For Your Body, Mind, & Soul
You are more than just your body and your health and wellness deserve for you to look at yourself as an entire person! In this post, you’ll find eight holistic wellness habits that support not only the body, but also the mind and soul.
What Is Holistic Wellness?
When we think about health and wellness, we often focus on ways to improve the health of the body. While caring for the body is important for our health, it’s only one piece of the picture.
Holistic wellness means approaching your wellness through the body, mind, and soul. It’s about doing things that care for your entire being, not just one part of it.
In the list below, you’ll find habits that support the body as well as the mind and soul/spirit. All three are connected in this human experience, and all three deserve care.
8 Holistic Wellness Habits
1. Consciously Connect With Your Breath
The first habit on our list is to consciously connect with your breath. You might think this tip is just related to the physical body, but the breath impacts so much more.
We are specifically focusing on conscious breath connection because even though we’re breathing all day, most of us don’t pay attention to it. Making it a habit to take even just a few moments to consciously connect with your breath is a powerful way to tune into your body, mind, soul connection.
In yoga, breathwork, also known as pranayama, is used as a guide to help us connect with our spirit. Prana means life force or life energy, and the practice of pranayama uses the breath to interact with this energy. This is why connecting with your breath can be a wonderful way to connect with your soul, spirit, and energy.
You can take time for a specific breathwork practice, but you can also keep this very simple. Take time for a pause during your day and take a few conscious breaths, focusing on using your diaphragm. Many people don’t breathe efficiently using this muscle, even though it’s anatomically how we’re meant to breathe.
Even if you’re not into the spiritual side of breathwork, this is still important for your physical health.
2. Find Quiet Moments
The next holistic wellness habit is to find some truly quiet moments. There’s so much noise in modern life and so many ways we distract ourselves from being in silence. We’re not meant to be mentally stimulated all the time. Just like the body needs rest, so does the mind.
Quiet moments can of course happen while connecting with your breath or during meditation, but you can also make this even simpler. Try doing a task that you would normally pair with noise without the distractions.
For example, if you usually watch something while eating, try turning it off and just being present with your food. For me, I often do this while cooking. I usually like to listen to something while I cook, but sometimes I’ll cook in silence so I can be fully present with the task and embrace the beauty in the quiet.
This is a gentle way to become more comfortable with silence. If total silence feels like too much, you can ease into it by playing calming, instrumental, or meditation style music in the background.
3. Work Out in a Way That Feels Good
This next tip, working out in a way that feels good, means you feel good in your body and mind after you’re done exercising.
Choose an activity that feels good for your body as well as on a deeper level. Exercise isn’t just for the physical body, it benefits the mind and helps move stuck or stagnant energy as well.
This doesn’t mean avoiding structure or challenge altogether. Some practices are supportive for the body even if they aren’t your favorite, and routine still plays an important role. If you don’t necessarily enjoy the exercise while you’re doing it, but you feel good afterward, that’s still a win.
4. Eat in a Way That Feels Good for You
This habit is similar to the last one. Eat in a way that feels good for you.
Food is fuel for the body and the mind. Think about trying to do something that requires concentration when you’re close to lunch time, it’s much more difficult. The mind needs fuel!
Also remember that different foods affect people differently, so pay attention to how you feel after eating. Be curious. Choose foods that meet your nutritional needs and also leave you feeling good afterward.
Food also has energetic properties, so it impacts your energy as well. This is another reason why eating in a way that feels supportive can influence not just your physical health, but how you feel holistically.
5. Have Some Form of Spiritual Practice
If you want to live holistically, it’s important to have some form of a spiritual practice because holistic living means honoring the body, mind, and soul. We know we’re more than just the body and mind.
A spiritual practice can be religion based, but it doesn’t have to be. You can be spiritual without being religious. Spiritual practices could include things such as meditation, honoring your ancestors, or honoring your connection with all life forms around you. These are just some examples, remember that a spiritual practice is deeply personal and doesn’t need to look any specific way.
If you don’t currently have a spiritual practice, simply being open to exploration of spirituality and noticing what resonates with you is a great place to start.
6. Work With the Body–Mind Connection
Next on our list of holistic wellness habits is recognizing and working with the body–mind connection. What impacts the body impacts the mind, and what impacts the mind impacts the body.
This can be used in a positive way. For example, releasing muscle tension during meditation can help both the body and mind. You could also work in the other direction by connecting with the body to quiet the mind, such as through a slower-paced yoga practice. Somatic practices can be helpful here because they deepen body awareness.
Gaining knowledge about your body also supports this connection. For me, having an in-depth understanding of anatomy from my physical therapy education has been invaluable. You definitely don’t need that level of knowledge, but understanding some basics about the physical form can help strengthen the mind–body connection. For example, if you know which muscles you’re targeting during an exercise, you can perform it more efficiently.
Something that’s been surprisingly impactful for me recently is learning more about my menstrual cycle. This understanding has helped me physically and created a deep shift on a soul level. It’s another example of how learning about your body can deepen the body, mind, soul/spirit connection.
7. Prioritize Sleep
Prioritizing sleep is so important! Sleep impacts both the health of the body and the health of the mind. It’s not just about eating well and exercising, sleep is essential!
If you’re having trouble sleeping, it’s important to address it.
From an energetic perspective, creating a bedroom environment that feels restful and grounding can make a big difference.
I recently made small changes to my bedroom, changing the wall color, getting new curtains, and not bringing my laptop into bed, and the space feels so much more relaxing. These were simple changes, but they shifted the energy significantly.
8. Say No to What Doesn’t Serve You
The final holistic wellness habit on our list is saying no to what doesn’t serve you.
Don’t let guilt push you into things that don’t serve you. That could be drinking, attending events with people who bring you down, or saying yes when you really need rest.
If you’ve had a long week and need a quiet day, it’s okay to say no. Prioritize your needs and choose things that uplift you rather than drain you. While this isn’t always possible in every area of life, do what you can. Even small boundaries can make a difference.
Those are your eight holistic wellness habits you can try adding into your life! You don’t need to start with all of them. Choose one or two that resonate with you and begin there.
If you want to continue exploring holistic wellness in a simple, supportive way, I created a Holistic Living Checklist to help keep you accountable. You can access it here: Download Your Checklist!
If you’re looking for more guidance, you can also check out my Patreon, where we explore wellness beyond the physical body through yoga practices, meditation, and learning-focused content.
Remember, holistic living isn’t about doing everything perfectly, it’s about making small, intentional choices that support you where you are right now.