Introduction to Holistic Health

Introduction to Holistic Health

Health is the concern of all. “Health is Wealth” goes the saying. Everyone wants to be happy. Health is the first and foremost condition to happiness. And, yes, happiness is a pre-condition for health! Thus, it is a nice merry go-around! I don't want to call it a vicious circle, since that connotes a very negative image. Thus health and happiness go together. Unfulfilled desires lead to unhappiness and unhappiness leads to disease, ill-health, a feeling of being unwell. Efforts to either fulfill the desires (which can and should be fulfilled) or to understand the undesirability of fulfilling the desires (illegal, unethical and immoral) and/or the futility of pursuing desires which are beyond one's reach, will quickly restore the health, since the unhappiness, which was causing the derangement in health has been removed.

Purely physical causes which cause temporaray dislocation in one's health are generally, easy to correct. For example, a sprained ligament may give discomfort for some time and restrict one's activities but once it is repaired, the person can lead a normal life. But, psychological aspects of one's ill-health, especially in chronic cases, are difficult to correct, since it is difficult to remain optimistic in the face of chronic ill-health. It is also difficult to understand and accept the role of the psychological factors that are contributing to one's physical ill health. For example, poor relationship, dwelling too much on the past wrongs (of oneself or others) and chronic anger etc. cause many physical symptoms, which are confused with disease. However, with proper understanding, and with Divine Grace (Grace of God and Guru), it is possible to change one's outlook on various aspects of life and thus to achieve a better state of health. Even coping with some chronic physical health problems becomes easy when one realises that disease or ill-health has a clear and definite role to play in one's learning process, called life.

Anything can cause ill-health. And anything can cure the ill-health. Acupressure, Acupuncture, Aromatherapy, Ayurveda, Bach Flower Essences, Chiropractic, Color Therapy, Crystal Healing, EFT, Feng Shui, Herbal Remedies, Homeopathy, Magnetotherapy, Naturopathy, Pranic Healing, Reflexology, Reiki, Unani, Yoga ... are some of the alternative health systems that complement the modern medical system, also called Allopathy. Some of the systems are also called holistic health systems. Let us understand the differences between alternative, complementary and holistic systems.

As the name suggests, holistic health involves an integrated approach to all aspects of health, spiritual, mental and physical. "Treat the patient and not the disease" is the basic approach in this system. Since spirit expresses itself through the mind (esp. the emotions, desires, aversions etc.), holistic healing involves an integrated approach to the mind-body connection. On the other hand, some of the health sytems mentioned above may deal only with the emotional, psychological aspects, without taking into account the physical symptoms. Bach Flower Remedies and EFT are examples of such totally mental-emotional healing systems. They may not be holistic in the strict sense of the term, but since it is now understood that 90% of the health problems are psychosomatic in nature, any health system that tries to restore the emotional health (since it is the emotions that affect the mind, the intellect normally not being affected), can be considered holistic. Some systems may complement the allopathic system and some may supplement the system. Thus a holistic health professional may use one or all of them or work with other professionals so that the patient is restored to a state of good health at the earliest. Integrated Medicine, where teams of doctors and healers from various systems work together is the latest to use this approach.

This intrduction and the subsequent articles in this are not meant to make you a professional healer (some simple systems like Bach Flower Remedies, Tissue Remedies, EFT and Reiki are easy to learn and practice but local laws may prevent you from taking up healing as a profession), but are meant to be educational and may help you and your friends, relatives etc. to understand the various risks and benefits of using different healing systems and thus make a better informed decision. Since the holistic aspects of health including the preventive aspects, alternative practices, non-medicinal energy-based systems for healing etc. are proposed to be discussed in a series of articles, the same may be of interest to one and all.

Modern medicine (also called ALLOPATHY) has its rightful place too and especially the modern diagnostic procedures, the surgical intervention and reconstruction are definitely not to be ignored. However, when only the medicinal aspects are required to be used, the gross side-effects of most of modern drugs make us look for better alternatives. Alternative systems like what I mentioned above come into the picture in such situations. Psychosomatic complaints (that means disorders of the physical body caused by disorders of the mind - most of the disease conditions!) are better treated using non-medicinal Energy Systems like Acupuncture, Acupressure, EFT, Quantum Touch Healing, REIKI etc., or with Holistic Systems like Ayurveda, Flower Essences, Homeopathy, Tissue Remedies, etc. Some of these systems like Quantum Touch, Reiki are also useful when modern medical treatment is being employed.

One statutory warning: No advice, except that given by a qualified and registered health professional, is to be taken as a prescription. And it is up to you, to act on any advice and the consequences of that action are solely your responsibility. The person who has given the advice can not accept any legal responsibility for the consequences of following the advice. This is common sense, but bears repetition.

About myself: Though I am a metallurgist by education and have no formal medical training, I studied HOMEOPATHY, SCHUSSLER'S TISSUE REMEDIES, BACH FLOWER REMEDIES, became a REIKI healer, a Crystal healer and of late found that SPIRITUAL HEALING is the most powerful. Pl. see www.freewebs.com/svswamy for my profile.

Note: This and the series of articles proposed are offered as a FREE public service by me. A slightly edited version of this article was published at

http://living.oneindia.in/health/wellbeing/holistic-health.html

with some photos and a few hyperlinked advertisements. This blog is created to hold all such articles at one place so that you can periodically visit the blog to see all the articles. You are free to share these articles with your friends and relatives etc. with the same caveat that neither you nor I are responsible legally and morally for the consequences of following the advice given here. Sai Ram.