In the Western world, the spiritual and material realms were seen to be rather separate. In the Eastern world, they have a more holistic view. The spirit worlds aren't somewhere out there, they are liminal to us. And the spiritual aspects of humanity are not separate from our bodies, but rather linked to it. I believe this more holistic view to be correct.
There are multiple ways in which the overall physical health of your body and mind interacts with the spiritual aspects of reality. If you have issues with your health, they can become obstacles to practice. However, spirituality can also help with fixing certain issues, particularly those stemming from dysregulation of the nervous system. You might also find new motivation for better lifestyle choices and ways to address things like self-esteem issues.
Spiritual practices can help with issues related to your health and well-being. In particular issues related to dysregulation of the nervous system which includes and extremely wide spectrum of stress and anxiety issues and their multitude physical manifestations seem to be helped by properly done practices. For me, the practice has not only helped to deal with these issues, it has really driven home how extremely embodied some elements of our cognition are. Some issues can be resolved with the better insight gained via these practices.
However, issues with your health and well-being can also become challenges or stumbling blocks with spiritual practice. Certain severe conditions make everything but very thoughtfully guided, gently practices completely impossible. It is indeed possible to get bad, and severely so, outcomes from spiritual practice done wrong or in a poor state of health, be it mental or physical.
Bad outcomes are possible
Awareness of negative outcomes from spiritual practices has increased in recent years. In particular, research about negative outcomes from excessive meditation has emerged. Meditation is however not the only form of spiritual practice with potentially bad outcomes. Qiqong and kundalini practices have had notoriously poor outcomes when done wrong, and the history of Western esoteric practices is littered with fates of individuals who suffered from the practice.
A culture of not really talking enough about possible bad outcomes and their causes is partly to blame for this. The situation regarding lack of advice and precautions and bad advice and bad precautions is worse among the general ”spiritual” and ”occult” spheres than within more established religious organizations. The latter have their own host of issues, and the advice and precautions from them is not always helpful either. Still, these traditions have acknowledged potential issues for hundreds of years.
While some of the bad outcomes are related to going too far too fast, I believe there are some factors related to pre-existing health issues that make bad outcomes more likely. Some of these issues might even contribute to that ”going too far too fast”. The good news is that since spiritual practice can help with these issues, if done right, the practitioner should be able to identify potential sources of problems and address them before problems arise. And when problems arise, the potential sources of issues can be better identified when the health-related aspects of spirituality are acknowledged.
Physical and mental health issues as impediments to spirituality
It should however be noted that there are some conditions which are so severe that it's extremely unlikely that any unguided spiritual practice will have positive outcomes. These are the various psychotic and dissociative conditions and severe traumas. Even very moderate focus meditation can bring out negative outcomes and worsen these conditions. There might be some forms of practice that are suitable for such people, but I do not have the competency to say what they could be.
Poor physical health can also cause problems when it comes to spiritual practice. Meditation can be straining or impossible on bodies with certain injuries. Certain major surgeries might mess up not only your physical body, but the subtler aspects of it. Illnesses, exhaustion and fatigue can weaken the spiritual aspects of the human body and leave you vulnerable to negative, unwanted influences. At the same time, such states also tend to drive us to negative mental states, which are very appealing to unwanted spirit visitors. A certain kind of ”depletion” of the body is reflected as a depletion of one's spiritual potency and resources too.
This isn't to say that if you are in poor health that you can't have spiritual experiences or put the work into it. It simply means that it will be more challenging and your priorities should be a bit different. I am not writing this all as some paragon of health, but precisely and exactly because I was everything but. If I had truly understood the extent that physical health affects spiritual practice, I would have put much more work into working on that side first.
Spirituality and improving your health
For many the desire to heal and to overall ”fix their life” can be a great impetus for moving towards a more spiritual way of life. Sometimes the process of healing has less to do with any particular practice, but rather the decision to take a more spiritual path in itself. There are a lot of medical conditions that are either a direct result of lifestyle choices or made worse by such. You might find that various excessive or extremely stressful lifestyle choices are simply no longer appealing to you after a certain point, or at least you will understand very clearly why and how they are harmful. There are of course limits to this. You will have to put in considerable work, and not all conditions are so easily, if at all, fixable. You shouldn't expect miracles, but find ways to support the needed lifestyle changes.
Some spiritual techniques that sit directly at the junction between spirituality and health. The Chinese tradition has many examples of this, including many forms of qigong and tai chi. With qigong, the closer it is to something you would find a 60 year old Chinese woman practicing it, the more suited it probably is for addressing health issues. Let's leave those dantian cultivations for when your body can handle it. Tai chi is in my experience excellent and is safe and gentle enough for almost everyone. Whatever it is that you choose to do (and I certainly recommend you explore some form of qigong, yoga or martial art with an internal focus), please find qualified and non-cultish instructors in real life.
The big advantage of these practices in relation to spirituality is that they work on the energy body. In qigong, it's thought that weaknesses in the energy body that are reflective of physical issues can lead to bad outcomes, qigong sicknesses, if inappropriate practice is conducted. Sometimes I wonder if certain issues cropping up in Western esoteric practice are in reality a form of ”qigong sickness”, too much energy being pumped into a body that is not ready for it...
Even if you were not to believe in things like energy bodies, qigong and tai chi and yoga can still be an excellent form of light exercise. One of the best things you can do for your health after all is getting enough physical exercise that is suitable for your present condition. You can find much more qualified advice for this elsewhere, but I can say that beyond the various group activities walking in nature is excellent for many reasons. If you can handle hitting the gym, that is great too. And if you are already taking care of exercise, do still consider yoga, qigong or internal martial arts for their other benefits.
Next, we will be looking at how the nervous system affects sleep, diet and thus overall health and what kind of techniques can be used to regulate the nervous system.
