|
What are the different kinds of natural healing?
What are the different kinds of natural healing?
Under the heading of "natural healing", there are a multitude of methods and techniques, and it would be impossible to list them all. What this book aims to do is to define the larger categories of the different types of healing methods and to give several examples of each. The reader will thus have an overview of this very fertile and fascinating field, and can then carry on his own research on any methods that sound promising and applicable to his own situation. Of course, being holistic, many of these methods include aspects of more than one category, but for convenience they have been put where they seemed to fit the most. The three broad categories of natural healing are those that use physical means, those that work with energy, and those that are concerned with thinking and the brain. Physical Methods of Natural Healing Within this category, there are two distinct approaches. One deals with taking substances into the body (natural ones, of course) and the other deals with healing through manipulation of the body. Natural Substances Many people deplore the popularity of junk food and attribute most of our health problems today to the lack of proper nutrition. There are many currents of thought in this area. Some just emphasize the importance of eating lots of fruit and vegetables, others promote vegetarianism, and there are all sorts of diets that are supposed to help people lose weight. The importance of eating organic food is also emphasized. Many food additives are seen as being unhealthy or even dangerous. Aspartame and trans fats are example of commonly found and officially accepted substances in our food that are considered downright toxic. Due to the difficulty of getting balanced meals in today's fast-paced world and also to the depletion of minerals in our soil, the use of supplement is often encouraged. Vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and all sorts of other substances, such as omega-3, coenzyme Q10, flavinoids, etc can bring health benefits and correct nutritional imbalances. The healing virtue of plants is an ancient art which was once a part of medical training before pharmaceuticals took their place. In fact, many drugs in use today are derived from plants. - Aromatherapy is the use of concentrated plant essences for healing purposes.
- Homeopathy uses very dilute solutions of plant substances to stimulate a healing reaction in the body.
Physical treatments Some vigorous methods of physical manipulation are chiropractic, osteopathy, rolfing, shiatsu, reflexology, and many different types of massage techniques. There are also more gentle methods, such as Cranial sacral Therapy, the Bowen method, Palm Therapy, Fascia Therapy, the Metamorphosis Technique, and Gentle Touch. Physical exercise is one natural technique that is encouraged by traditional medicine. There are all different kinds of sports that one can practice, as well as exercise methods, not to mention just plain walking. The Alexander technique and the Feldenkreis method are both designed to help people regain more natural posture and movements. - Exercise and energy methods
The following is but a short list of various practices brought from the East and gaining in popularity in the West today. These exercise methods are designed to increase "chi" or energy, or to stimulate the acupuncture meridiens or the chakras: Yoga, Qigong, Tai-chi, and the less well-known Tibetian Rites. Some other physical manipulation techniques are colon irrigation, fasting, thermalism and hydrotherapy. Energy Techniques of Natural Medicine The field of energy medicine is taking hold in the West more and more, with a great diversity of methods and approaches. Even though China has a 5-millenia advance on us, we are catching up. Yes, Acupuncture is said to be 5000 years old. Energy paths The meridians are part of an energy circulation system that runs through the body, and Acupuncture is the use of needles placed on particular points along the meridians to balance energy disruptions and heal a great variety of ailments. Acupressure is a simplified form of this, where pressure is applied by the fingers instead of needles. The chakras are a different energy system, from India, consisting of seven major energy vortexes situated along the center of the body from the bottom of the trunk to the top of the head. The aura is an energetic projection around our body. Some healers can see it, and Kirilian photography reveals it. "Chi" means energy, and is often referred to as the energy of the universe. There are techniques designed to help us become aware of our chi, increase it, and use it to heal ourselves and others. There are modern energy techniques that make use of these systems. EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) uses a simple tapping procedure on the end points of the meridians with startling results, TFH (Touch for Health) uses various corrections to balance the meridians, and Kinesiology (of which TFH is one branch) has procedures to balance both the meridians and the chakras. Vibrational healing Vibrational healing is based on the idea that different frequencies have specific effects on the body, and can heal certain diseases. This can be done using musical pitches or colors. Crystals are also thought to concentrate certain energies due to their organized structure, and the effects of Bach flower essences are considered to be more energetic in nature than due to their physical properties. Radionics, first developed by Dr. Albert Abrams in the early 20th century, consisted of using machines to project energy frequencies that destroyed bacteria, viruses, and parasites and healed different ailments. Abrams and his successors (including Royal Rife and Antoine Priore) were invariably pursued as dangerous quacks and their machines destroyed. Today Dr. Hulda Clark proposes a simpler version along the same principles, called the zapper. Magnets are also used as healing devices and are reputed to have a number of positive effects on the body. Pure energy Some methods use instruments no more complicated than the human hand. Reiki and Healing Touch are two examples of this, as well as traditional healers all over the world. Thinking and the Brain for Natural Healing In the philosophy of natural healing, the mind and body compose one whole, and the mind has a profound effect on the body. Healing is both mental and physical because the body is not just a separate machine-like entity, but an integral part of the whole, an expression of the mind. In traditional thinking, there is medicine to treat the body and psychotherapy to treat the mind, but natural methods treat the person, and expect improvement in all areas of the person's life. Attitudes There are quite a few methods that are concerned with helping people to form the correct mind-set and understanding of life that will help them overcome their difficulties. This may sound like traditional psychotherapy, but their worldview is often quite different because they accept the idea that our thinking actually influences our environment. Some of these are: NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), the Sedona method, Heart Math, the Law of Attraction, Creative Visualization, Affirmations, Hoponopono and methods based on the resolution of polarities, such as the PEAT Method and John Demartini's Breakthrough Experience. Centering techniques Relaxation - there are quite a few techniques to help people relax, and the benefits of relaxation are tremendous. Hypnosis - uses the relaxed condition to give people positive suggestions. Meditation - aims to quiet the mind by stopping its ceaseless inner chattering for a while - easier said than done! Yoga, Chi-Gong, Tai-Chi, etc, previously mentioned in the exercise section, are aimed at centering and relaxing the mind as well as exercising the body. The Brain Depending on the kind of activity a person is engaging in, their brains emit waves at different frequencies. During deep sleep, the brain emits delta waves, between 0.5 and 3 hertz. From 4 to 7 hertz are the theta waves, associated with dreaming and creativity, very frequent in children. Alpha waves, 8 to 13 hertz, are associated with meditative and relaxed states, and Beta waves, from 14 to 44 hertz, are present during our normal waking activities. The higher beta frequencies are related to stress. The alpha and theta states in particular are considered beneficial, but they don't come as easily as beta. Ways to attain these states are through meditation, hypnosis, the Silva method, and more recently, brainwave entrainment, where visual or auditory signals are sent in such a way as to lead the brain to emit at the same frequencies it is seeing or hearing. It is often said that we only use about ten percent of our brain. Imagine what we could accomplish if we used our whole brain! There are different ways to divide the brain into parts. There is the left side and the right side, each having distinct if not completely separate tasks. In our logical-minded society, the right brain, which is concerned more with intuition and artistic pursuits, is not always given a chance to show what it can do. Brain Gym, another branch of kinesiology, has specific exercises to stimulate brain integration. From another point of view, the brain has three parts, the reptile brain, the mammal brain, and the frontal lobes. The reptile brain is concerned with our basic survival instincts, and in times of stress or fear, we tend to revert to reptile brain functions and forget to use the other parts. The mammal brain, or limbic system, is related to emotions, and the frontal lobes, the most evolved part, contains our thinking and reasoning faculties. So any method that helps calm fears will help people to use their frontal lobes more, which is probably where most of the unused 90 percent is hiding. The subconscious mind The theory of the subconscious mind was first developed by Freud, but St. Paul seemed to know about it already when he lamented "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." (epistle to the Romans, Ch 7, v. 15) The subconscious mind is a mysterious part of us, hidden by definition, hard to access and even harder to change. To access it, the muscle test used in kinesiology or the pendulum can be used. To understand it, one can try dream interpretation, and to change it, subliminal messages and hypnosis are said to bypass the conscious mind and speak directly to the subconscious.
Related Items:
|
