There’s often a lot of polarised debate between advocates of modern medicine and those who prefer so-called alternative healing methods and therapies. But there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t use both in a complementary way to help ensure that you stay healthier. 

Here’s a brief look at five alternative healing methods…

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese alternative therapy with a wide range of applications. Many people swear by its effectiveness, from pain relief to stopping smoking.

It involves the painless insertion of extremely thin needles at specific points along meridian lines on the body. These points are related to the body’s energy flow. The theory is that ailments can be relieved by manipulating this energy flow. There are over 400 energy points all over the body, and each one relates to specific physical conditions. 

Many medical establishments use acupuncture these days, and the World Health Organisation supports its use for certain disorders, like fibromyalgia, headaches and back pain.

Hypnosis

Therapeutic hypnosis is not as mysterious as it’s often made out to be. It’s also not a creepy way of putting someone to sleep and getting them to do all kinds of embarrassing or weird things that they won’t remember later.

You’re not unconscious when under hypnosis, so you’re clearly aware of what is going on and what you are doing. You also have excellent recall of what you have experienced.

Hypnosis is simply a method of putting the conscious mind into a state of deep relaxation, in order to deliberately activate and communicate with the more powerful unconscious mind. By using this power, a mental influence can be harnessed to influence something physical. Hypnosis is most often used in pain management (e.g. with amputees) and stress relief.

Yoga

Yoga is not only an excellent way of staying fit and flexible, but it can also be used as an alternative healing therapy.

It helps to improve blood circulation, thus relieving a variety of conditions. Research has shown that yoga can reduce stress, help to keep high blood pressure under control, mitigate against depression and reduce the symptoms of diabetes and asthma.

Herbal remedies

While there’s a lot of controversy surrounding the effectiveness of homeopathy, herbal remedies are a different matter. Rather than relying on the ‘memory’ of a substance in water, herbal remedies actually contain the actual ingredients that go to work on the various ailments that they are used to help relieve.

There are hundreds of applications for herbal remedies – from valerian root helping with insomnia, to garlic providing antibiotic benefits.

However, herbal remedies can have side-effects (and some can even be toxic), so make sure to check with your doctor rather than just trying them out yourself.

Meditation

Meditation is, in essence, learning how to relax or silence the mind through deep breathing techniques. Many thousands of practitioners testify to the benefits they have experienced in their own lives. 

There are plenty of different types of meditation, most of them involving very deep relaxation and repetitious focus of the mind. There now appears to be increased evidence that meditation can help to alleviate ailments like pain, high blood pressure, insomnia, anxiety and asthma.