The body and mind have a huge natural ability to heal themselves when they become disordered. A range of different medical systems that are sometimes called complementary and sometimes called alternative medicines have in common an attempt to maximise this self-healing potential. We all know of cases where serious illnesses need to be tackled with strong drugs or surgery, but this is in fact the minority of healthcare needs of most people, whose illnesses are often chronic and gradual in onset. If in the early stages of these chronic illnesses the body’s full healing potential can be stimulated we often find patients’ health can be restored.

If you can imagine the balance of factors affecting the body made of three main components – firstly, those things we put into our body (and mind) adversely affect us, whether they are wrong foods, chemicals or poisons. Secondly, we have the strengths and weaknesses that we are born with and thirdly, we have our ability to clear ourselves out and restore health. The analogy of a barrel floating in water is a good one, when the barrel sinks it is often a threshold event but before that it may have been filling up for some time. It is influenced by the equivalent genetic factors on how leaky the barrel is; it is obviously influenced by how quickly it is filled up by water or whatever, but the third area in all living organisms is that there is someone in the barrel able to bail it out. Some natural remedies, which we would call the vitality therapies like acupuncture and homeopathy, work on maximising the ability of the individual to bail the barrel out to throw off the illness. Others, such as nutritional therapy, and others based on lifestyle advice, aim to minimise the rate at which you fill it up.

At The Natural Practice we believe that different complementary and alternative medicines can be blended together to maximise the potential benefit in individual patients. In our future articles we will look at a range of different conditions and how they can be treated with complementary therapy.

Our qualified practitioners offer the following treatments at The Natural Practice; Medical Homeopathy, Osteopathy & Cranial Osteopathy, Chinese Herbs & Acupuncture, Nutritional Therapy, Hypnotherapy, Western Herbal Medicine, Massage Therapy and Counselling.

Our Natural Pharmacy offers herbal remedies, tinctures, vitamins and minerals to complement your treatment as well as a range of products for your general health requirements www.thenaturalpharmacy.com