How to Take an Active Role in Holistic Health Care

To take a more active role in holistic health, pay attention to your individual needs and consider how nutrition, exercise, stress and daily habits affect your well-being. Traditional Chinese medicine practitioner MaryLee Calmes shares this approach on The Elisha Show with host Amb. Elisha Arowojobe, including how seasonal changes can inform everyday choices.

Key takeaways

• Taking an active role in health means asking questions and making informed choices rather than leaving every decision to others.
• Calmes’s holistic approach considers nutrition, exercise and daily habits in relation to a person’s individual needs.
• Her Living in the Season program connects health habits with seasonal changes.
• Busy schedules and personal commitments can affect women’s health, making awareness and adaptation important themes in her approach.

How can I take a more active role in my health?

Start by becoming more aware of your own needs, asking questions and researching health decisions. Calmes describes this as not outsourcing your health: take part in understanding the choices that shape your care and daily routine.

That does not mean making every health decision alone. It means being engaged—bringing questions to decisions and considering how your everyday choices fit your circumstances. Calmes’s own path to traditional Chinese medicine followed personal struggles with chronic illness, allergies, asthma and daily headaches, which led her to explore a different approach to health.

What does holistic health include in Calmes’s approach?

Calmes’s approach connects well-being with nutrition, exercise and daily habits, while recognizing that people have individual needs. Rather than treating a single routine as right for everyone, her framework asks people to understand what suits them and adapt their choices.

For example, someone thinking about a health routine can look at more than one part of daily life: what they eat, how they move and the habits that shape their day. The point is to consider these choices together, rather than treating well-being as separate from lifestyle.

How does seasonal living relate to health?

Seasonal living means paying attention to how seasonal changes connect with health habits and adapting nutrition, exercise and daily routines accordingly. Calmes’s Living in the Season program helps people consider their own needs in relation to those changes.

Her approach also draws on traditional Chinese medicine’s view of relationships between organ systems and the seasons. The practical emphasis is awareness and adaptation: notice changing conditions and consider whether your everyday habits still fit your needs.

Why can busy schedules affect women’s well-being?

Busy schedules and personal commitments can shape women’s health by affecting the habits that support well-being. Calmes highlights the importance of behavioral changes and awareness when navigating those demands.

This makes it useful to consider how everyday commitments relate to nutrition, exercise and other routines. Instead of assuming one fixed approach will work through every period of a busy life, her perspective emphasizes adapting habits to individual needs.

About MaryLee Calmes

MaryLee Calmes is a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner with 30 years of professional experience. Her work includes the Living in the Season program, which helps people understand individual needs and adapt nutrition, exercise and daily habits.

Frequently asked questions

What does it mean to stop outsourcing your health?

It means taking an active part in understanding health choices instead of leaving all responsibility to others. Calmes emphasizes asking questions and researching decisions so you can be more engaged in choices about your care and daily habits.

What is the Living in the Season program?

Living in the Season is MaryLee Calmes’s program for helping people understand their individual needs and adapt nutrition, exercise and daily habits in relation to seasonal changes. It connects everyday health choices with the idea of seasonal living.

How does traditional Chinese medicine connect organ systems and seasons?

In the traditional Chinese medicine perspective Calmes discusses, organ systems are viewed in relationship to the seasons. Her seasonal approach encourages awareness of these connections and adapting everyday habits to individual needs.

What lifestyle habits are part of a holistic approach?

Calmes’s holistic approach considers nutrition, exercise and daily habits together. It also takes account of individual needs, seasonal changes and how stress or a busy schedule can affect the way someone maintains those habits.

For more of MaryLee Calmes’s perspective on traditional Chinese medicine, seasonal living and women’s wellness, listen to her full conversation on The Elisha Show with Amb. Elisha Arowojobe. This article offers general information, not professional medical advice.