By Michele Suhie, PhD, NBC-HWC
Many people are suffering from poor physical and mental health. If you haven’t dealt with a health concern, you certainly know someone who has. So how do we help ourselves and our loved ones find health of mind, body and spirit? When looking at health from a Christian perspective, the Holy Trinity itself can be a model for health that would not only be more holistic, but also promote flourishing in the lives of individuals.
We can draw a parallel image of health in mind, body and spirit by looking at the image of God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. By drawing from the three persons of the Trinity, we can also see the value of integrating three areas of health knowledge: positive psychology, lifestyle medicine, and religion/spirituality. Let’s unpack this a bit further…
Beginning with God the Father as the mind, the state of being itself, we can relate this to our mental well-being and positive psychology. The Catholic faith calls all to live a virtuous life, and many virtuous practices that benefit mental well-being have been studied under a field known over the past two decades as positive psychology (1). At the time that this area of study was proposed, it was suggested as an effort to balance the traditional approach to psychology, by looking at how to help people move beyond the zero point, toward flourishing. Researchers explored the character strengths and virtues that have been valued across time, culture and belief systems (2). Many positive psychology practices embody characteristics or behaviors that have long been valued in Christian faith such as, expressing gratitude, fostering hope, engaging in altruistic activities, extending forgiveness, and savoring beauty (3).
In a Holy Trinity model of health, Jesus the Son is the body, the incarnation, the embodiment of God himself. Our human bodies can flourish through the implementation of various lifestyle behaviors known to support good health. These are best defined in the field of lifestyle medicine, where six behaviors make up the pillars of a healthy life: a plant-predominant eating pattern, regular physical activity, getting restorative sleep, stress reduction, maintaining positive social connections, and avoiding risky substances (alcohol, tobacco & illicit drugs).
Lifestyle medicine is a rapidly growing field that aims to address an imbalance that exists in our traditional view of healthcare, similar to the imbalance in psychology prior to the development of positive psychology. Healthcare often focuses on treating disease, leaving less time for promoting health. Yet, the research is overwhelming, indicating that adopting these six pillars of lifestyle medicine can address more than 80% of our healthcare costs and contributors to poor quality of life in the United States and worldwide (4).
The value in using the Holy Trinity as a model for health, allows us to see the humanity of Christ, recognizing that he also had to nourish his body with food, movement, sleep, social connection, managing stressors and avoiding substances that would harm the body. This is evident in many places in scripture, where we are encouraged to take care of the body as a temple of the Holy Spirit.
God in the Holy Spirit then, is our connection to our own spirit. The Holy Spirit guides our spiritual life, just as it guides the Church. In times where our mental or physical health is experiencing a challenge, it can be faith and a strong spiritual life that provides the anchor to weather the storm. This is where it gets personal for me; this is where I can speak from experience, not just the research. As a lifestyle medicine coach who uses positive psychology interventions in coaching individuals, I had to draw on my faith foundation when my own mental and physical health were challenged.
In the summer of 2023, I was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer. When my usual healthy eating habits, physical activity, sleep and stress levels were all affected by this diagnosis and the ensuing treatment, my faith and my social support system of family and friends got me through. When I started to look at the literature on religion and health, my experience was validated; there is robust evidence showing a positive connection between health and the practice of spirituality, especially in religious community (5).
So while using the Holy Trinity as a model for health of mind, body and spirit is clearly supported in the research literature, for me, it is personal. It is the model that I have adopted for my life now post-cancer treatment. It is a model that holds promise for the future of medicine and healthcare. An approach to medicine that incorporates all of these aspects of health would not only fully support the health of mind, body and spirit, but it would also reflect the Holy Trinity, which is core to our very being. This kind of model has potential to provide the missing link in a transition from sick-care to holistic health-care. It may take time for that kind of paradigm shift in medicine, but you can begin to use the Holy Trinity as a model for your own health today.
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References:
Seligman M, Csikszentmihalyi M. Positive Psychology: An Introduction. Am Psychol. 2000;55(1):5-14.
Peterson C, Seligman M. Character Strengths and Virtues. Washington, DC: APA Press and New York: Oxford University Press; 2004.
Kaczor C. The Gospel of Happiness: How Secular Psychology Points to the Wisdom of Christian Practice. 2nd ed. St. Augustine’s Press; 2019.
Rippe JM. Manual of Lifestyle Medicine. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group; 2021.
Koenig HG, VanderWeele TJ, Peteet JR. Handbook of Religion and Health. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press; 2024.
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons, Hendrick van Balen the Elder, Holy Trinity, Public Domain
