Holistic health refers to the term used to define a set of healing practices that focus on taking care of the whole integrated being—mind, body, and soul. While holistic healing falls outside the traditional pharmaceutical treatments, it has been used for ages in different cultures. From massage therapies to healing with crystals or herbs, several potential healing principles can help you achieve holistic health.
In this article, we’ll discuss the top ten principles of holistic health:
Crystal Healing
Crystal healing is an alternate therapy that uses the possible energetic power of crystals or stones to heal your mind, body, and soul. As crystals take millions of years to form by continually repeating their chemical structures, they purportedly hold healing energies.
Crystal healing is based on the belief that we’re all made of energy, and that when the flow of energy in your body is blocked or imbalanced, it can lead to disease. However, with the help of crystals, you may be able to unblock energy and direct it to where it’s needed most to support holistic healing.
There are several types of crystals used for healing. The potential effect of the crystal depends on the kinds of minerals it’s made from and the condition in which it is formed. The type of crystals used and their positioning depends on the imbalance that needs to be corrected. While clear quartz is ideal for improving clarity and improving your energetic balance, rose quartz is known as the love stone and helps encourage self-love.
Some of the popular crystals include amethyst, that aid intuition and meditation, citrine, which is popularly known as the stone of success and increases personal power, and lepidolite, which is considered as a stone of transition. This post explains more about the healing properties of lepidolite.
Ayurveda
Ayurveda is an ancient healing practice from India. The term Ayurveda means ‘science of life.’ Ayurveda stemmed from the Vedic culture and was taught through oral tradition by masters to their disciples.
The critical principle of Ayurveda is prevention—after all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It focuses on the maintenance of health by creating a holistic balance in your life. Ayurveda identifies three basic functional principles, or doshas, that constitute everyone and everything.
The three doshas are vata, pitta, and kapha: vata is considered the energy for movement; pitta, the energy for digestion; and kapha, the energy for lubrication and structure. Everyone has all three of these qualities, but typically one functional principle is predominant. Deficiency or imbalance of the doshas can lead to improper functioning of the body at the cellular level, thus leading to an increase in toxins and disease.
According to Ayurvedic medicine, the body, mind, and soul work together to maintain balance and good health. Thus, to keep your body, mind, and soul, it’s essential to maintain a balance of the three doshas.
Thus, Ayurveda helps you create a balance of the body, mind, and consciousness according to your constitution. Based on your unique constitution, you can make lifestyle and dietary changes to bring about healing and maintain good health.
Traditional Chinese Medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine uses mind and body practices like tai chi, acupressure, and Chinese herbal medicines to treat diseases. Traditional Chinese medicinal treatment is based on diagnosing the imbalance in the body.
Traditional Chinese medicine is based on the principle that all organs mutually support each other. Thus, for the body to be healthy, all your body’s organs must be in balance. Therefore, it’s essential to harmonize your yin and yang, or the complementary energies that affect all life, to achieve this balance.
Another concept found in traditional Chinese medicine is that of vital energy, or qi. It’s believed that qi is the vital force that runs throughout the body, and when it’s blocked, weakened, or in excess, physical health problems occur. Thus, restoring qi’s flow is essential to create a balance between yin and yang, thereby achieving holistic well-being.
Reiki
Reiki is an alternative holistic healing therapy that’s also known as energy healing. Energy healing has been used for centuries, and it involves working with the universal energy or the energy fields around the body. During a reiki session, the practitioner transfers healing energy from their palms to the patient.
Reiki is thought to be effective in reducing pain and healing emotional states. Reiki practitioners believe that physical and emotional pain can lead to blocked energy in the body. This manifests as illness or disease. Reiki is said to aid the natural healing process of the body and help develop a sense of emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being.
Yoga
Yoga is a mind and body practice that originated in India and is rooted in ancient Vedic philosophy. There are several yoga styles, but most of them combine physical postures, breathing techniques, and relaxation techniques. Yoga has become popular due to its ability to help you control your mind and body and enhance your overall well-being.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is the foremost treatise on yoga and explains how one can control their mind, emotions and grow spiritually by practicing yoga. While yogic postures today are often used to achieve physical fitness, it wasn’t considered the sages’ primary goal. Yoga was regarded as a means to attain physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being to move towards their goal of self-realization.
Meditation
Meditation is an ancient practice that has been used by sages for centuries to achieve mental clarity and a peaceful mind. While meditating, you may use mindfulness techniques or focus on a particular object, thought, or activity to improve attention and increase your sense of awareness.
Meditation has been practiced in several religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism as a means to attain self-realization. Though meditation has spiritual roots, its applications have been useful in non-spiritual contexts like health and business. To aid your meditation, consider using intention bands, stones or incense sticks, which you can find at vendors like tinyrituals.co.
Meditation can help you significantly reduce stress, depression, and anxiety. It is known to calm the mind and enables you to enhance your self-concept and your overall well-being.
Aromatherapy
Aromatherapy uses natural plant extracts to promote health and well-being. This piractice uses aromatic essential oils to treat your body, mind, and soul. Aromatherapy works through the sense of smell and the absorption of essential oils through the skin.
Aromatherapy is believed to manage pain, improving sleep quality, treat headaches and migraines, fight bacteria, improve digestion, and boost your immune system.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is a holistic healing practice found in traditional Chinese medicine that is primarily used to relieve pain and sometimes even treat certain health conditions. According to traditional Chinese medicine, there are several energy pathways in the body, and when energy blocks occur in these pathways, it can lead to disease.
Acupuncture is thought to release the flow of the body’s vital energy by stimulating these energy pathways. In acupuncture, thin needles are placed at specific points on the body to help release stagnated energy. Acupuncture is said to be useful for back pains, acute headaches, fibromyalgia, and arthritis pain.
Massage Therapy
Massage therapy is a holistic healing practice that clears the lymphatic system and releases toxins from the body. Massage therapy helps your body boost its natural recovery process.
Massage therapies like deep tissue massage are effective for pain relief and help ease tight areas like a stiff neck or a sore back. If you’re looking for a relaxing massage, consider Swedish massage. Swedish massage helps improve circulation and reduce muscular tension, thereby enhancing a sense of physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
Bach Flower Remedy
Bach flower remedy is an alternative therapy that’s used to heal emotional problems and pain. Bach flower medicine is made from the extract of wildflowers with alleged healing properties.
Edward Bach created the Bach Flower Remedies in the early 1900s. Bach believed that healing the emotions can lead to physical healing, and as such Bach’s flower remedies don’t work on physical symptoms but instead on feelings.
Bach flower remedy consists of 38 remedies, and each remedy addresses a specific negative emotion. These emotions are grouped into seven broad categories: uncertainty, fear, loneliness, sadness, and despair, cares for others at their own expense, lack of interest, oversensitivity.
To use Bach flower remedy, choose a flower based on the root of your emotional issue. Bach remedies come in liquids in dropper bottles. Therefore, you can drop the remedy on your tongue or mix it in water and drink.
Bach therapy purportedly relieves emotional trauma and pain, anxiety, depression, and emotional distress.
Conclusion
Holistic health has been around for centuries and is widespread across many cultures today. Most holistic healing practices are based on the belief that, to treat ailments, all the aspects of the being should be considered. Thus, instead of focusing just on physical symptoms, holistic healing takes into account your mental and spiritual being as well.
As holistic health practices aim to heal the mind, body, and spirit, they’re are ideal for treating health conditions without causing any side effects. However, be sure to consult with your primary physician to make these practices fit well with your existing regimen, especially if you take any medications and are interested in consuming any herbal remedies that may interact with your medication.
