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Benefits of Alternative and Complementary Therapies
- officialjustmed
- Jun 26, 2023
- 3 min read
Have you ever tried acupuncture or aromatherapy? These are examples of complementary therapies that can be beneficial for your body. Oftentimes, alternative and complementary therapies can give you some good benefits, however they still cannot replace traditional medicine. Let’s take a deep dive into these therapies and see what benefits they can bring to our body!
What is alternative and complementary therapy?
Alternative and complementary therapy are similar in concept and they often get confused. Complementary therapy is a treatment that can be used alongside your conventional medicine treatments. Patients use complementary therapy to help them feel better and improve their quality of life. Additionally, if patients are experiencing side effects from certain diseases, these therapies can help them cope with them. In contrast, alternative therapies are used in place of conventional medicines or treatments. Oftentimes, conventional and alternative therapies are joined together in one acronym, CAMs.
Examples and benefits of alternative and complementary therapy
Many people use complementary therapy in hopes of maintaining good health, wanting to take charge of their own health and medical problems, or other reasons. Some examples of complementary therapy include acupuncture, aromatherapy, herbal medicine, meditation, and pilates and yoga. This therapy is also used among cancer patients as it can reduce side effects, improve recovery, and improve physical and emotional well being.
Some examples of alternative therapy share the same with those of complementary therapy. However, additional examples for alternative therapy include massages, hypnotherapy, reiki, and more. As for their benefits, they are relatively similar to that of complementary therapy.
In both therapies, numerous benefits can be brought. For instance, they can often calm your emotions, relieve anxiety, and improve your overall well being. They can also make you feel more in control, reduce symptoms, boost your immune system and stay positive. CAM therapies, as stated before, include both conventional and alternative therapies. Other examples of CAM could be related to touch. An injury or illness in one part of the body can affect the entire body. Using this idea, the goal is to heal other parts of the body first and bring those parts back to good health, so the body can focus on healing the part of the body where the injury or illness is located. Some of the treatments include massages, body movement therapies, chiropractic and osteopathic therapies, and yoga. In order to maintain good health, another part of CAM is using herbs and diet to treat people. Over the course of time people have gone from simple diets to complex diets which consist of more fat and carbohydrates, which is why in present time a lot of people have dietary problems and even develop chronic illnesses due to the food they eat. An example of this can be herbal medicine used in ayurveda, which can keep your health balanced alongside having a good diet. Another type of CAM therapy is related to the idea about external energy, in which people believe that external energies can directly affect a person’s health. Some therapies include electromagnetic therapy, reiki, and qigong. The relationship between body and mind is very important because bad mental health can affect your physical health and vise-versa. In order to keep this relationship at balance it’s best to do therapies that balance your mental health. Some of these therapies include mediation, biofeedback, and hypnosis.
Risks of alternative and complementary therapies
Should you give these therapies a try? Why of course! But, it is important to understand the risks of these therapies. Firstly, there is no proven evidence for the benefits given above so it is still undetermined whether these therapies actually work. Additionally, some patients also received some serious side effects and allergic reactions from some of these therapies, leading to more harm than good. There are many more risks on using these therapies and it is best to do some research before you try one.
Overall, alternative and complementary therapies are a unique way to treat certain symptoms and conditions in the medical field. Maybe try acupuncture or aromatherapy one day and let us know how it feels!
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