The difference between alternative medicine and holistic health is

The former is "a choice of intervention methods parallel to the mainstream medical path." The core is "what method to use to solve the problem."”； The latter is a "cognitive framework covering all dimensions of health needs", and its core is to "treat people as a complete system rather than a collection of symptoms." Simply put, you can think of alternative medicine as a special type of hammer and wrench in your tool box, while holistic health is the way you think about not just tightening the screws, but also whether the whole machine will run smoothly for a long time when you fix something.

Speaking of which, I have been working in a health management studio for almost 5 years, and I have encountered too many people who confuse the two, and I have fallen into many traps.

Xiao Xia, a 32-year-old Internet operator who came here last month, suffered from chronic urticaria for three years. He took antihistamines for two years, which initially helped, but later on he still got a red rash every day and was so itchy that he couldn't sleep. She first found a master from a moxibustion parlor on the street, who did bloodletting and moxibustion on her stomach three times a week. After two months of trouble, the rash came and went, and she spent less than 10,000 yuan. What do you think she used? It is a typical alternative therapy idea - her goal from beginning to end is to "eliminate the rash", which is exactly the same as her previous goal of taking western medicine. She just feels that western medicine is useless, so she uses a non-traditional method to "replace" the effect of western medicine.

Later, she came to us for adjustments through a friend's introduction, but we didn't even look at the rash first. First, I checked her food records for half a month. She found out that she was lactose intolerant and still had a cup of iced milk tea every day. She worked overtime until 2 o'clock every day and didn't go to bed until 2 o'clock. The adjustment plan did not prescribe any special prescription for "curing urticaria". She was asked to replace the iced milk tea with warm oat milk, try to go to bed before 1 o'clock every day, add a windshield at her work station, walk briskly for 30 minutes two days a week after get off work at night, and drink three-flower tea that soothes the liver every day. It only lasted half a month. When she came for follow-up consultation, she said that the rash only broke out twice this week, the itching was much lighter, and even the migraines she had suffered all year round were gone. This is the idea of ​​​​whole health: Our goal has never been to "cure urticaria", but to get her entire body's imbalance back on track. The rash is just a by-product of the natural disappearance after the condition returns.

The quarrel between these two people on the Internet has never stopped, and the views of both parties are quite extreme. One group is die-hard fans of alternative therapies. They think that as long as they are natural and passed down by ancestors, they are better than Western medicine. They even open their mouths and say "holistic health is alternative therapies that do not use Western medicine." This is obviously a confusion of concepts. ； The other group is a strict supporter of evidence-based medical treatment. They believe that all alternative therapies are IQ taxes, and even overall health is a pseudo-concept created by businessmen. It is actually unnecessary to beat them all to death with a stick.

To be honest, the relationship between the two is not necessarily either-or, and they may even overlap in many cases. Take the moxibustion I just mentioned for example. If you are breaking out in a cold sweat due to menstrual cramps and don’t want to take ibuprofen, and find a regular physical therapist to perform moxibustion on Sanyinjiao for half an hour to relieve the pain, then this is using moxibustion as an alternative therapy, and there is nothing wrong with it. ； But if you know that you have yang deficiency all year round, cold hands and feet, ache, and diarrhea easily, moxibustion is just an auxiliary means for you to adjust your work and rest, not eat ice, and exercise more, with the purpose of slowly warming up your entire body. Then moxibustion is just a small tool in your overall health management plan.

Two years ago, I met an aunt in her 60s who had high blood pressure and had been taking antihypertensive drugs for five or six years. She posted a short video saying that celery juice could lower blood pressure, so she stopped taking the medicine. She drank three large cups of raw celery juice every day. After drinking it for a week, she became dizzy and couldn't stand. When she was sent to the emergency room, her blood pressure soared to 180, and she almost had an accident. This is the easiest pitfall for many people to confuse the two: if alternative therapies are divorced from the framework of overall health, they are essentially another kind of "headache doctor", which is even more risky than mainstream medical headache doctors. After all, many alternative therapies have not undergone large-scale clinical verification and are blindly used to replace formal medical intervention, which can easily lead to problems.

Of course, there are now more and more integrative medicine doctors, who have already clearly defined the boundary between the two. I have talked with a rehabilitation doctor in a tertiary hospital before. He often prescribes moxibustion and Baduanjin to post-operative patients, but he never allows patients to use these as a substitute for antibiotics or conventional rehabilitation training. He only uses these as supplementary means to adjust the patient's overall condition and accelerate recovery. On the contrary, the patient's recovery speed is much faster than that of patients who only use conventional programs.

To put it bluntly, there is really no need for you to worry about which one is better and which one is worse. Just figure out your own needs. If you just want to find a way to relieve the current headache and fever, and temporarily replace painkillers and fever reducers, it is no problem to choose reliable and proven alternative treatments. ； But if you want to prevent yourself from getting sick and stay energetic all year round, you must first establish an awareness of overall health. As for what method you use, whether it is mainstream medical treatment or alternative therapy, it is just a tool to serve your entire physical condition. There is nothing black and white. Oh, by the way, one last thing to mention. For serious cases, you must go to a regular hospital first. Don’t blindly resort to alternative therapies. This is the bottom line.