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What is Holistic Medicine?
 

‘Whosoever shall eat or drink more or less than he should, or shall sleep more or less, or shall labour more or less from idleness or hardship - without doubt will not escape sickness’

Hippocrates
 
  
Are you familiar with the term 'Holistic' but are still not wholly sure how it is going to help you?

The term ‘holistic’ comes from the word ‘holos’ meaning ‘whole’.

Holistic medicine takes a comprehensive view of the patient from the beginning and recognises that mind, body and spirit are all parts of one living being. It aims at a harmonious balance among all of these aspects and not only with the removal of disease symptoms.

This concept addresses not just the symptom or the disease a person has, but the whole of the patient’s nature. Such concepts are ancient and have never really died out.  Herbalists, Naturopaths and others have continued these traditions.
 
Being an Holistic Practitioner means taking account of a variety of factors when understanding a person’s health or disease.

For example:

 

Holistic Medicine is based on a very simple principle: any system that is in harmony tends towards health, wellbeing, and sustainability. A system that is in disharmony tends towards illness, disease, suffering, and collapse. Everything is interconnected and interdependent. If all of the parts of a system are in harmony with one another, then the whole system is in harmony. Disturb one thing and you create a disturbance that ripples through the whole system. This principle applies to any and all systems. For example, it applies as equally to a human being as it does to a family, community, or the environment. So we must take care to consider our actions and to take things as a whole.
 

The Vital Force or Qi: 

The nature of the Vital Force is to flow in a free and balanced way. This energises every cell and tissue and the flow of blood, hormone, lymph and nerve energy.  If this flow becomes congested blocked, excessive or deficient in any one place, the stage becomes set for dis-ease to occur.

Keeping the Vital Force flowing in a free and open state is to keep in good health. So what is Health?