Many people are resorting to many different types of alternative medicine today, as conventional medications are getting more complicated and also display more side effects. Lets explore some of these alternative types of medicine for your benefit.
With the advent of the Internet, the world has opened up a plethora of alternative types of medicine that have been in existence for many years, but simply never had the means to reach us. There are millions of people around the world today who opt for healing their diseases and curing their illnesses using these. The primary method of treatment of these medicines and therapies is to reinvigorate the body and aid it in warding off the diseases and illnesses using its own defense mechanisms.
The modern drugs and medications that are available to us today are an external source of combating these diseases, and in some cases display some very unpleasant and adverse side effects. More and more people are getting increasingly unsatisfied with the effects of these medications and are finding themselves unable to deal with these side effects. This has made the need for types of alternative medicine much more profound and intense.
Classification
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Types (NCCAM) has helped people around the country by classifying these various forms of complementary and alternative medicine types into 5 broad categories. These categories make it simpler for a layman to understand these medicine types and to decide which one is most suitable for them. To have a standardized and generalized classification helps as far as this area is concerned, these 5 categories of types of alternative medicine are listed and explained below.
Alternative Medical Systems
Alternative medical systems are therapies and practices that have been around for many centuries, especially in Eastern countries. The amount of time that these therapies have been present simply means that they are complete bodies of practice. There is a lot known about them, and they are widely and popularly followed by many people around the world. The effects of these therapies are clear, and so are the methods, hence there is absolutely no ambiguity as far as these alternative types of medicine are concerned. Here are the commonly used alternative medical systems in place.
- Homeopathy
- Ayurveda
- Acupuncture
- Naturopathy
- Traditional Chinese Medicine
- Tibetan Medicine
- Native American Medicine
Energy Therapies
These methods of treatment and therapy commonly employ the use of energy fields in the healing process, and it is further divided into 2 parts – ‘Biofield Therapies’ and ‘Bioelectromagnetic-based Therapies’. Bioelectromagnetic-based therapies utilize electromagnetic fields in order to heal the body. Biofield therapies, on the other hand, claim that the energy forces present inside the body can be stimulated and manipulated to heal the human body. Some examples of this form of medicine are Reiki, Therapeutic touch and Qi Gong.
Biologically Based Therapies
This form of therapy normally involves the use of things that are found in nature, that benefit the body and boost its resistance and defense. These items could be various kinds of herbs, various dietary supplements, and many other products that are naturally found but have not been scientifically proven to aid the body. This is one of the types of alternative medicine that require the intake of some form of medications or supplements into the body.
Mind-Body Interventions
This form of therapy focuses on using the power of the mind and sending signals from the brain to the body that heal the body. Controlling the mind is the key to making a successful recovery from all illnesses according to these doctrines, and there are various ways to achieve this. These alternative types of medicine use the mind’s ability to enhance the power of the human body to heal itself naturally. The various types of mind-body interventions are as follows.
- Music therapy
- Dance therapy
- Prayer therapy
- Humor therapy
- Yoga
- Meditation
- Hypnotherapy
- Art therapy
Manipulative and Body-based Methods
These forms of therapy involve stimulating various body parts externally in order to enhance recovery, and aid in the healing. By the external pressure on certain body parts they tend to cure themselves at a quicker rate. The 2 most popular types of manipulative and body-based methods are massage therapy, and chiropractic manipulation.
Different kinds of injuries and ailments are treatable by different types of alternative medicine. It’s the nature of the predicament that would decide which treatment option would be the best, and would enable the quickest recovery process. All these types of alternative medicine have their own set of followers who vouch for them, so to say that one technique is better than the others would be an unfair statement. With the right state of mind, and the right belief, any of these types of alternative medicine would work out.
