Holistic medicine is a growing trend in people’s interest because of the desire for certainty and safety of better quality of life. In short, holistic medicine can be defined as the art of living in perfect harmony. It aims to educate humans to balance between body, mind and spirit.
For a lot of cultures, the issue of mental health is often more important than the physical health. In the first phase, this may seem strange, but if you try to deepen the subject, you will reach the conclusion that, without optimal mental health, you can not successfully overcome a medical condition.
Spiritual health has in the foreground attention on the ego, the transition from subconscious to the conscious states, and their transcendence, to obtain a perfect balance.
Basically, holistic medicine approaches the human health by biological, physiological, psychological and philosophical means.
From a holistic point of view, attitude is the most important factor in being healthy. If traditional medicine regards the healing process, strictly in organic terms, holistic medicine wishes to integrate the healing process in another more complex process of self enrichment. Taking the example of pain, that is traditionally treated with a painkiller, and, in holistic ways pain is treated primarily by encouraging the individual to not integrate the pain in the body, and not let it to affect the balance between body, mind and spirit.
Holistic therapy is individualized, encourages self analysis, awareness of unhealthy habits, and their removal. Although it encourages removing unhealthy habits and establishing clear and realistic goals, it does not accept drawing of rigid rules and self-punishment, in the event of deflection.
Holistic medicine practices and techniques:
– Yoga
Yoga practices are not related only to personal efforts during lessons. These include an effort, self-examination and self-knowledge.
– Ayurveda
Controls the aging process, and, aims for mental and spiritual enrichment of the individual, as it ages. Ayur = science, veda = age.
– Reiki
Is a Japanese technique for relaxation and elimination of stress in order to maintain and obtain physical and spiritual health.
– Traditional Chinese medicine
It is based on the study of the body’s vital energy (CHI). CHI circulates in the body on meridians that correspond to the body and internal organs. The disease is seen as an imbalance or interruption of CHI.
– Homeopathic medicine
Has its roots in the 18th century when Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, discovered that quinine, a treatment of malaria, in high doses causes the same symptoms as the disease it aims to treat, but at doses diluted in water or alcohol it has curative properties. Therefore, the homeopathic treatments are highly dilute substances, and are administered, most often in the form of tablets, in order to trigger the immune defense mechanism. It’s the same philosophy of thinking that led to the invention of the first vaccine by Louis Pasteur.
– Osteopathy
It is a concept, concerning health as perfect and stable connection between anatomy and physiology. It considers the human body as being endowed with the ability to trigger the autoregulatory mechanisms that allow it to heal, shape and adapt.
– Naturopathy
It is a form of alternative medicine, whose philosophy is based on the belief in an internal force, a vital energy that modulates internal actions, such as metabolism, adaptation, growth and reproduction. This treatment promotes noninvasive techniques and aims, primarily, to identify and eliminate the disease (the nature of the disease), before treating the symptoms.
– Chiropractic
A form of alternative medicine that aimed at restoring structural integrity (musculoskeletal system) to obtain an improvement in health. Chiropractors say that a disorder of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine, may endanger the overall health of the body, through the nervous system.
As a general rule of holistic medicine forms:
Health can be affected by everything that represents an individual’s environment, and his healing should aim at a balance between body, mind and spirit, natural treatment resources being exploited to the detriment of artificial or invasive approaches.