The Difference Between Alternative Medicine and Holistic Health

Alternative therapies are Specific interventions used as alternatives to routine evidence-based care , belongs to the tool category； And overall health is A health cognitive framework that treats people as a completely unified whole with physical, psychological and social attributes, rather than a collection of single lesions, covering all life dimensions , belongs to the category of underlying ideas. The essence of the difference between the two is "tools" and "guiding ideas", which are completely different.

I met a 32-year-old Internet marketing manager at a health science salon last year. She had been suffering from migraines for almost three years. An MRI showed no organic disease. The neurology department prescribed preventive regulating drugs and on-demand analgesics. She was afraid of becoming dependent, so she stopped all the drugs. She went to do singing bowls three times a week, moxibustion twice a week, and drank customized herbal tea every day. She told me that she was practicing "holistic health."

I didn't dare to point it out directly at the time. In fact, she was essentially replacing conventional medical treatment with alternative therapies, which had nothing to do with overall health. She didn't even realize that 90% of her migraines were due to the big promotion cycle. She stayed up late, drank 3 cups of coffee a day to stay awake, and had to fight wits with her child who had just started elementary school when she came home. None of these core triggers were touched. She only relied on external intervention methods. No matter how many treatments were used, she still had to take ibuprofen to relieve the pain.

Regarding the boundary between the two, there is actually more consensus in different fields than you might think.

As for mainstream evidence-based medicine, the Mayo Clinic issued a clear definition as early as 2019: Only when a certain treatment is used to completely replace a standard medical plan that has been proven to be effective, can it be called an "alternative therapy" - for example, patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes stop hypoglycemic drugs and only rely on bitter melon to control blood sugar. This is a typical alternative therapy and is extremely risky. On the contrary, the concept of "holistic health" has long been included in the scope of routine medical care. Now, the departments of psychosomatic medicine and clinical nutrition in domestic tertiary hospitals will consider the impact of work and rest, emotions, and social relationships on patients when making plans for patients. They will not just focus on blood sugar indicators when prescribing medicines. This in itself is the application of the overall health idea.

As for natural medicine practitioners, I know a friend who holds an American ND license (Naturopathic Physician). He said that the word "alternative therapy" is rarely mentioned in the industry now, and they prefer to call it "complementary therapy." Only those wild methods that ask patients to stop all conventional medicines at the beginning will talk about alternative therapies. When he treats patients with allergic rhinitis, he doesn't just prescribe quercetin or plant nasal sprays. He first goes through the details of his life for half a month: Have you changed to a new perfume recently? Has the company just been renovated? Have you stayed up late for a week straight to catch up on a project? Is your cat shedding more hair than before? The final plan may include short-term nasal rinsing with saline, supplementing with specific probiotics, and adjusting work and rest. Occasionally, patients may be advised to try moxibustion on the Yingxiang point. "But this is only a small part of the plan. I would never say that moxibustion alone can cure rhinitis. That would be making fun of the patient's health." He said that this is the core of overall health: you are dealing with a complete person, not an inflamed nasal cavity.

To use an inappropriate analogy, you want to renovate an old house that you have lived in for ten years to make it more comfortable. Overall health is the general direction you set at the beginning: it must have good lighting, sufficient storage space, be suitable for the elderly and children, and the materials must be environmentally friendly. You cannot just focus on whether it is beautiful or not practical. As for alternative therapy, for the sake of environmental protection, you give up ordinary industrial paint and insist on using glutinous rice paint handmade by master craftsmen. If the walls of your house have been affected by moisture and peeled off, and the water pipes in the wall have rusted through, and you do not repair the water pipes or shovel the wall skin, but only paint the glutinous rice paint on, then the house will leak or leak, and it will be damp or damp. You can't say "I used environmentally friendly paint to do an overall decoration," right?

Nowadays, many people confuse the two. To put it bluntly, they are either not aware enough or have been brainwashed by the marketing of the merchants.

I often come across the "holistic health management course" while watching short videos. I click on it and take a look. The whole course only teaches you how to use essential oils for massage and how to make health tea. It doesn't even mention the most basic dietary structure adjustment and sleep monitoring. This is essentially packaging alternative therapies as a holistic health sales course, and charging a cognitive tax. There are also those who advocate that "holistic health is anti-Western medicine", which is even more ridiculous - last year I saw the news about a mother who had breast cancer. Instead of undergoing surgery and chemotherapy, she did so-called "energy healing" and drank "alkaline water" every day, claiming that this was a holistic and natural treatment. In the end, she did not go to the hospital until the late stage, and she even lost the chance of surgery. Would you say this is a pot for overall health? Not at all. This is treating alternative therapy as a golden rule, and even the most basic health common sense has been lost.

I suffered from severe chronic gastritis in the past two years. I took prazole drugs for almost three months and developed acid reflux as soon as I stopped taking them. Later, I went to Xiehe Union Medical College to get an appointment with the clinical nutrition department. The doctor gave me a very complex plan: in addition to adjusting the dosage and frequency of medication, I was also required to chew each mouthful of food 20 times and not eat after 8 p.m. , briskly walk for 20 minutes at least three times a week, and write a 5-minute emotional diary when I am stressed. At the end, I also mentioned that if I can accept moxibustion, I can occasionally moxibustion the Zhongwan point, "But this is the icing on the cake. If you don't think it's troublesome, it doesn't matter. If you do the previous things, it's better than anything else."

You see, this is a typical way of regulating the body using a holistic health approach. Moxibustion is just an optional supplementary tool here. I did not stop taking the medicine prescribed by the doctor, so it is not considered an alternative therapy at all. I have been following this plan for almost half a year. Now I occasionally eat hot pot and drink iced coffee and rarely experience acid reflux. The effect is much better than before when I only took medicine.

In fact, there is really no need to oppose these two concepts, and there is no need to be too specific about the words. For us ordinary people, it is enough to remember two principles: no matter what treatment is used, do not stop the medicine prescribed by the doctor casually, and do not give up the conventional treatment that has been proven to be effective. This will avoid the pitfalls of alternative treatments. ； Regardless of whether you are treating chronic diseases or maintaining daily health, don’t just focus on a certain symptom or a certain tool. Think more about how you have been doing your work and rest recently, whether you are in a good mood, and whether you are stressed. This will already touch the edge of your overall health.

After all, there is no standard answer when it comes to health. The one that suits you is the best.