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What is Complementary Health and Medicine?

Benefits Of Massage, Emotional Health, News, Personal Development, Recovery, Spiritual Health

Day 4 The Ulitmate Blog Challenge

As the debate about non-medical intervention continues, what do we mean when we use the term Complementary in reference to health and medicine? The best all round definition I could find was that ‘non-standard’ treatments could be used alongside ‘standard’ treatments, offering an integrative approach to healing and recovery from illness.

I have used a variety of non-standard treatments and therapies for many conditions for over 20 years with huge success. This led me to want to be a practitioner so I could work with people on a number of levels that were about well-being, health, personal responsibility and healing. I trained initially in Massage about 5 years ago and now use Reflexology and Oriental Face Massage in my practise. I also work alongside many other practitioners to provide a huge menu of options for my clients so that everyone can find what therapy, or compliment of therapies, works best for them.

So as a Complementary Health Practitioner, I see my role as having two distinct starting points. Some of my clients come and see me because they want to be preventative in terms of their health and well being. These clients tend to come and see me once a month, have a good diet, don’t drink or smoke, exercise regularly and see their health as their responsibility, with or without having concluded this through an illness, whether that has been physical, emotional or mental. The other type of client I tend to have is someone who has had an illness or become unwell through stress, exhaustion, maybe poor lifestyle choices and has found that they are offered lots of medication and don’t want to take it, or that conventional pill popping hasn’t really helped.  There is a bit of a grey area here and people that fall into the category of being preventative, may be coming to me because they need help with something for which there is no cure, for example,  PMT symptoms (Reflexology and Massage is very successful for this) or difficulties sleeping and they don’t want to take sleeping tablets or even excema or psoriasis.

There continues to be a debate regarding the beneficial nature of Complementary Treatments which is usually fuelled by the desire to rigorously test the benefits in a laboratory style experiment. Because this is tricky to do, as there are to many factors to consider in a person’s environment or lifestyle, the conclusion often seems to be “…it’s the placebo effect.” I don’t usually get into a discussion like this because I know for myself that Complementary and Alternative treatments work. If that wasn’t enough, I have endless testimonials (far to many to have on my page). I am also aware that most of the treatments that we tend to talk about are from ancient times. How arrogant it seems to be to me, to spend time trying to refute the power of so called  ’non-standard’ (by who’s standards?) therapies and treatments that have been used across many cultures since Ancient Greece, India, Thailand and Tibet. While I personally would avoid medical intervention until I had tried absolutely everything else possible, I would never be disrespectful towards the medical profession and the wonderful things that they do and I wouldn’t spend any of my time refuting their success….apart from anything else, it would be unethical of me to do so. I can only conclude, that you have the right to find whatever treatment works for you, (which currently means only half of what is actually available to you is available for free on the NHS)  whether that is ‘standard’ or ‘non-standard’ and that all practitioners need to recognise and respect that we are all doing what we do because we want to be part of the solution with regards to healing, health and well being. Now that can only be a good thing.

The Joy Of Learning and Responsibility…

Benefits Of Massage, Emotional Health

I am very much of the philosophy that we should learn something new everyday, keeping the brain muscle well and truly active and ensuring a continued excitement about all that life has to offer. The last few months I have been learning so much and I haven’t even begun to quench my thirst for more knowledge in my new found skills. I recently trained in Reflexology and Oriental Face Massage. Adding Reflexology to my treatments in particular, has transformed the way I work. It is a deeply healing treatment which forms part of taking care of your general health and well being in a preventative way. The pressure on certain areas of the foot, rebalances energy lines allowing the body to heal itself. And it really does! The results that I have observed have ranged from huge reductions in area of Psoriasis, release of trapped and unresolved emotional pain, reduction of stress and improved sleep patterns.

Oriental Face Massage has been described as natural facelift. Massage and Acupressure techniques combine to work on the facial muscles increasing elasticity, improving fine lines and easing tension. This is a deeply relaxing treatment to be enjoyed while feeling all of life’s tensions melt away.

I shall be spending Easter Saturday deepening my knowledge of Yoga in deepest Buckinghamshire and I am currently reading Your Body Speaks Your Mind by Deb Shapiro.

Taking responsibility for your health and well being (so you can take care of all the people in your life as well as yourself) takes time, sometimes money and a commitment. I see to many people on my couch who now suffer from a whole range of issues that have arisen from being over worked, poorly nourished, sat in denial, tired, functioning on substances such as  alcohol and cigarettes, to name a few. Life is very short and no pay and/or sick pay does not pay the bills. Look after yourself! There is only one YOU!!

Spring Cleaning…but not with Vinegar!

Benefits Of Massage, Emotional Health, Personal Development, Recovery, Spiritual Health

I recently found myself reading a Glossy. I don’t read many magazines and there are a number of very valid reasons for this.

  • They tend to be repetitive – every season has a theme blah blah!
  • They are quite pricey and I’ve come to see them as a luxury item
  • They make me feel fat and also depressed about the contents of my wardrobe (I’m not fat and while my wardrobe contents could be better, it’s ok).
  • I really don’t have so much leisure time that I can waste it on a magazine over a book (personal choice thing I think).

But for some reason I decided to’ treat’ myself to a Magazine that shall remain nameless and sure enough, just in time for 1st March,  endless mentions of the impending  ‘Spring Clean’ with a special pull out section with specific reference to the multitude of things you can do with a bottle of white vinegar and a cloth. Bored bored bored.

Why oh why would I want to understand the minutiae of cleaning the lime scale out of my showerhead by soaking it in, yes, white vinegar!

What would interest me far more is how we Spring Clean ourselves.

The Body needs a fair amount of attention after the excesses that Winter has brought, with its’ glorious Comfort Food options…perfectly normal, but its time to take stock and change the contents of my food a little.

The Mind always needs looking at, daily. Am I learning at least one new thing a day? Am I pushing myself out of my mental comfort zone? Am I talking to a diverse enough bunch of people to think about things in a different way?

The Soul is a constant….of course. Smiling at strangers and doing something good for another person without them knowing about it, is the stuff of Soul Food.

Caring for all three at the same time is the challenge for us all. For I have to include in that, Massage Therapy, Kinesiology, Remedies and the odd Reflexology Treatment. Infact writing this down has conjured up an image of myself on a treadmill, during a Kinesiology session, smiling at everyone while reading Kafka! Scary…

So think of Spring Cleaning yourself as the natural way to end the Winter and approach Spring but perhaps a little less hectically than me!

Holistic Schmolistic!

Benefits Of Massage, Emotional Health, Love, News, Personal Development, Recovery

This week I decided to do a huge promotion on my Holistic Health business and was introduced to a company through a colleague. The uptake has been staggering. It has far superseded what I could have hoped for and bookings from this promotion currently stand at 67! I was intrigued when talking to the salesman from the Promotions Company that he didn’t know how to spell Holistic, let alone know what it meant!

So if you are curious about what it is, here is my synopsis. Holistic just means the whole…the whole person. If we think about treatments that we have that make us look better, they start from the outside and may or may not work their way to the inside. This might be through building up our confidence, making us feel good about ourselves because we perceive ourselves as looking more attractive and so on. What I do, is work with you the other way round, starting from the inside and allowing  healing to progress to the outside. By helping you build up your confidence from within, gain more self esteem, have a better body image, take control of your eating habits and so on, this will then start to work its way to your outsides.

Working in this way, has led to all sorts of new and exciting ventures that will be happening in 2011 working in collaboration with lots of other Holistic practitioners bringing Bespoke Treatments, Weekend Retreats, Workshops and Events. We all have times in our lives, redundancies, house moves, bereavements, divorce, where we feel emotionally broken and physically exhausted. The first step, and possibly the bravest,  is recognising that you’re sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. The second step is doing something about it!