101 Ways to Improve Your Health with Body Work (eBook)

Your Complete Guide to Complementary & Alternative Therapies

Alan E. Smith (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017
106 Seiten
Loving Healing Press Inc (Verlag)
978-1-61599-334-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Your health is your greatest possession in this life so it's smart to look for the best ways to maintain and restore it as you age. In this guide you'll find treatments and therapies designed for your body and proven effective over decades, hundreds, even thousands of years. While not every therapy will work for every person, you can find the one that you need now or in the future in these pages. Take responsibility for your health right now, it's the only body you have, and read this book!

• Most comprehensive collection of body therapies available.
• Quick, easy-to-read descriptions of each treatment.
• Websites to learn more about each listing.
• Many subjects offer podcast listings featuring leading authorities.
• Find the most ancient to the most modern therapies.
• Rediscover the joy and beauty of living.

'Alan Smith's Unbreak Your Health series provides a terrific resource for those interested in real health!'
--C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D.
'Knowledge is power. And this book is a way to provide you with a one stop source for discovering complementary and alternative therapies.'
'Five Stars --- Impressively organized and presented.'
--Midwest Book Review
Health & Fitness: Alternative Therapies

---

Your health is your greatest possession in this life so it's smart to look for the best ways to maintain and restore it as you age. In this guide you'll find treatments and therapies designed for your body and proven effective over decades, hundreds, even thousands of years. While not every therapy will work for every person, you can find the one that you need now or in the future in these pages. Take responsibility for your health right now, it's the only body you have, and read this book! Most comprehensive collection of body therapies available. Quick, easy-to-read descriptions of each treatment. Websites to learn more about each listing. Many subjects offer podcast listings featuring leading authorities. Find the most ancient to the most modern therapies. Rediscover the joy and beauty of living. "e;Alan Smith's Unbreak Your Health series provides a terrific resource for those interested in real health!"e; --C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D. "e;Knowledge is power. And this book is a way to provide you with a one stop source for discovering complementary and alternative therapies."e; "e;Five Stars --- Impressively organized and presented."e; --Midwest Book Review Health & Fitness: Alternative Therapies

Textauszug

Introduction

This book is all about hope. From ancient healing therapies to the latest American innovations, you have more options for great health today than ever before. Complementary and alternative therapies, known as CAM, are about more than just improving your health. These therapies are about helping you rediscover the joy, the wonder and the beauty of living.

Perhaps the aches and pains that caused you to stumble are caused from your body being out of alignment in some way so it’s a body issue. Maybe an emotional issue or traumatic life experience is seeking resolution by expressing itself through the body, so it could be a mind issue. Or your life force energy could be blocked in some way resulting in a physical problem so it could be a spirit or energy issue.

In this guide you’ll find information new and old and begin to see patterns between therapies that are consistent through thousands of years and across civilizations around the world.

The most basic concept is that you are the sum of your Mind-Body-Spirit. Your parts cannot be disconnected so a problem in one area can mean problems in all areas. Holistic (or whole-istic) therapies are effective because they address all of you. Many of these complementary and alternative therapies work to prevent problems or correct them as soon as possible to prevent them from growing into serious issues. This is a very different approach from medicine in America today which is based on fee-for-service.

Once you start talking with friends and family about these new options it seems like everybody knows somebody who’s experienced success, sometimes miraculous success, with a complementary or alternative therapy. While writing this book, I’ve been amazed at the stories from friends and yet we still seem to talk about CAM in whispers, as if it’s something normal people don’t discuss in public. I hope this book brings complementary and alternative therapies out of the shadows and into the light of day so more people can discover a healthier, happier new life.

According to the 2007 NCCAM report on complementary and alternative medicine 38% of Americans used some form during the previous 12 months. This is a dramatic change from the 62% reported in the 2002 study but that’s because the government studies dropped the use of prayer as a form of CAM. Apparently the use of this ancient, some say the original, energy therapy was too popular to be included in the study because it skewed the data making it appear that CAM was too popular.

The data in the federal government reports is from the National Health Interview Survey conducted by the U. S. Department of Health & Human Services, the Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics. For the 2007 report, NHIS interviews were completed in 29,266 households, which yielded 75,764 persons in 29,915 families and a household response rate of 87.1%. Between the 2002 and 2007 government reports acupuncture, deep breathing exercises, massage therapy, meditation, naturopathy, and yoga showed significant increases.

Perhaps one of the reasons for the explosive growth and popularity of complementary and alternative therapies is the fact that people appreciate being much more than just a number on a form. Every person is a unique individual composed of mind, body and spirit (or life-force energy). All facets must be healthy and balanced for wellness and personal growth. A PBS-TV special in 2006 featured doctors talking about their hope for the trend in medicine to go back to treating patients as whole beings. Many of them wondered how Western medicine could have ever gotten so far off track to ignore the mind and spiritual components of every patient in the first place.

Complementary and alternative therapies also focus on individualized treatments, rather than assembly-line, one-size-fits-all medicine. Every person and their health problems are unique, usually resulting from a combination of factors. These therapies tend to look at the whole person for the source of the problem, not just the symptoms that bring them in the door.

In this era of entitlement, too many people have come to believe they are owed good health and this has led to a passive national attitude towards health. When we get sick, we expect the doctor to give us a pill, a shot or perform some surgery to fix us right up so we can continue living without having to make any changes in our lives or accept responsibility for our own health.

One of the major themes of complementary and alternative therapies is personal responsibility. Who better to take care of your body than YOU? After all, who has more “skin in the game” of your life than you do? These complementary and alternative therapies offer new and old ways for better health but you, the person reading this book, will have to care enough about your life to take personal responsibility for your health. Empowering yourself with information about all of the health care options available today is the first step in order for you to make the most informed decisions possible about your health care.

Another difference between standard medicine and CAM today is a focus on wellness and the ingredients for health. Among other things, we need proper diet, exercise and a way to release the stress of the day. You’ve probably already heard these recommendations from medical doctors. These aren’t new ideas; in fact they’re very old. Four hundred years ago Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, said that “The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet and Doctor Merryman.” Today, four centuries later we’re still discovering the importance to our health today of what we eat and drink, the peace that we find within ourselves and the joy that we find in life. Sad to admit but we usually take better care of our cars and our yards than we do our most precious gift, our own health.

America has neglected complementary and alternative therapies in favor of scientific Western medicine for over 100 years. While this profit-driven orientation has produced some outstanding developments, much has also been sacrificed. Today, the newest scientific equipment is confirming that we are all whole beings of mind, body and spirit, often raising more questions than providing answers. The explosion of research in neuroscience is changing the meaning of the expression “It’s all in your head” because technology is showing how the mind is related to and controls the body. We’re moving quickly from simple correlation of the mind-body connection to discovering the actual mechanisms of interaction. Epigenetics is showing us how the power of our own thoughts and feelings can change the functioning of our genes.

Because so many of these complementary and alternative therapies are based on a completely different paradigm (energy) they operate on different principles than the standard chemical model of the human body. This means they can’t be studied using the same methodology as current research. They also function as whole systems and cannot be examined piece by piece. Using existing research models for CAM is simply like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. Much like quantum physics, the very act of observation influences the results. Even the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy understood this concept. The 2002 report said “Research is needed to pursue answers to questions posed by CAM that lie outside the conventional medical paradigm.”

Everything in this book will work for someone, but nothing in this book will work for everyone. The same is true with mainstream medicine. Some pills help people while the same medication may be ineffective or even harmful to someone else. There is a wide variety in the quality of medical doctors and it’s the same with the practitioners of these healing arts. Whether it’s a medical doctor or an alternative practitioner you should always research their qualifications and training and then enter into any relationship with an attitude of Buyer Beware. Remember, you are in charge of your health! Just as it’s always been recommended to seek out second opinions for diagnosis by a medical doctor, practicing the same approach would be beneficial when working with complementary or alternative therapies too.

Not every type of CAM will be found in this book. Quite frankly, some are practiced by only a few people while others are being created so quickly that it’s almost impossible to keep track. Being human, it’s possible my research has missed some valuable therapies. Some of the therapies listed are FDA approved but because they’re still ignored by most doctors, they’re still considered outside of the “norm”.

Rather than trying to swamp you with all types of therapies I’ve broken my research down into three separate books. This edition focuses on all of the Body Therapies or the physical aspect of your health. While I’ve added listings from my last guide the nature of CAM means it will never be complete because innovation is constantly adding new therapies and techniques. If you don’t feel an urge to explore one of these treatments then perhaps the answer to your health concerns will be in the Mind Therapies or Energy/Spirit Therapies editions.

What started out as a quest to improve my own Baby Boomer health has resulted in this collection of information and opportunities. Like so many people, conventional medicine ran...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.5.2017
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Alternative Heilverfahren
• Themenwelt: Medizin / Pharmazie ► Naturheilkunde
• Schlagworte: Alternative medicine • alternative therapies • Body • Fitness • General • Healing • Health • Medical • Mind • SPIRIT
• ISBN-10: 1-61599-334-7 / 1615993347
• ISBN-13: 978-1-61599-334-5 / 9781615993345