Alternative Therapy and Your Health
Whether you’re in treatment for a specific medical condition or simply getting more serious about your overall health, consider integrating alternative therapy into your regular wellness routine. Thanks to their holistic approach to the body, complementary therapies can provide significant benefits at any stage of life.
What are complementary and alternative therapies?
Simply put, alternative therapies and complementary therapies are treatment modalities that aim to improve your health status or body condition via pathways outside of the boundaries of conventional medical care.
As has been stated countless times before, conventional medical care often targets acute symptoms and conditions. If you have a headache, conventional medicine advises taking a painkiller that works on pain receptors. If you have a tumor, doctors advise to blast it with radiation or high doses of medication.
While medical research has devised a stunning array of effective treatments, these treatments often fail to take into account the functioning of the whole body or the whole person. As a result, side effects often arise as medications intended to treat one condition also affect other systems of the body.
Alternative therapies in health and medicine, on the other hand, focus on boosting the health of the whole body and whole person. Some natural therapies aim to improve overall immune function, enabling the body to resist infection more effectively on its own. Other complementary therapies may reduce inflammation, making them useful for preventing and treating a number of disorders.
Examples of alternative healing therapies
Two of the best supported alternative healing therapies available at this time are float therapy and infrared sauna therapy.
In float therapy, you will recline and relax in a sensory deprivation tank for a period of time. A session in the dark, quiet environment and body-temperature salt water carefully calibrated to create a feeling of weightlessness are shown to significantly decrease symptoms of anxiety and depression. This makes float therapy a powerful alternative therapy for those suffering from common mood disorders and mental illnesses. As an added bonus, the reduction in depression and anxiety can lead to improvements in physical health as well.
Infrared sauna therapy also involves a period of relaxation, but in a temperature-controlled warm bath of red light. Far infrared therapy can trigger a powerful anti-inflammatory response in the body, making it particularly useful for inflammatory health conditions. This complementary therapy also reduces joint and muscle pain. And a reduction in physical pain and inflammation can lead to improvements in mental health as well.
These are just two examples of alternative therapy modalities, chosen to show the holistic approach such treatments bring to the table.
How to use complementary and alternative therapies
Conventional medicine has been enormously beneficial to mankind. Conventional medicine has its limits, however. It is particularly weak at the prevention of medical conditions before they arise.
As the names suggest, complementary and alternative therapies are excellent additions to your existing health and wellness routines. If you’re in treatment for an existing condition, seek out natural therapies that address underlying systemic conditions or that alleviate side effects from your conventional medical treatments. If you want to improve your overall health, explore alternative therapy treatments that you can consistently fit into your lifestyle.
Alternative therapy is about approaching health through the lens of the whole person: mental and physical. The mind-body connection is powerful, and what affects one part will affect the whole. Complementary therapies can help you integrate these two sides for a healthier, happier you.
