A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO HEALTH AND PERFORMANCE
Optimal health and performance can only really be achieved with a holistic approach, meaning all aspects of our lifestyle requires attention for us to truly thrive. For example, it would be unreasonable to expect to hit a PB in your training session if you spent the week working late every night and getting inadequate sleep. Your recovery would be compromised, your nervous would be impeded from high stress (and probable poor nutrition choices due to your tired state of mind). This is an obvious example, but often there are much more subtle ways that an imbalance in one area of our life can affect our ability to perform well in another.If we feel that one aspect of our health is suffering, it can be helpful to look at ourselves with a wide lens and identify where we might be able to make an adjustment to improve this balance.
A few major areas that we can look at would be:
- Training
- Nutrition
- Sleep
- Hydration
- Stress
- Relationships
- Environment
It is easy to fall into the trap of believing you can’t reach your goals because you lack motivation, willpower etc. and it’s often more comfortable to continue patterns of behaviour which may be feeding into your inability to progress. However maybe it’s more a matter of you missing something in another area of your life that is hindering you. Having the ability to look through a larger lens and reflect on our current patterns may help us find a different approach to moving forward and achieving our health and performance goals.