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The Holistic Mystic: |
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What is Holistic Health? |
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by Lonny Brown, Ph.D. |
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The holistic approach to health takes into account a person's body, mind, emotions, and spiritual life. It addresses not only symptoms, but the entire person, and his or her current life predicament, including family, job, and religious life. It views the person as an active participant in the healing process, rather than simply a passive recipient of "health care."
The holistic approach also takes a broad view of illness and disease, identifying multiple causes (both internal and external), and offering multi-dimensional "healing," as opposed to specific "cures." It is as concerned with one's propensity towards illness as it is with its transmission.
Holistic health goes beyond merely fighting disease. It also emphasizes prevention, high-level wellness, optimum performance, and longevity.
For 80% of our modern health complaints - the lifestyle, stress, and behavioral disorders - natural, holistic self-care methods are a viable alternative to drug-dependence, side effects, and expensive, hi-tech intervention. The fundamental premise is that your body knows how to be well, given the proper support.
What methods does it use?
Holistic Health combines the best of modern scientific diagnosis and monitoring techniques with both ancient and innovative therapeutic measures. The holistic approach requires that modalities be effective and safe, but unlike conventional medicine, it does not require that we understand the mechanism of action before applying it. Holistic methods may include natural diet and herbal and mineral remedies, cleansing regimes, nutritional supplements, homeopathic remedies, acupuncture, exercise, yoga, body work, relaxation, psycho-spiritual counseling, meditation, breathing exercises, and other self-regulatory practices.
If holistic health is so great, why doesn't my doctor use it?
More medical schools than ever are including alternatives in their curricula, but we're only at the beginning of this paradigm shift, and even the most progressive physicians cannot take the time necessary to address the whole person and lifestyle. Instead, they may recommend their patients to practitioners of "complementary," or "integrative" therapies. One well-known model of the modern holistic MD is Dr. Andrew Weill.
What is stress management and where can I get some?
We live in a time of unprecedented complexity and accelerated change, and this upheaval threatens our health. Hence the necessity of intentionally counteracting stress with pro-active self-care strategies such as effective communications, prioritizing and re-valuing, emotional and attitudinal healing, and mind/body relaxation techniques. These skills can be acquired in classes that are now widely available, as well as from books and tapes. The essential key to successful stress reduction is regular practice.
What is Mind/Body Healing?
This is the category of approaches that rely on the two-way connection between our physical and psychological natures. Typical examples include biofeedback, visualization, affirmations, yoga, breathing exercises, and meditation. The new science of psycho-neuro-immunology, studies the intimate dynamic relationship between our thoughts, feelings, and blood factors. In other words, positive mind states can enhance immunity, and therefor help treat a variety of biological problems, ranging from the common cold to AIDS and cancer.
What is biofeedback and how does it work?
Biofeedback training uses sensitive electronic instruments to track subtle bodily changes and amplify them audibly (with a tone) or visually (on a meter or screen), enabling the subject to sense metabolic activities that are normally below the threshold of conscious awareness. These include heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature, brain wave activity, fine muscle action, breath rate, glandular secretions, and even blood composition. Today, state-of-the-art technology enables us to detect and "feed back" virtually any of the thousands of organic changes happening constantly within us, rendering them subject to intentional influence. Even the firing of single muscle or nerve cells can be monitored and controlled.
A typical example of biofeedback technology is the Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) monitor. It consists of a battery-powered box that supplies and measures current, and two electrodes, which are placed on the fingers. The tone emitted by the instrument rises or falls depending on the dilating of the minute sweat glands that blanket the surface of your skin and regulate your body temperature. When you get nervous or relaxed, your skin moisture changes, imperceptibly, but enough to amplify and convert to a variable tone. The GSR device is similar to a lie detector, except it is used to teach you control over your reactions.
Such learned control can be effective for relieving headaches, reducing high blood pressure and muscle tension, and countering digestive and sleep disorders.
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Lonny Brown,
Ph.D.
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Lonny J. Brown, Ph.D. is the author of "Enlightenment In Our Time" and "Self-Actuated Healing" (Amazon.com), and editor of ENLIGHTENMENT ONLINE - The Newsletter for Spiritual Cyberspace.
His writings on holistic health have appeared on AOL's Alternative Medicine Forum and in Alternative Health Practitioner, Yoga Journal, and many other progressive publications.
Dr. Brown teaches meditation, mind/body healing, and stress reduction courses at hospitals, schools and businesses throughout the US.
holistic.com/lonny
lonny@holistic.com
lonnybrown@aol.com
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