Achieving Long-Term Wellness through Naturopathy
How can I stay inspired to live my healthiest life? Is there someone who can help me walk my path toward inner growth?
Every action we take and every emotion we feel has an impact on our wellness. Our wellness, in turn, influences what we do and how we feel.
When we’re feeling unwell, we often make choices that keep us trapped in a state of unhealthiness. It’s a self-proliferating cycle—and one that’s hard to break on your own.
What many of us need is a healthcare professional who doesn’t just treat us when we’re sick, but stays with us when we’re well. We need someone who can help guide us in making choices that disrupt the cycle of unhealthiness and keep us motivated to continue moving toward wellness. It’s important to know that you don’t have to be sick to see a naturopath!
In addition, naturopathic and allopathic medicine can work in tandem in ways that complement each other. This two-pronged approach to establishing wellness helps support individuals on many levels.
Naturopaths see people when they are well in order to keep them well and optimize their health and wellbeing. They help patients cultivate skills and connect them with resources for managing their health and maintaining wellness. They work with patients to practice utilizing these skills and resources so they are more accessible for them regularly and especially when they need them. Naturopaths are not only doctors, but health coaches committed to helping each patient expand their skill set for achieving optimal health and wellbeing.
What Is Wellness?
Wellness isn’t just the absence of disease. The World Health Organization defines it as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being.” The National Wellness Institute calls it “a conscious, self-directed and evolving process of achieving full potential.”
Wellness is what happens when we reach our optimal health and balance. It’s a state of being, characterized by positive emotions, thoughts and actions. And it’s inherent in everyone—no matter what diseases we might be struggling with.
When we start nurturing our inner wellness, we begin to heal much more quickly than if we treated the disease alone.
Wellness and the Mind-Body-Spirit Connection
When we talk about wellness, people often think of it only in terms of their physical health. But sometimes we do all the right things to take care of our bodies and still suffer from symptoms or a general feeling of ill health.
That’s because our physical bodies are inseparable from the thoughts and feelings we experience and the spiritual connection that imbues our lives with a sense of meaning. Human beings have a body, mind and spirit, and all three must work in harmony to achieve long-term wellness.
Naturopaths help people find balance in all areas of their lives, creating a stronger foundation for overall wellness. By working with patients on each of these levels, we can help them develop daily practices that nurture their sense of wholeness.
Body: When you’re caught up in the daily grind, sticking to a healthy diet or exercise program is hard. Sometimes one bad day is all it takes to knock you off track. Jumping back on the wagon seems to get harder each time.
What you need is someone to help support you and keep you accountable. That’s where we come in. Years of helping diverse patients make lasting changes to their diet and exercise habits have taught us many effective strategies for keeping you inspired, motivated and engaged in nurturing your physical body.
Our Portland naturopathic clinic can help you improve your physical wellness with:
- Strategies for healthy eating
- Customized exercise routines
- Targeted exercise programs
- Seasonal cleanses
- Condition-specific cleanses
Mind: Sometimes our thoughts and emotions keep us trapped in dysfunctional habits that impede our ability to find wellness. Working through these emotional challenges and disruptive thought patterns is part of our personal growth process.
Too often, we’re left to fumble through this process on our own. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are tools available to help you cultivate mental and emotional balance, freeing you up to live your life to the fullest extent.
Our naturopaths at Heart Spring Health can help you reset your nervous and emotional systems with treatments such as:
- Talk therapy
- Motivational interviewing
- Mind-body medicine
- Meditation
- Breathing
- Acupuncture
- Homeopathy
- Craniosacral therapy
- Inner dialogue
Spirit: Our spiritual lives add a sense of meaning to everything we do. Developing a strong connection to what we believe to be the essence of life can serve as a powerful catalyst for change as we strive toward wellness.
Many people who are dedicated to this type of growth and transformation find themselves stuck at some point. Maybe their journey has led them toward an epiphany about their health. Maybe they want to cultivate wellness as a way of deepening their spiritual practice. Or maybe they just want to live a meaningful, peaceful, rich life.
Whatever your spiritual path looks like, a naturopath can support your process of growth and transformation through a variety of healing modalities, such as:
- Meditation
- Inner dialogue
- Muscle testing
- Acupuncture
- Craniosacral therapy
- Flower essences
Choosing Self-Care
Wellness is about maintenance—like brushing your teeth and eating. These are things you do every day to tend to yourself.
When we take care of ourselves, we make the world a better place. Feeling good about ourselves helps us have much more respect for others. Like a stone tossed into a pond, our sense of wellbeing ripples outward and affects those around us.
Contact Heart Spring Health today to find out more about how our naturopaths can keep you inspired and motivated on your journey toward wellness.