It's week 2 in our series on achieving holistic health, and this week, we're talking about holistic healing with the use of natural remedies.
Does anyone else find it strange that that we supposedly need drugs that were created in a lab to keep us "healthy"? How is this possible? Most of these substances are completely foreign to our bodies, so how are they essential for good health?
They aren't. In fact, some estimates say that adverse prescription drug reactions may be the 4th leading cause of death in the U.S. - and that's just for drugs that were prescribed and used according to directions! (When you add in overdose and opioid abuse, the number is much, much higher.)
For centuries, humans relied on plants to keep us healthy - and we didn't always make such a great distinction between "food" and "medicine." Certainly there were doctors and healers who used tinctures and other preparations of herbal plant medicines, but there was also tribal knowledge about certain plants to eat when we were afflicted by certain illnesses or other health issues. We evolved with a symbiotic relationship to plants, and this factor is sadly lacking in today's modern world.
Remember that health is not a simple yes or no question. All health exists on a spectrum. Feeding your body natural, healthy foods is the first step to true health, as we discussed last week. Many forms of illness and disease stem from poor nutrition - feeding the body things that do not support it, and denying it the foods that do support it.
However, holistic healing is about more than just herbal remedies or eating certain plants; it is also about taking a look at the whole being in a holistic way, rather than just trying to "cure" a certain symptom. Below we will take a look at what holistic healing means, and how it can help you to live a healthier life on all levels.
Does anyone else find it strange that that we supposedly need drugs that were created in a lab to keep us "healthy"? How is this possible? Most of these substances are completely foreign to our bodies, so how are they essential for good health?
They aren't. In fact, some estimates say that adverse prescription drug reactions may be the 4th leading cause of death in the U.S. - and that's just for drugs that were prescribed and used according to directions! (When you add in overdose and opioid abuse, the number is much, much higher.)
For centuries, humans relied on plants to keep us healthy - and we didn't always make such a great distinction between "food" and "medicine." Certainly there were doctors and healers who used tinctures and other preparations of herbal plant medicines, but there was also tribal knowledge about certain plants to eat when we were afflicted by certain illnesses or other health issues. We evolved with a symbiotic relationship to plants, and this factor is sadly lacking in today's modern world.
Remember that health is not a simple yes or no question. All health exists on a spectrum. Feeding your body natural, healthy foods is the first step to true health, as we discussed last week. Many forms of illness and disease stem from poor nutrition - feeding the body things that do not support it, and denying it the foods that do support it.
However, holistic healing is about more than just herbal remedies or eating certain plants; it is also about taking a look at the whole being in a holistic way, rather than just trying to "cure" a certain symptom. Below we will take a look at what holistic healing means, and how it can help you to live a healthier life on all levels.
Plant-Based Remedies
Hundreds of plants produce thousands of compounds that have healing properties for the human body. According to this article at Digital Sages, "Plants produce potent pain relievers, bowel cleansers, blood thinners and clotters, anti-bacterial and anti-septic substances, and even ways of fighting of the signs of aging and cellular decay."
Humans have used these natural chemical compounds in plants as what we call "herbal remedies" for literally thousands of years. While in today's world, many of them have been replaced by synthetic lab-created versions, the root of all medicine was originally in plants.
Plants, including leaves, stems, roots, fruits, and flowers can all contain various healing compounds made up of vitamins, antioxidants, and other phytonutrients that offer powerful healing properties.
We can take advantage of these healing compounds sometimes just by eating the plant as food (for example, blueberries, which are extremely high in healthy antioxidants), or by extracting the essence of the plant through various methods and using it in a tea, tincture, salve, or other delivery method.
If you are interested in holistic health, taking a deeper look at natural, plant-based remedies is a fascinating and rewarding subject of study. I highly recommend you check out this excellent course on plant based medicine from The Grow Network if you are interested in exploring this topic and learning to make your own home medicines.
However, another aspect of holistic health relates not to the cure for disease, but to the cause.
Holistic Healing
The greatest flaw in modern medicine, in my opinion, is its failure to consider the body as a holistic system.
The allopathic model of medicine is based on "curing" symptoms, without necessarily considering what caused the symptoms in the first place. Each bodily organ and part is considered separately from the rest, as though the body were a machine with separate parts that "wear out" on their own, rather than a living organism which works together as a whole - in which every part has some relationship with every other part in some way.
If you look at the body this way, it is easy to see why you would only focus on curing a particular symptom. If you were replacing a part on your car, for example, you wouldn't necessarily look at all the other parts and worry about whether you needed to fix those as well. You would just replace the broken part and move on. Unless it was abundantly clear that some other part was causing the problem, there would be no need to look further.
However, the human body is not a machine. It is a living system. Even an ecosystem, in some ways. Every part of your body has a symbiotic relationship with all the other parts. You can't just look at one part when there is a problem. You must consider all the other related parts, how they impact the problem, and how the problem may in turn, impact them.
Even herbal remedies can be misused if we expect that they will simply "fix the part" and "cure" whatever ails us. Medicines (of any kind) only work if they support the body in performing a process that it already performs naturally to keep us healthy.
Holistic healing means considering the body as a whole, analyzing the problem to determine the cause, and then supporting the body with appropriate nutrients and "medicines" that will help it to repair itself, restore balance, and correct the underlying issue. Rather than "curing" a disease, holistic healing is more about helping your body heal itself naturally. While this may not result in symptoms "magically" vanishing almost instantly, as can happen with prescription drugs that are designed to only treat a symptom, over time, you will experience true and lasting health as your overall health improves to a higher point on the health spectrum.
We'll be back soon with the next step to achieving holistic health, but in the meantime, stay tuned next week as we start off April with our monthly giveaway - you'll love this one if you care about your health! :-)
Rose.
P.S. For more on how we can move our current "sick care" model towards a more holistic healthcare system, see this post.
Hundreds of plants produce thousands of compounds that have healing properties for the human body. According to this article at Digital Sages, "Plants produce potent pain relievers, bowel cleansers, blood thinners and clotters, anti-bacterial and anti-septic substances, and even ways of fighting of the signs of aging and cellular decay."
Humans have used these natural chemical compounds in plants as what we call "herbal remedies" for literally thousands of years. While in today's world, many of them have been replaced by synthetic lab-created versions, the root of all medicine was originally in plants.
Plants, including leaves, stems, roots, fruits, and flowers can all contain various healing compounds made up of vitamins, antioxidants, and other phytonutrients that offer powerful healing properties.
We can take advantage of these healing compounds sometimes just by eating the plant as food (for example, blueberries, which are extremely high in healthy antioxidants), or by extracting the essence of the plant through various methods and using it in a tea, tincture, salve, or other delivery method.
If you are interested in holistic health, taking a deeper look at natural, plant-based remedies is a fascinating and rewarding subject of study. I highly recommend you check out this excellent course on plant based medicine from The Grow Network if you are interested in exploring this topic and learning to make your own home medicines.
However, another aspect of holistic health relates not to the cure for disease, but to the cause.
Holistic Healing
The greatest flaw in modern medicine, in my opinion, is its failure to consider the body as a holistic system.
The allopathic model of medicine is based on "curing" symptoms, without necessarily considering what caused the symptoms in the first place. Each bodily organ and part is considered separately from the rest, as though the body were a machine with separate parts that "wear out" on their own, rather than a living organism which works together as a whole - in which every part has some relationship with every other part in some way.
If you look at the body this way, it is easy to see why you would only focus on curing a particular symptom. If you were replacing a part on your car, for example, you wouldn't necessarily look at all the other parts and worry about whether you needed to fix those as well. You would just replace the broken part and move on. Unless it was abundantly clear that some other part was causing the problem, there would be no need to look further.
However, the human body is not a machine. It is a living system. Even an ecosystem, in some ways. Every part of your body has a symbiotic relationship with all the other parts. You can't just look at one part when there is a problem. You must consider all the other related parts, how they impact the problem, and how the problem may in turn, impact them.
Even herbal remedies can be misused if we expect that they will simply "fix the part" and "cure" whatever ails us. Medicines (of any kind) only work if they support the body in performing a process that it already performs naturally to keep us healthy.
Holistic healing means considering the body as a whole, analyzing the problem to determine the cause, and then supporting the body with appropriate nutrients and "medicines" that will help it to repair itself, restore balance, and correct the underlying issue. Rather than "curing" a disease, holistic healing is more about helping your body heal itself naturally. While this may not result in symptoms "magically" vanishing almost instantly, as can happen with prescription drugs that are designed to only treat a symptom, over time, you will experience true and lasting health as your overall health improves to a higher point on the health spectrum.
We'll be back soon with the next step to achieving holistic health, but in the meantime, stay tuned next week as we start off April with our monthly giveaway - you'll love this one if you care about your health! :-)
Rose.
P.S. For more on how we can move our current "sick care" model towards a more holistic healthcare system, see this post.
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