Benefits of Holistic Medicine

Many proponents of holistic medicine and health care practices feel that the benefits of holistic medicine are better than other forms of medicine for many different reasons. One of these is that holistic medicine can work in conjunction with more conventional forms of medicine while also using alternative approaches for patients to work towards attaining their optimal health. 

Holistic medicine is based on the science and art of healing that addresses the patient as a whole person made up of their body, mind and spirit. While holistic medicine is often used to seek cures for health problems and disease, it does not just focus on the symptoms of a physical problem. It will also address other aspects of the patient’s physical, mental and spiritual health. 

Holistic medicine integrates conventional and alternative therapies to promote optimal health while preventing and treating disease and other health problems. Holistic medicine seeks to balance the body and looks for underlying causes of health problems that may not necessarily seem like they would be connected, such as a person’s stress level, sleep habits, amount of physical activity, their diet, interpersonal relationships, and/or lifestyle factors.

Holistic medicine views prevention as preferable to problems that need to be treated. And while this is not the focus of holistic health and medicine, an added benefit of this is that in the long run, prevention often costs less money than fixing a new problem. As well, holistic health care tries to evoke a patient’s own innate healing capabilities where illness and disease are considered a manifestation of a dysfunction of the integrated systems that make up a person as a whole, not just as an isolated event. 

A holistic healthcare practitioner will typically spend a longer period of time with their patients than many conventional doctors do. They do this to learn about their patients as whole people, in order to treat them as a whole, rather than isolate their symptoms and complaints as independent of one another. A holistic doctor is likely to get to know about a patient’s home life, their work, their lifestyle, their relationships with friends, family and romantic partners, amount of physical activity, diet, sleep habits, and about the other doctors and healthcare practices they are involved with.

Holistic healthcare providers try to help patients have more positive emotional and mental health by evoking the healing power of love, hope, humor and enthusiasm, and to release toxic feelings of shame, greed, hostility, anger, grief, fear, and others that may be impacting the patient’s overall health.

Attaining optimal health is the primary goal of holistic medicine and health care. Optimal health is much more than the absence of illness or disease. Optimal, holistic health is the conscious pursuit of the highest qualities of the emotional, environmental, mental, social and spiritual aspects of the human experience. 

Be informed about holistic medicine and health care with Coastal Natural Health.