What are Alternative Treatments?
Alternative Treatments are products, practices, and therapies that are not part of modern medicine. Alternative treatments are also referred to as alternative therapy, alternative health, and natural medicine.
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) has created five categories of alternative medicine: whole medical systems (theories and practices that are a thousand years old), biologically based practices (herbs, nutrition, vitamins), manipulative body-based practices (such as chiropractic & osteopathy), energy medicine (like reiki and magnet therapy), and mind-body medicine (meditation, art, & music therapy).
It is how medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and therapists treat symptoms and diseases with drugs, surgery, or radiation. It is also referred to as western, traditional, conventional, or mainstream medicine.
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) has created five categories of alternative medicine: whole medical systems (theories and practices that are a thousand years old), biologically based practices (herbs, nutrition, vitamins), manipulative body-based practices (such as chiropractic & osteopathy), energy medicine (like reiki and magnet therapy), and mind-body medicine (meditation, art, & music therapy).
1. Treating the Cause Instead of the Symptoms
Alternative Treatments will treat the cause and Modern Medicine will treat the symptoms instead. Alternative Treatments often take longer for people to receive relief from their pain, but they are focused on treating someone’s health long-term instead of offering a short term solution.
2. Less Side Effects
In the situations where Modern Medicine actually treats a problem it has often caused other problems. Just by listening to commercials for medications they mention a myriad of side effects that sometimes include death. Alternative Treatments usually have no side effects or very minor side effects as opposed to frequent or severe side effects with Modern Medicine. With the use of herbal medicine conditions are treated using the body’s natural healing process. These herbal ingredients consist of things that are regularly produced in everyone’s body.
3. Alternative Medicine Focuses on Wellness
Alternative medicine focuses on wellness, the concept of making healthy decisions for one’s overall health both mentally and physically to prevent future illnesses from happening. Natural medicine is known to improve the body’s ability to ward off diseases especially with a focus on wellness and continuous treatments. The root causes of most diseases are usually stress, lack of physical activity, processed food intake, compromised mind/body, and exposure to environmental toxins in food, products, and the air.
4. Treatments for the Body, Mind, and Spirit
A lot of alternative medicine focuses on healing not only the body, but also the mind and the spirit. Treatments for reducing stress and improving mental health may include meditation, yoga, massage therapy, visual imagery, and biofeedback. Diet and nutrition can help with not only physical health, but also mental health. Eating the wrong foods can cause brain fog and eating the right foods creates a sharper mind.
5. Alternative Treatments can be very Cost Effective
Many herbal medicine, supplements, and natural remedies can be purchased without having to visit the doctor.
Allegedly everything from common colds to chronic conditions such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease have been successfully treated with just Alternative Treatments.
Alternative medicine has just been perpetrated to be unreliable, backwards, and inferior by the popularity of Modern Medicine in Western society. However, reports and substantial data prove that the exact opposite is true. There is documented scientific evidence for alternative medicine.
Not all Alternative Treatments are created equal. Alternative Treatments have been shown to have less side effects. However, it works the same way as Modern Medicine. There are good doctors and bad doctors. There are treatment centers that have shown great results and some that are less than ideal. In addition, no one person's body functions the same.
When choosing an Alternative Treatment, it's a matter of doing some homework, looking at reviews, understanding how various treatments work, and making the best decision for you based on your situation.