When it comes to maintaining optimal health, there are three areas we need to look at – our attitudes and beliefs, physical health and emotional health. Combined, these make up your Triangle of Health.
When all of these areas are balanced and aligned, you are in excellent health. But when one or more aren’t? That’s when you can start to see your health breakdown, and you begin to pick up every little virus around. Let’s look at each area of the Triangle of Health in more detail.
Your attitudes and beliefs
Your beliefs are assumptions and convictions that you hold to be true and usually are influenced by our past experiences, upbringing and values. You will often find some link to what our family, friends or other people of influence believe, tell us or speak over us. These beliefs then shape our attitude and the way we perceive ourselves, others and the world around us.
Our beliefs and attitudes can impact everything we do – particularly our health. That’s why negative beliefs can be toxic and positive beliefs can do wonders – think of the placebo effect where people can get better because they believe they are getting treated with the medicine they need.
I share an example of this in the video below around my belief that I was allergic to cats, spoiler alert I’m not! Now, that doesn’t mean everyone’s allergy is the same – far from it, but it can demonstrate the influence our beliefs have over our actions and body’s reactions.
Your physical health
When we talk about the physical aspect of our health, most people assume this is how physically fit we are or how well we are nourishing our bodies with good food and movement. While this does have a massive impact on our health, it’s not the only physical factor we need to keep in mind.
Environmental factors like smoke, dust, mould, mildew and toxins, the presence of germs in the air or on items we touch and circumstances like workplace or home stress can also impact our physical health and immune system. When your physical health is not right, you can be sure it affects your overall wellbeing.
Your emotional health
Your emotions can create considerable changes in your body chemistry. Your emotional health looks at how you are feeling and processing what is happening around you.
Emotions are impacted by many triggers like stress, trauma, conflict and outside influencers like current events, relationships and the actions of others.
Unfortunately, we tend to look at each of these areas in isolation, not in combination like we should. But the truth is when any of these areas aren’t right, our body’s systems won’t function optimally, and our overall health will be affected.
Have a listen to the video below. While you do, I want you to think about how you would rate each area of your health. Are you in balance and giving enough care to all areas? What are some actions you can take to care for your Triangle of Health?