Complementary and Alternative Medicine gained credence in the last 2 decades or so as many a times the mainstream healing of Allopathy,  failed in ailments beyond the understanding and comprehension of doctors and scientists. Also, the failure and side affect of many medicines has gradually made people shift to sciences which were prevalent in ancient times and were the source of robust health and overall wellness.

Current lifestyles, life challenges, and growing stress have pushed people to seek help from our ancient healing sciences for relief from the sickness of various origins.

Traditional alternative medicine

This field includes the more mainstream and accepted forms of therapy, such as acupuncture, homeopathy, and Oriental practices. These therapies have been practiced for centuries worldwide. Traditional alternative medicine may include:

• Acupuncture/Acupuncture

In Acupressure practice as against acupuncture where needles are involved, practitioners use their hands, elbows, or feet to apply pressure to specific points along the body’s “meridians.” According to the theory behind acupressure, meridians are channels that carry life energy (qi or ch’i) throughout the body. The reasoning holds that illness can occur when one of these meridians is blocked or out of balance; acupressure is thought to relieve blockages so energy can flow freely again, restoring wellness. Acupressure might decrease nausea for chemotherapy patients and reduce anxiety in people scheduled to have surgery

• Ayurveda  medicine

The science of Ayurveda originated in India and has been around for thousands of years. Practitioners use a variety of techniques, including herbs, massage, and specialized diets, with the intent of balancing the body, mind, and spirit to promote overall wellness.

• Homeopathy

Homeopathy functions in much the same way as a vaccine: It’s based on the principle of treating like with like,” meaning a substance that causes adverse reactions when taken in large doses can be used—in small amounts—to treat those same symptoms.  Homeopaths gather extensive background information on patients before prescribing a highly diluted substance, usually in liquid or tablet form, to jumpstart the body’s natural systems of healing. 

• Naturopathy/Home medicine

Naturopathic medicine is premised on the healing power of nature. Naturopathic doctors are trained in both conventional and alternative medicines, and seek to understand the cause of a condition by exploring its mental, physical, and spiritual manifestations in a given patient. Naturopathy typically involves a variety of treatment techniques including nutrition, behavioral changes, herbal medicine.

• Chinese or Oriental medicine

Oriental medicine has been practiced for more than 2,500 years and includes acupuncture, herbal medicine, moxibustion, Oriental massage and Oriental nutrition. It is a system of medicine that categorizes body patterns into specific types of diagnoses with corresponding treatment plans. Over 15 million Americans have turned to it, making it the complementary treatment of choice for Americans everywhere.

Hands to Body Healing

Touch has been used in medicine since the early days of health care. Healing by touch is based on the idea that illness or injury in one area of the body can affect all parts of the body. If with manual manipulation, the other parts can be brought back to optimum health, the body can fully focus on healing at the site of injury or illness. Body techniques are often combined with those of the mind. Examples of body therapies include:

• Chiropractic and osteopathic medicine 

The practice focuses on disorders of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems, including pain in the back, neck, joints, arms, legs, and head. The most common procedure performed by chiropractors is “spinal manipulation” (aka an “adjustment”), which involves applying controlled force (typically the chiropractor’s hands) to joints that have become “hypomobile.” The idea is that joints’ movements become restricted when surrounding tissues are injured either during a single event (tweaking a muscle during a weight-lifting session) or through repetitive stress (sitting with poor posture for extended periods). Chiropractic adjustments of the affected area are intended to restore mobility and loosen the muscles, allowing the tissues to heal and the pain to resolve.

• Massage/Spa

Massage has been practiced for thousands of years. Today, if you need or want a massage, you can choose from among 80 massage therapy styles with a wide variety of pressures, movements, and techniques. These all involve pressing, rubbing, or manipulating muscles and other soft tissues with hands and fingers. Sometimes, even forearms, elbows, or feet are used.

• Tai-chi

Tai chi is often described as “meditation in motion,” but it might well be called “medication in motion.” There is growing evidence that this mind-body practice, which originated in China as a martial art, has value in treating or preventing many health problems. This gentle form of exercise can help maintain strength, flexibility, and balance, and could be the perfect activity for the rest of your life.

• Yoga

Yoga therapy is a type of therapy that uses yoga postures, breathing exercises, meditation, and guided imagery to improve mental and physical health. The holistic focus of yoga therapy encourages the integration of mind, body, and spirit.

Nutrition, Diet and herbs Medicine

Early man was a gatherer and hunter. Over the centuries, man has gone from a simple diet consisting of meats, fruits, vegetables, and grains, to a diet that often consists of foods rich in fats, oils, and complex carbohydrates. Nutritional excess and deficiency have become problems in today’s society, both leading to certain chronic diseases. Many dietary and herbal approaches attempt to balance the body’s nutritional well-being. Dietary and herbal approaches may include:

• Dietary supplements
• Herbal medicine
• Nutrition/diet

BioEnergy/Chakra/Aura Healing

A parallel science of energy healing exists which focuses on a science that energies from external sources or objects directly affect a person’s overall wellness. An example of external energy therapy is:

• Electromagnetic therapy

Electricity and magnetic energy exist in the human body. It controls the heartbeat, stimulates muscles, and more. Each molecule in the human body actually contains a small amount of magnetic energy. Electromagnetic therapy is based on the belief that an imbalance of the electromagnetic frequencies or fields of energy can cause illness. Electromagnetic therapy is applied to the body to correct these imbalances

• Reiki

Reiki is a spiritual, vibrational healing practice used to promote balance throughout the human system. Reiki does not involve physical manipulation or the ingestion or application of any substances but works with the subtle vibrational field thought to surround and penetrate the body. (Reiki is commonly translated from the Japanese as universal life energy.)

• Pranic Healing

Pranic Healing is a highly evolved and tested system of energy medicine developed by GrandMaster Choa Kok Sui that utilizes prana to balance, harmonize and transform the body’s energy processes. Prana is a Sanskrit word that means life-force. This invisible bio-energy or vital energy keeps the body alive and maintains a state of good health.

• Bio-energetic healing

Bioenergetic Analysis helps to release chronic muscular tensions, manage effects, expand the capacity for intimacy, heal sexual difficulties and learn new, more fulfilling ways of relating to others. Tenderness, aggression, assertion – and their confluence in sexuality – are seen as core lifesaving forces. The therapeutic relationship provides a place of safety in which healing begins.

The therapist reads the body, resonates with its energy, feels the emotions, listens, hears and answers the words. The language of the body (posture/gesture, breathing, motility, expression) is on focus as it indicates the status on the way to person-hood – from the past to the present and future. Techniques are used which address the energetic aspect of the individual, including her self-perception, self-expression, and self-possession. These also include work with body contact, boundaries, grounding, and the understanding of muscular tensions as indications of somatic and psychological defenses against past trauma. The goal of therapy is more than the absence of symptoms – it is having aliveness, getting a taste of pleasure, joy, love – vibrant health.

• Esoteric healing

The word esoteric is derived from the Greek term esoterikos, meaning ‘within.’ Over time, it has come to mean ‘veiled’ or ‘hidden from sight.’ It aptly describes the subtle energy system of a human being: the dynamic expression of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies. When any of these energies become blocked or unbalanced, we find ourselves at odds with our natural state of wellness. When these ‘unseen’ subtle fields are vital and in harmony, the underlying causes of illness can be treated and/or prevented

• Music and sound therapy

Sound helps to facilitate shifts in our brainwave state by using entertainment. Entertainment synchronizes our fluctuating brainwaves by providing a stable frequency which the brainwave can attune to. By using rhythm and frequency, we can entrain our brainwaves and it then becomes possible to down-shift our normal beta state (normal waking consciousness) to alpha (relaxed consciousness), and even reach theta (meditative state) and delta (sleep; where internal healing can occur).

• Qigong

Qigong is an ancient Chinese health care system that integrates physical postures, breathing techniques and focused intention. The word Qigong (Chi Kung) is made up of two Chinese words. Qi is pronounced Chee and is usually translated to mean the life force or vital energy that flows through all things in the universe.

The second word, Gong, pronounced gung, means accomplishment, or skill that is cultivated through steady practice. Together, Qigong (Chi Kung) means cultivating energy, it is a system practiced for health maintenance, healing, and increasing vitality

Mindfulness Therapy

Even standard or conventional medicine recognizes the power of the connection between mind and body. Studies have found that people heal better if they have good emotional and mental health. Therapies using the mind may include:

• Meditation

Meditation is a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

• Autosuggestion

Autosuggestions are positive words and sentences used repeatedly to change your perception. It is a self-development method used to create new, positive beliefs about yourself as well as an effective method for ending bad habits. Autosuggestion works by placing ideas into your subconscious and making it believe they are true

• Biofeedback

Biofeedback therapy involves training patients to control physiological processes such as muscle tension, blood pressure, or heart rate.

These processes usually occur involuntarily, however, patients who receive help from a biofeedback therapist can learn how to completely manipulate them at will

• Hypnosis

Hypnosis usually involves the person experiencing a sense of deep relaxation with their attention narrowed down and focused on appropriate suggestions made by the therapist.

Hypnosis is thought to work by altering our state of consciousness in such a way that the analytical left-hand side of the brain is turned off, while the non-analytical right-hand side is made more alert.  The conscious control of the mind is inhibited, and the subconscious mind awaken.  Since the subconscious mind is a deeper-seated, more instinctive force than the conscious mind, this is the part which has to change the patient’s behavior and physical state to alter.

Senses

Some people believe the senses, touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste, can affect overall health. Examples of therapies incorporating the senses include:

• Art, dance, and music

• Visualization and guided imagery

Guided Imagery is a technique used to induce relaxation and decrease stress and anxiety. The recordings below will allow you to visualize yourself in a peaceful scene. As you become absorbed in the scene you will deepen your state of relaxation.

Distance Healing

A healing that is practiced when the recipient is not physically present is known as distant healing and this works in a similar way to being in the presence of the healer. Distance Healing allows the recipient to benefit from the healing process even if they are unable to be present due to distance or illness.

How does Distance Healing work?

Healers have recognized for centuries what modern astrophysicists and quantum scientists have only recently become aware of: The world as we know it is an illusion. We are all made of energy, vibrating at different pitches, designating different manifestations of life. For those people who are able to intuitively work with energy, or to learn the processes involved, healing is a matter of transferring and balancing that energy.

Working not the physical form, but with pure energy means that the healer can operate outside of the normal limitations of time and space. This allows the healer to send therapy to a person or energy pattern that is physically distant from them, or not even in the world that we know. Healing energy is often termed “sub-atomic” and/or “cosmic”, but what this means essentially is that any manifestation of life energy, including the seemingly inanimate, such as rocks and plant life, through to concepts and situations that we have invested our energy into, can all benefit from healing therapy.

Who and what can Distance Healing be used for?

Yourself

If you are unwell, or if you simply wish to maintain health, or to encourage a period of positive transformation in your life, then distance healing is a relevant therapy for you.

Friends, Family and loved ones

If you wish to designate a recipient for healing, then it is a simple matter of you letting us know who that person is.  Healers will always transmit the explicit understanding that energy will only be transferred if it is to the highest good of the recipient.

Animals and plants

Animals have fewer barriers to communication on an energetic level, as their instinct and sensitivity are honed to maximize survival. This makes animals very receptive to energy transference, and they will often show subtle signs that they are aware of the treatment, such as becoming placid or sleepy.

About the Author

Dr. Amitabh Singh is the founder of AadyantaLife and  Bio-Energetic & Crystal Healer and Wellness Coach. He provides Alternative and Complementary Healing therapies to difficult ailments including Cancer. He specializes in Mindfulness Meditation Coaching for Corporate and Business Leaders. His thought-provoking Enlightening Lectures.