Looking at health in a holistic way and understanding the deep inter-relation between our emotions, food choices, hormones, lifestyle choices and overall health is a revelation for some of us. In an age when nutrition, medicine, beauty, emotional health – and just about everything else – are compartmentalized into their own little boxes, it can be a real eye-opener to hear about the deep connections between the way we live, eat, feel and look.

That’s why we love to chat with holistic experts like Danielle Cuccio, a Beverly Hills-based holistic health coach who focuses on helping clients to achieve vibrant health on many levels. Starting as an aesthetician – a passion grown from her own teenage struggles with hormonal skin problems – Danielle soon found that treating skin “superficially” just didn’t cut it and began sourcing deeper solutions for her clients. Here’s Danielle with a little about how she happened upon her own unique approach to coaching and a few tips to achieve glowing health from the inside out…

After I became an esthetician, working full-time trying to make clients’ skin look as good as I could, I began to realize that my clients needed solutions that went much more than skin deep.

At the time, I had become obsessed with yoga. “Yogis” had the best skin and were much more open to a whole and healthy lifestyle. I became yoga certified and an ayurveda practitioner, took a few anatomy classes at UCLA, and took courses in meditation. What I found was that the good health of our skin is the result of much more than a good facial, but is affected by our diet, our exercise routines, our thoughts and our levels of relaxation.

Putting it all together, I decided to label my practice “somatology” (“so-ma”= the body / “tol-o-gy”= the study of), which includes the study of the body and assisting others in improving their general wellness and aesthetic appearance through the practice of holistic lifestyle. Before I knew it, my practice was attracting top producers, actors and doctors in LA, and once seeing the results they were experiencing, I decided to expand my practice as much as I could.

Real beauty comes from within. Your skin says everything about the kind of lifestyle you lead and most skin problems originate internally – the body is one whole integrated system so what’s going on inside our bodies will show up on our skin as well. When we become more aware of our bodies and our minds, a shift starts to occur. A shift we can learn to achieve every day. That feeling of inner health shows up externally on our face and skin more than the best facial ever could. Here are a few of my core values to think about and a few tips to apply right away.