Inflammation in Holistic Eyes

There is a great gap between Allopathic and Holistic approaches to inflammation. Since most of us grew up with conventional medicine, it seems important to open your eyes to the Natural view-point so you can choose your approach in such a common situation.

Conventional definition:
 "Inflammation is an immune reaction to wounds, certain irritations and toxic invaders such as viruses, bacteria or fungi."

The holistic definition is somewhat different. Inflammation is a process initiated by the body to serve its needs. Indeed sometimes an inflammation can lose control and risk our lives but in most cases it doesn't.
 The idea in treating inflammation holistically is to monitor it and make sure it is not life-threatening but by no means to supress it or stop it before it reaches its goal.

If it is a short or one-time non-violent inflammation like a light eye sore, usually easing the symptoms can suffice. The problem begins when it is more severe, long-lasting or recurrent. In such cases we deal with a situation which requires deep inquiry and treatment in order to help the body finish its task and break the inflammatory cycle.

In order to understand how we do this in Natural Medicine, here is some useful information regarding inflammation, from a Naturopathic perspective:

1. Usually inflammation flourishes in acidic tissue environment. Not the extreme acidity like in the stomach while digesting protein, but rather a slight change in acidity in the body tissues.
2. The body uses several materials in order to limit the activity of the inflammation it creates. Among these are vitamin C, vitamin A and zinc. Lack in one or more of them can make it hard for the body to complete the job and/or to heal the tissues afterwards.
3. In inflammation, like in all life processes in life, the engine behind the body's work is our life force. If we are vital enough, these processes work better, and if we are tired and worn, body systems don't function that well. According to Naturopathic approach, the difference between an acute disease (short, powerful and efficient) and a chronic disease (longer lasting, less effective and often doesn't end without help) is due to the person's vitality. One who is not vital enough to end the inflammation will stay with it until vitality is restored.

From these three points come a few simple and very helpful recommendations:

1. Increase plant-source foods (preferably organic since most of the pesticides are very acidic) and decrease animal foods. Veganism or vegetarianism is not always required for healing but it can definitely help ease and shorten suffering from long or severe inflammations.
2. Stress management can help a lot in improving the body's abilities and thus shortens inflammation processes accordingly.
3. Natural dietary supplements, adjusted by a professional naturopath or holistic nutritionist according to personal needs, are highly recommended.
4. Sufficient rest is highly vital for our health, so get enough sleep (around 8 hours a night, preferably starting at 10pm or no later than 11pm), and do not test your body's limits by spending too much energy over a long period of time.

Holistic therapy during crisis – on the mind plane

What tools does the holistic school of medicine have for treating mind based crisis?

As a society we are used to thinking of mind based crisis as a job for psychologists and psychiatrists. The familiar arsenal of tools are talks and drugs. What does Natural Medicine have to offer for these situations? What tools can compete with the familiar models? This will be the subject of this article.

Let’s begin with the common ground:

• Psychologists are not the only ones that can use Talks as a therapeutic tool. As a Naturopath part of my daily routine is to have long talks with some of my patients. Many of the “body-mind” practices within the Holistic school scope of therapy are talk based or start with a talk and then use the information for therapies of various kinds. We use talks to train patients in tools that can help them such as stress management (Always useful and twice so in periods of crsis), positive thinking, talks as a destressor and much more. I still find that many patients are surprised when we start talking and they realize this is part of holistic medicine too… It is high time the general public got to know the larger holistic perspective and scope of naturopathy and the other holistic modalities..
• Using drugs is a way to force the brain to “function better” on the mental and emotional planes of the mind. Suppression of anger, the blurring of sadness and depression and the nullification of our awareness to our anxieties. The equivalent tools of Natural Medicine chooses a very different approach. The closest holistic tool is Herbology. There are uplifting herbs, relaxers, stimulators etc. All allow the patient to function better without mind games and illusions (Such as feeling relaxed but underneath the surface bubbling with suppressed stress). One of the greatest advantages of herbs is a unique quality I have yet to find in other tools: Adaptogenic. Adaptogenic herbs help us to better adapt to stressful situations – especially such as one encounters during crisis. The holistic perspective makes use of herbs during crisis in a plethora of other ways: Healing anemia, blood sugar imbalances, general stress reduction, sleep disturbances etc. All these other aspects make coping with a crisis much harder and once healed allow for an easier coping with the crisis itself. This is an example of how important the holistic perspective that approaches the patient as a whole is in crisis management.

Other tools that Natural Medicine has to offer in this case:

• Manual therapies: Holistic massage, Reflexology, Chinese massage, Shiatsu, Thai massage – all these and more in professional hands have the ability to change a lot on the physical and mental planes. You can adapt to the needs of the patient (Fully clothed / oil based / feet only and dry or with cream for the last. Combining Aromatic oils can amplify the effects of the Massage or Reflexology and add the qualities of the oils we choose – relaxing / uplifting / stimulating etc.
• Aromatic oils: Even without the Manual therapies, using oils in a bath or burner or a drop on ones shirt will add a wonderfully scented effect.
• Bach Flowers: This fascinating tool in known for its ability to help alter patterns of human behavior. Most of its focus is on the emotional plane and it allows the patient better emotional coping with the crisis.
• Jin Shin Do: This is a gentle Manual tool that allows emotional and mental work through subtle physical manipulations of 30 of the 365 basic Chinese Acupuncture points. The release this tool enables is a treasure for the person in crisis.
• Chinese Acupuncture: It is common knowledge by now that Needling can assist in anemia, tonification, breaking stagnations and sedation etc. It is less known that Acupuncture can work directly on the emotional plane! There are points that assist in fear, anger and the other emotions directly.
• Meditation: Whether Zen (For the sake of quieting the mind) or Mindfulness (For expanding self-awareness) meditation is an important tool in the understanding of and better coping with a crisis.
• Healing: Balancing the appropriate chakras can do a lot for balancing out mind based crisis situations. Cleaning the aura can remove some of the mental and emotional baggage in a very gentle and effective way. Crystal healing can also be very effective and useful here and can be carried around at all times.
• Art therapy: Using arts / music / dance as therapy can be a wonderful bridge between the mind and the emotions. It has been around and in use since the beginning of human culture. Very important in times of crisis.

This wide array of tools is just the tip of the iceberg and is meant to stress the fact that “yes there are good tools out there in the Holistic field quite useful in times of crisis.

The challenges still facing us in this field are:

1. Raising social awareness to these tools and their value.
2. Integrating the various tools of Natural Medicine.
3. Integrating Natural and Conventional Medicine – or at least to stop the silent battle…
4. Developing protocols for situations yet untested or resolved.

My intention in this series of articles is to address the above challenges and widen public awareness comes first.