Complementary medicine: A holistic approach

A special feature of many complementary therapies is their holistic approach. Rather than focusing solely on your ailment, the practitioner is likely to be interested in your overall health and will spend time with you, asking about your diet and lifestyle, attempting to build up a picture of how one aspect of your health impacts on another.

This approach is in line with the World Health Organization’s definition of health as a ‘complete state of physical, mental, and social wellbeing’ and not simply the absence of disease. Because of this holistic focus, people with the same ailment may be treated quite differently according to their individual make-up or needs.

For example, two asthma sufferers may have similar symptoms and yet be given different types of herbs, homeopathic remedies, or acupuncture treatments by the same practitioner according to the diagnosis of their overall state of health and the perceived underlying cause of their condition. The aim of this holistic approach is often the restoration of homeostasis or body balance, which is believed to facilitate the body’s own self-healing mechanisms.

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Being Healthy

Even if you get the best therapist and therapy in the world, your health and healing still rest to some extent in your own hands. Help yourself by practicing the following:

·         Start each day in a positive frame of mind.

·         Eat healthily and sensibly, with lots of fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and other healthy proteins, and avoid junk foods, saturated fats, and excess sugars and salt.

·        Drink plenty of fresh water; eight glasses sipped during the course of the day is a good amount to aim for.

·  Get regular exercise of both the vigorous (aerobic) and gentle, stretching (such as yoga, pilates, and t’ai chi) varieties. Two to three sessions a week of at least 20 minutes – enough to build up a bit of a sweat – is a good goal.

·       B-r-e-a-t-h-e well! Lots of people simply stop breathing when they are concentrating, or they breathe very shallowly. Focus on your breath at regular intervals during the day and ensure even, free breaths.

·    Limit your vices! Moderate alcohol intake and stop or at least cut down on the cigarettes.

·         De-stress. Practise stress management and aim for a good work-rest-play life balance with time for socialising, creativity, and enjoyment.

·         Get plenty of good quality sleep.

·         End each day with gratitude for everything in your life.

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Eating Disorder

Could this be you? You don’t have much self-confidence (this applies most often to females, but males are not immune). You’d love to feel in charge of yourself, your emotions, your life. You’d do anything to be someone others love and admire. You don’t feel any of these things are true — for you.

Add to this that you live in a culture that tells you the world is yours if you’re thin. That you, or anyone, can become model-thin (or fat-free buff) if you just diet and exercise enough.

You may be a little precise or obsessive by nature. And you may have fewer of the natural brain hormones that buffer most people in life. You may even have a history of some kind of trauma that you have yet to resolve.

These characteristics are the ingredients for making an eating disorder. Because you feel vulnerable, an eating disorder is, above all else, the way you struggle against internal doubts, trying to cope. Dieting is how you try to put together a sense of control and self-esteem. Bingeing is how you comfort yourself or respond to the extremes of dieting. You have come to rely on your eating disorder symptoms so completely that the thought of surrendering them is terrifying — even when they begin to cause a lot of physical and emotional trouble.

Eating disorders are treacherous. They destroy and even take lives, and they make sufferers doubt and hate themselves. But the happy news is that the majority of people who pitch into treatment and stay with it through recovery get better. They go on to think about and engage in other things, become successful and fulfilled, and leave their eating disorders behind. So can you.

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Going Complementary Medicine

If you decide to try out any form of complementary medicine for yourself, first consider the following:

Find out as much as you can about the therapy. Find out what it involves, what it may be good for, what evidence supports its use, and what the safety warnings or possible side effects are.

Check out the qualifications and experience of any practitioner you’re thinking of consulting. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and to ask for an explanation of letters after the practitioner’s name, their membership of a professional and/or regulatory body, and their years of experience – particularly with your specific type of health problem. Don’t use unqualified, unregistered practitioners that aren’t members of a reputable professional body.

Check that the practitioner is fully insured and follows standards for safe practice, such as using disposable needles for acupuncture and disposing of them properly.

Ask about and consider the number of treatments that you’re likely to need, what sort of improvements you may expect, and what the likely costs are. Investigate whether the therapy is available on the NHS or covered by health insurance if you have any.

Consider consulting or informing your doctor about having complementary medicine. Very few people do inform their doctor about this, fearing that such information won’t be well received, but many doctors are now better informed and open to complementary medicine, and most complementary practitioners are happy to communicate with general practitioners too.

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