Four Quadrant Living

An easy approach to integrating different realms of your life and achieving a healthy lifestyle.

It was a wake-up call when doctors told Colman that she had an 87 percent chance of receiving a breast cancer diagnosis in her lifetime. With a sister already in the midst of her own grueling battle with the disease, Colman had a choice: accept that a cancer diagnosis was nearly inevitable or “create a new health destiny” for herself. She chose the latter, stepping off the corporate fast track to earn a master’s degree in holistic health education and remake her life. Colman rejects the idea that healthy living simply means eating well or getting enough exercise, instead choosing to see health as “a state that emerges from four areas—four quadrants—Mind, Body, Relationships, and Environment.” By taking positive actions in each of these four areas, Colman says, the reader can improve his or her health, reduce the risk of serious disease and live a better life. The book’s four sections discuss each quadrant in detail, offering straightforward solutions for improving health, many of which can be implemented right away. This small-step approach to improving life is notably appealing, since it’s easy enough to follow suggestions such as striving to find humor in stressful situations or switching to nontoxic household cleaners. Other recommendations are more intensive and won’t be as easy to put into action as Colman sometimes makes them sound. For instance, getting out of toxic relationships by “exiting stage left” may be a real challenge for some, and Colman offers few tips on how to break free from such unhealthy bonds. Some of the advice is so brief that it seems like filler, including a chapter on rethinking one’s attitude toward weeds, which features vague tips on avoiding pesticides and embracing native plants. Nonetheless, Colman packs plenty of sensible suggestions into this slim book. What might come off as judgmental in less-deft hands is here more like gentle advice from a close friend.

Useful tools for living a more balanced life.