Holistic Health - House of Holistic Performance

What is Holistic Fitness? A New Way to Build Strength, Flexibility, and Inner Balance

by Daria Tiesler | Dec 18, 2024 | Holistic Health

With a heart full of joy, I’m excited to share my knowledge and experience in holistic fitness, the physically healthy body, emotional health and mental fitness.

I spend most of my life on the gym floor, training myself or my clients. Today, at age forty-four, as the mother of two amazing girls, a business owner, and someone dedicated to creating a lasting and nourishing partnership whilst continuing my own holistic journey, I can confidently say that that practice of self care and physical well being can transform your life.

My physical journey started at very young age, where I engaged in school sports activities, which then led to me joining professional sports at the age of seventeen. The mental training I took from being a professional athlete transcended my whole life.

I qualified as a Personal Trainer in 2004 after graduation from a Sport University in Poland in 2002. My fitness career begun in 2007 with a job at the boutique gym in London Euston.

In 2010, my progress took me to becoming the first female trainer and joining the world-famous Ultimate Performance. I had the pleasure to work with and learn from industry leaders, including Nick Mitchell himself, who explained to me how TUT (Time Under the Tension) works. Thank you Nick!

The whole 20 years of my fitness career has been packed with developmental practice of professional physical fitness and physical health skills such as: strength training, Pilates, nutrition and mindfulness, with a focus on overall body health and physical well-being.

Over time, I have worked out there is more to fitness than killer workouts, exercise or long fitness classes. I noticed that my clients were striving for emotional balance, wellness knowledge and the “feel-good” effect.

I invite you to keep reading this holistic fitness blog – your journey towards holistic fitness could start right now.

Note: The names in client stories used as examples of the effects of holistic fitness have been changed.

What is Holistic Fitness?

The holistic fitness approach has lots to offer for those looking for the “feel good” effect. Personalisation of workouts and exercise programmes needs to consider more than just the age of client. Women’s bodies and health need a refreshed approach towards fitness, considering the full being rather than just one part. This is what holistic fitness aims to achieve.

Exercise programmes should consider the client’s life stage: menopause, perimenopause, pregnancy or post-pregnancy. Moreover, more attention needs to be placed into the hormonal health and menstrual cycle, or common health issues affecting women. These include osteoporosis, osteopenia, or sarcopenia, which is a gradual loss of muscle mass, strength and body function.

I observe the last one a lot with our female customers. Lack of awareness and old beliefs about weight training put women at high risk of loss of quality of their well-being over the course of life.

Holistic fitness is the future of holistic health and lifestyle medicine and our aim at House of Holistic Performance is to be the leader of the movement towards wholeness in fitness.

How Holistic Fitness Developed

My career as a fitness trainer began 20 years ago, right at the start of the growing demand for personal training sessions. The whole fitness industry was focused on the body’s ability to run faster, and doing hit classes with physical strength activities such as the body pump.

Clients generally were not asking about things such as how to cope with high stress levels or how to improve overall health. Even less would you hear about mental support via exercise or yoga. Yoga was practically reserved for the people on health and wellness retreats in India. Trainers were hooked on TRX or Bossu workouts, or so-called functional training.

Around 2009-2010,Nick Mitchell introduced strength training for body transformation to the public space, and more people started to use bodybuilding gym classes and gym training.

Over the next ten years, more clients started to show interest in the benefits of physical fitness for emotional and mental stress, anxiety, explore the meaning and sense of well being, healthy brain, body and mind connection, as well as the impact of mindfulness and nutrition therapy on the whole body, rather than just weight loss.

Above all mental health became a more often discussed topic, while body workouts have started to incorporate relaxation, meditation or breathing cooldowns. The well-rounded holistic programmes have started to connect mental, emotional, social even spiritual wellness.

I remember sitting down in a British Library in London many years ago looking into the growth of holistic approach to health, fitness and wellness, and it was mind blowing see the generational shift in the way people would begin to think, and how fitness lifestyle in 2024 would have transformed.

We must not forget about growing popularity of online wellness and fitness training programmes supported by the sense of community. Online fitness apps reinvented the way people access exercise and physical activity today. The future is going to be even more interesting.

What is the Modern Definition of Fitness?

Modern fitness combines all of the elements of a healthy lifestyle into one. Nutrition now plays a central role in fitness planning, while sleep is recognised as a key behaviour often discussed with personal trainers, and stress management has shifted towards prevention rather than reaction.

Fitness trainers of today now realise that being at the top is going to require more knowledge and a better application of more than just one element of fitness.

The modern workout must not lead to burnout and complete fatigue – we have to understand what clients need in order for them to reach their full and complete physical health.

The era of old fitness practices, such as crash diets or yoyo diets, which affect emotional health, cannot serve the needs of holistic fitness. Likewise, weight loss programmes, which only offer exercise, are very much not applicable in the perception of modern fitness.

Self-care and sense of community dominate fitness of today.

The 5 Domains of Holistic Fitness

The 5 domains of holistic fitness are physical health, physical fitness, mental fitness, emotional fitness, and community.

Physical Health

Physical health refers to addressing your nutrition, sleep, digestion, hormonal and metabolic health. Above all, paying attention to your overall lifestyle, eating habits and patterns whilst addressing the impact of stress on your body biology and physiology.

Physical Fitness

Physical fitness means strengthening your body, and improving body composition for the benefits of healthy ageing and longevity. It also involves improving your brain health and fitness agility such as flexibility, mobility, and strength. Optimal physical fitness serves as a predictor of resilience, consistency and discipline.

Mental Fitness

This involves coaching you on the importance of brain health, and the effects of exercise on mental well-being and stress management. It also includes introducing the concept of mental resilience.

Emotional Fitness

Emotional fitness is training your emotional stamina to overcome past experiences and old patterns, helping you to progress towards developing a new set of beliefs and values.

Community

Being a part of a holistic fitness community goes beyond physical benefits. It will strengthen your sense of well-being, uplift your motivation, bring awareness of self-compassion and support your emotions.

What Are the Benefits of Holistic Fitness?

The benefits of holistic fitness include:

Better Ageing – Physical activity optimises the body’s ageing while enhancing well being. A 2015 study by the National Library of Medicine reported that “ageing individuals in good physical health can expect enhanced cognitive reserves and a slower ageing process”.

Improved Brain Health – Fitness improves brain functions and facilitates neural plasticity, which ultimately has an impact on human learning capacity, cognition, mood and memory. Holistic fitness also enhances sleep, which is an important factor for our wellness, focus and emotional and mental well-being.
Chronic Disease Prevention – Exercise reduces chronic illnesses such as diabetes type II, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, depression, or other mental health problems.
Optimal Body Composition – Exercise can increase lean muscle mass and support with fat loss, which will have a knock-on effect on overall well-being, physical and emotional health.
Elevate Peak Performance – By enhancing executive brain functions, physical fitness and mental resilience impact the quality of performance.
Reduced Stress Levels – Exercise impacts the way we manage stress and how it affects our health long term, and it also helps to increase the serotonin level. You will gain extra happiness and feel sharper throughout day when you start your morning with exercise.

Based on my experience, our clients also benefit from elevated self-confidence and improved self-image, and they are motivated to take action and inspired to live from their unlimited potential.

The Importance of Holistic Fitness for a Balanced Life

At House of Holistic Performance, I’ve seen countless clients transform their lives through holistic fitness. The benefits go far beyond the body and transform our clients relationships, family dynamics and career growth. Holistic fitness connects our clients’ inner and outer beings, harmonising them from within.

I can recall our recent client Jasmine, who started her work with us due to burnout in her personal life. The end results was a more focused approach on her own well being and mental, physical and emotional health. This enriched her family life, improved her relationships and opened the door to a higher job position.

How to Start Your Holistic Fitness Journey

To start your holistic fitness journey, the most important part is to have a mindful approach to your ‘why’s.’

Why do you want to start? What do you want to change? What has limited your change so far?

I suggest you create a short “page of reflection” and do a cross check with yourself every evening before bed. Make a promise to commit to yourself, no matter what happens tomorrow. The biggest reason why people stop the progress is lack of long-term vision and failure in the doing part.

Let’s make this work this time. No more New Year Resolutions, shortcuts, fad diets or killer workouts, bikini body plans or deprived nutrition programmes. These were never meant to be the long-term solution you’re after.

What is a Holistic Fitness Coach?

A holistic fitness coach is here to help you on your journey. Together, we will go through the hard part of this challenging path. We would like to invite you at this occasion to join us on our foundational programme to grow your unlimited potential with us.

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Frequently Asked Questions

I’ve answered some of the most common questions about holistic fitness below.

What makes holistic fitness different from regular fitness?

Holistic fitness brings the whole human into the fitness room or the gym floor session. The focus is not just the physical body, but also mental and emotional well being.

Do I need a coach to practice holistic fitness?

It is always better to start with a qualified coach for holistic fitness and get optimum results from your effort rather than spend years trying to achieve something and never arriving there. Your coach is the person who will facilitate the change of your thinking and support the reason why you joined the practice.

What is an example of a holistic exercise?

Every exercise can be a holistic exercise, it depends if you are present while you are doing it or not.

For example, you can start from this:

Before leaving the changing room for your fitness class, whether it is Pilates, Yoga, weight lifting or running, put yourself in a position of deep and slow breathing. After a few breaths, open your eyes, feel the space of the changing room, check your body parts by doing body scan, drink some water and then leave the changing room with a mindset of going and doing your best and leaving anything which is bothering you that day in the changing room.

Why is a holistic view of health important?

The holistic view of health is important because it stretches your idea of self and brings you closer to the person you truly are: brave, courageous and resilient. Remember, health is more than a lack of disease. It is a state of harmony within, in relation to yourself and the outer world. True health is resilient, empowering and long-lasting.

What is your health like today? Is your body ready to take small steps towards holistic fitness?

I hope by now the answer is a big yes!

What is Holistic Health? How It Works, Benefits & Why It’s Important

by Daria Tiesler | Dec 11, 2024 | Holistic Health

One key aspect in today’s approach to healthcare is the idea, cultivated by by medical system, that health is the absence of physical symptoms rather the energetic vibration of the whole person.

The traditional practice of treating disease without looking at the connection between body systems at its root does not explore the full health potential of the human – achieving life without chronic pain or disease and gaining proper balance between body, mind and spirit.

In contrast, the holistic or whole-person approach takes into account physical, mental, and emotional health as integral parts of overall well-being.

My on-going education into natural therapies and evidence-based holistic health includes qualification in Nutritional Therapy from College of Naturopathic Medicine in London, MSc in Public Health as well as Fitness and Exercise Professional.

I have also participated in career development programmes for healthcare providers in Metabolic health and clinical application of functional nutrition, and I practice a holistic health coaching model to support behavioural changes.

What is Holistic Health?

The term “holistic health” allows you to think beyond traditional medicine, which is a very quick way to address acute illness and treat one body system at a time. Instead, you address the health of the whole person.

I fully respect effort and commitment those practicing traditional medicine have to saving peoples’ lives. My grandfather lived longer thanks to hospital doctors’ interventions. However, the system fails to address the lifestyle factors of why he got ill in the first instance.

Strategies such as dietary changes, meditation, exercise, stress reduction, nutrition, massage and acupuncture can enhance outcomes when people recover from, for example, surgery or major health crises such as cancer or depression. My grandfather always was an advocate of movement and later on in his life, he became more conscious about his food.

The combination of both medical intervention and holistic health is more powerful in chronic disease prevention than a pill on its own.

“The holistic approach” does not mean it is not based on evidence. The only problem is that there are plenty of professionals and possibly, there needs to be more regulations in place to bring the best out of alternative medicine and alternative therapies.

Holistic health taps into the famous sayings by Hippocrates:

“Let’s food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.”

“Everything in excess is opposite to nature.”

“Walking is man’s best medicine.”

“It’s far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has.”

“If we could give every individual the right amount nourishment and exercise, not too little not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.”

Holistic healthcare focuses on the whole body and supports lifestyle and behavioural changes to extend the health span. The holistic model of health encourages the patient or client to make decisions and take responsibility for the outcomes of therapy interventions, rather than relying on the pill as a main solution.

Why is Holistic Care Important?

There are three main reasons why holistic care is important:

Research confirms that chronic health problems are linked to improvement in exercise, nutrition, stress reduction, sleep optimisation, and stopping practices like smoking.

Holistic health presents an opportunity to transform public health and address the shortcomings of the current medical model, which often focuses solely on illness rather than treating the whole person.
This preventative approach offers the NHS cost savings, because holistic care uses lifestyle changes to address preventable chronic health conditions.

My personal experience of 20 years working as a practitioner of alternative medicine, practising alternative therapies such as holistic fitness, clinical nutrition, and holistic health coaching, allows me to conclude:

Our health is the most important asset for the whole of our life. We must keep it connected and address when the disease state occurs. Maintaining the whole-person approach will create better outcomes for public healthcare and families.

Moreover, the conventional medicine approach to women’s health requires a shift towards personalisation. This includes women’s life stages such as menopause, post-menopause, perimenopause or the childbearing period.

The Holistic Approach To Health

Our Holistic Performance Method, created by Daria Tiesler, the co-founder, is based on 20 years of clinical knowledge and experience. There are 4 Pillars of Holistic Performance Method:

Health

This involves looking into the functionality of the human body and biology systems, addressing the lifestyle habits driving the chronic disease manifestation. Good health starts at the bottom of cell health and your DNA can be positively or negatively altered by the impact of environment or so called epigenetics. Your mental and emotional well being are addressed in our comprehensive wellness programmes.

Body

The relationship between body and mind is strengthened when you move your body. We strongly believe and clinically observe a correlation between exercise and better peak performance of our clients. Additionally, optimising body composition with a higher percentage of lean muscle mass not only supports disease prevention but also boosts brain health and cognitive function.

Did you know your longevity and ageing of your brain are influenced by the amount muscles you have? A resilient body is strong predictor of your health span and quality of life.

Would you like to live longer with pain or without it?

Mind

The book “Mind Over Body” talks about the power of our mind and impact on our body sensations and feelings. You can improve your body outcomes by changing your mind and the way you think.

What and how we talk about ourselves with word “I am…”, for example “I am a good person” or “I am a bad person,” will have a tremendous influence on the progression of the illness and human potential. Human psychobiology is impacted by the interaction between environment and behaviour.

Growth

This pillar is one of the most transformational because it brings the wholeness of the Holistic Performance Method into one integrated coaching session. You get a chance to experience your new mind with new thinking and with your mindfulness coach, you’ll explore the new body feeling.

The growth happens from full awareness and engagement into the process of transformation of your mental health and physical health. However, you also get to experience spiritual growth into the person you always felt you are/were. The Growth pillar is a flow between all the other pillars.

Types of Holistic Treatments

I categorise the holistic treatments in the following categories in a way that reflect their benefits for your well being:

Physical Therapy: Therapies which use water, sounds, music, cold, heat, electromagnetic, electrostimulation, or light, like Lyma laser for example.
Body Therapy: Massage, acupuncture, chiropractic, osteopathy, Pilates, Yoga, strength training and Thai Chi.
Mind Therapy: Meditation, breath work, talking therapies, coaching, biofeedback and hypnosis.
Spiritual Coaching: This is growing in popularity in the world of wellness and is progressing towards the whole-person approach. You can see more healers who otherwise would practice in silence came up to the light and share spiritual messages. We’ve know for a long time that prayer in a profound way can support a person’s inner sense of peace or tranquillity.
Mind-Body: Meditation, somatic work, transformative coaching and heart math.
Nutritional Therapy: Using food and supplements to optimise body well-being and total health.
Traditional Therapies: Traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda and herbal medicine.

The biggest existing issue which affects the use of certain holistic therapies in the primary and secondary healthcare is their evidence of work. It’s important to confirm with your primary healthcare provider if any particular complementary or alternative therapy can support your health and well-being, especially if you suffer from a chronic health problem.

The Benefits of Holistic Healthcare

The benefits of holistic healthcare include:

Improved Health Span: Focus on prevention of disease rather than treatment of a disease, aiming to extend the person’s wellness and the quality of mental, physical, and emotional health.
Focus on the Whole Person: This person-centred approach ensures that clinical assessments address the individual needs and brings the whole human into the integrity of the body, mind, and spirit.
Educational: The client/patient becomes their own health advocate and together with their clinician, aims to achieve the highest level of vitality. Holistic medicine empowers them to take responsibility for the process of health promotion.
Uses Holistic Therapies: It provides alternative or complementary therapies to support the healing process.

While the benefits of holistic therapy are widely recognised by customers, further research, including randomised clinical trials, is necessary to provide evidence of its claims.

For example, a randomised control study published in The Open Nursing Journal highlights the positive impact of holistic nursing on patients’ physical and emotional well-being. It demonstrated improvements in patient satisfaction and overall health outcomes through interventions that address both the physical and emotional aspects of care.

Whilst more of these studies are needed, holistic medicine is also an art, and the therapeutic relationship and clinical observation offer valuable insights. Its impact on preventative health measures should not be underestimated or dismissed.

How to Get Started on Your Holistic Healthcare Journey

We invite you to reach to House of Holistic Performance team and book your self-discovery session and together, we can build your foundational health development programme. Our expertise in holistic approaches to your physical mental health will allow us to be your best guide on the way to total wellness transformation.

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My disclaimer: The aim of this blog is to overview holistic health and holistic medicine rather than supporting the idea of some, that it’s a better way than conventional approach to healthcare. We are not suggesting to avoid any medical intervention but to add value in health promotion and prevention.

What to Expect from Holistic Health Coaching Sessions

A few insights into holistic coaching session structure:

Initial Assessments and Goal Setting

We call it a self exploration introductory session, where we meet to discover your pain points and reasons for reaching out to us. Every practice will have a bit different format, however the main focus in should be better understanding of your story. The initial assessment might then move into your first consultation or first coaching session based on the programme you are in.

Common Practices and Tools Used in Holistic Health Coaching

We can name a few tools and practices we use to promote holistic health at House of Holistic Performance: reflection, journaling, body scan, breath work, somatic experience, neuroscience of change, body – mind integration, and guided meditation.

Tailored Plans for Individual Needs

Holistic health coaching is tailored to individual needs and our Master programme addresses the whole person based on our 4 Pillars: Health, Body, Mind, and Growth.

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Frequently Asked Questions

I’ve provided answers to some common questions about holistic health below.

What is holistic medicine?

Holistic medicine is defined in a research paper by the National Library of Medicine as:

“Holistic medicine is the art and science of healing that addresses the whole person-body, mind and spirit. It is a broad discipline comprising a wide range of practices aimed at the overall health of the patient.”

What’s the difference between holistic and natural medicine?

Holistic medicine integrate conventional and complementary approaches while natural medicine offers alternative solutions to the state of disease.