The Difference Between Alternative Medicine and Holistic Health

Alternative therapies are A collection of specific interventions designed to replace conventional mainstream medical treatments, a "toolkit of options"” ； And overall health is The underlying logic of health management, which treats people as a unified system of body, mind, society and spirit, rather than a combination of separated organs/diseases, is the "thinking framework" for making choices.” , the two do not belong to the same category from the source of definition.

Last week, I met a girl in 1998 in a nutritional consulting studio. She said that she believed in "holistic health". She refused to take antipyretics when she had a cold of 38.5 degrees Celsius. She only drank warm water with essential oils added, and also did energy tapping regularly. She said, "Western medicine has side effects, and overall health means using natural methods to deal with it." You see, this is the most typical conceptual confusion - what she talks about is overall health, but what she actually practices is that alternative medicine is the only solution.

Let’s talk about alternative therapy itself first. Its scope is actually very broad, ranging from traditional Chinese medicine acupuncture, herbal decoctions, and Ayurveda oil therapy that have been inherited for thousands of years, to crystal healing, audio frequency cleaning, and flower essence therapy that have become popular in recent years. They are all included in this category. The current controversy in the industry has not stopped: the view of the mainstream evidence-based medicine school is very clear. Only some methods that have been clinically verified in large samples, such as acupuncture to relieve postoperative nausea and vomiting, and mindfulness meditation to reduce the frequency of anxiety attacks, can be used as a supplement to conventional medical treatment. If basic examinations such as blood routine and CT are completely skipped and so-called "natural therapies" are directly used to treat serious emergencies such as bacterial infections and malignant tumors, there is a high probability that the disease will be delayed. However, the groups that support alternative therapies also have their own basis: for many chronic metabolic diseases and mood-related physical and mental diseases, conventional medical treatment can only control the symptoms but cannot get to the root cause. Instead, alternative therapies can make adjustments based on the individual's living habits and emotional state, which can have unexpected effects. Both views are supported by actual cases, and it is difficult to say who is absolutely correct.

Speaking of this, you may ask, many people who do overall health also recommend acupuncture, herbal medicine, etc., aren’t these alternative therapies? Not really. Unlike the linear approach of alternative medicine, which is “replace plan A with plan B,” holistic health is not fundamentally about which plan you choose. For example, if we are also adjusting high blood pressure, if we follow the idea of ​​alternative therapy, it may be "don't use antihypertensive drugs, drink celery juice + meditate instead"” ； But according to the logic of overall health, the first thing to dismantle is the trigger of your high blood pressure: Have you stayed up late for three consecutive months to catch up on projects and been stressed out? Is there a long-term conflict at home that makes you suffocate every day? Is your daily diet high in salt and do you like to drink cold beer? Have you not exercised much for half a year? They may even ask if the community you live in is close to an elevated highway and the noise is so noisy every day that it makes it difficult to sleep. The final plan given will not be to "use a certain method instead of taking medicine", but to take the medicine as prescribed by the doctor, adjust your work and rest, do stress management, replace the bacon for dinner with fresh vegetables, and walk briskly for half an hour three days a week. It is a multi-dimensional adjustment. The purpose is to bring your entire body system back to a balanced state, rather than just focusing on the "blood pressure" indicator.

Of course, overall health is not without its shortcomings. Many evidence-based practitioners complain that it is "too mysterious". There are no quantitative standards for many evaluation dimensions, and it can easily be packaged as a gimmick by unscrupulous merchants to collect IQ taxes. For example, the so-called "holistic natural therapy" that has been exposed before advocates "can cure cancer without taking medicine". In essence, it is a stolen concept, using overall health as a fig leaf for alternative therapies, and harvesting the money of patients who are suffering from acute illness and seek medical treatment indiscriminately.

I have been doing health management for 7 years, and I have seen too many people who confuse the two and get into trouble. There was a 42-year-old type 2 diabetic patient who initially went to extremes and completely stopped taking anti-diabetic drugs. He only relied on imported health products and meditation to control his blood sugar. In less than three months, his glycated hemoglobin reached 8.7, and he almost developed ketoacidosis. Later, when he came to us for adjustments, we never asked him to completely stop taking western medicine, nor did we ask him to use any folk remedies. We just followed the doctor's instructions and helped him to take medicine on time. At the same time, we helped him adjust his diet, replaced the white wine he drank every day with light tea, walked briskly with him three times a week, and also did several emotional counseling sessions - he used to be under great pressure from business, quarreled with his family every day, and overeated when he got emotional. After more than three months of adjustment, his glycosylated hemoglobin dropped to 6.1, and the dosage of antidiabetic drugs was also reduced by half. Do you think there is any alternative therapy involved? In fact, there are. We occasionally recommend that he do 10 minutes of mindful breathing when his blood sugar fluctuates or he has a headache. We also recommend that he go to a regular traditional Chinese medicine hospital for moxibustion to improve the problem of cold hands and feet. However, these are supplementary methods and are never used to replace anti-diabetic drugs. The core logic is to adjust his life and emotional state as a whole.

In fact, to put it bluntly, whether it is alternative therapies or overall health, essentially everyone wants to take more initiative in their own health. Just be clear: tools are tools. Don’t regard a certain alternative therapy as a bible that can cure all diseases, let alone regard overall health as an excuse to refuse conventional medical treatment. There is never a standard answer when it comes to health. Your own physical feelings are always the most accurate yardstick.