massage into skin for several minutes. To remove, soak a clean washcloth in steamy water and place on face until it starts to cool. Gently use the washcloth to wipe your face until the oil is gone. Softest. Skin. Ever!

Food Facial Mask

No need to drop a lot of money at the spa for great skin, just rub breakfast on your face instead! Many foods are also beneficial for your skin too!

How to Do It: Use honey, plain yogurt or whipped egg whites by themselves or in combination for a great toning facial mask that leaves skin glowing.

Natural Hair Conditioner

For an occasional hair strengthening treat, mix up some other breakfast foods into a natural hair mask. This certainly isn’t one for everyday use, but it makes hair shiny and smooth and even works on really curly hair (according to a lucky friend with lovely curls!)

How to Do It: Mix one banana and one avocado and puree until smooth (great way to use over ripe bananas and avocados!). Add essential oils if Banana isn’t your fragrance of choice. Comb through clean, damp hair and put a shower cap on. Leave on for at least 15 minutes and rinse out in the shower. Go sign up to audition for a hair commercial!

Sugar Scrub

Sugar is not good for your body. It is, however, great for your skin! Since your skin doesn’t metabolize and store glucose or fructose like your fat cells do, sugar is a great way to tighten and smooth skin! Sugar scrubs in stores are expensive! Sugar scrubs in the kitchen are not!

How to do it: Mix equal parts of white or brown sugar and olive or almond oil and add essential oils of choice (optional). To exfoliate skin, rub the mixture onto skin and massage in for a couple of minutes. Rinse off with warm water.

Naturally White Teeth

Use strawberries and baking soda as a highly effective and natural teeth whitener. Oil pulling (swishing oil in the mouth and then spitting) is also an effective way to whiten teeth.

How to Do It: Make a paste of equal parts mashed or pureed strawberries and baking soda. Put in mouthguard or tooth tray and leave on teeth for up to 30 minutes. Repeat a couple times a week until your teeth are as white as you want. To speed things up, swish with 1 TBSP of olive oil each night for 20 minutes and then spit and brush well.

Letters to Robin

“I brush against you softly” @holisticleics https://medium.com/@KristieT2016/i-brush-against-you-softly-894d6ba0adbe

Saturday, 1 October 2016

HOLISTIC HEALTH

Definition of Holistic Health

While researching the definition of holistic health I discovered that there a variety of explanations. Many sources confused it with the definitions of holistic healing and complementary alternative medicine. CAM includes all healing modalities except conventional modern medicine.

Those explanations describe the hows of health and healing, but fail to include the overall condition of body and mind. The well-being of the whole self is what the definition of holistic health is based on.

A complete definition of holistic health explores answers to the following questions:

What is holistic health? How do you achieve and maintain improved levels of whole self wellness?

Borrowing from a variety of definitions, including the biopsychosocial model, I created the following inclusive definition of holistic health. It takes into account all areas of your life, including body mind health.

Holistic health is your overall state of wellness on all levels of your being: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. It encompasses the health of your entire being and extends to everyone and everything that affects you in any way. That includes your resources, your environment, and your relationships.

The World Health Organization says it this way:

Holistic Health Definition

Although we are accustomed to dealing with each of these areas separately, the word holistic implies the condition of the whole. In reality, body, mind and spirit are completely intertwined aspects of the whole. They are not separate entities and cannot be separated. When you affect one level, either positively or negatively, to some extent you affect the whole person.

Biopsychosocial Model of Holistic Health

For a deeper understanding of the definition of holistic health, it is helpful to look at the work of American psychiatrist, Dr. George Engel. Dr Engel rejected the medical approach of separating body as machine from the emotional makeup of patients in favor of an integrated approach.

He believed it was important to examine all areas of life, including body mind health, interactions with your environment and others. These interactions are important measures of well-being on all levels.

George Engel named his method of determining an individual's current state of health the biopsychosocial model. It helps you assess your level of holistic wellness now and in the future as you make changes.

Dr. Engel considered wellness to be based on many factors interacting together to create a whole picture of health. These factors include biological, environmental, psychological, and aspects of life.

A few measures of wellness include:

How many hours do you sleep each night?
How well do you get along with others?
Do you have unresolved relationship issues?
Are you regularly around toxic chemicals in work or at home?
How much fresh food do you eat each day?
What is your exercise routine?
Are you happy with your job and financial status?
Do you have a social support system?
This view is contrary to the model embraced by the modern allopathic medical system, but I dare say in view of recent research about epigenetics (what is over the genes and influences them), the line is beginning to blur. Still, modern medicine still mostly operates from the viewpoint that we are our genes. It is our genes that primarily determine how long we live, our mental outlook, and whether or not we eventually succumb to heart disease, Alzheimer's, cancer and other conditions. It is us and the medical establishment versus our genes.

Recent research into the field of epigenetics is proving Dr. Engel correct. This is good news. It proves that we have a great deal more influence over our health and well-being than we were led to believe.

The definition of holistic health as it relates to you

Holistic health is your state of overall well-being right now. It is not a static thing, but an ever changing state of being.