In a short answer, no. In a long answer, yes. Here are now the details of this seemingly contradictory predicament when answering the question, “Is alternative medicine effective?”
By Itself, No
If all you want to rely on to get well and stay well is alternative medicines and therapies, save your time and your money. It is no magic pill. It requires you to make decisions and change habits of a lifetime. You can’t just rub a crystal of sniff aromatherapy oil or go to a hypnotist and let them cure you. Sorry, mate, it doesn’t work like that. So, for someone who wants someone else to all the work of getting healthy and staying that way, then the answer for “Is alternative medicine effective?” For you, it’s no.
In Combination, Yes
So, when is alternative medicine effective, then? IF you use it in combination with lifestyle changes, diet changes, changes in how you handle stress, changes in your environment and changes in attitude. And please don’t give up on conventional medicine entirely. Alternative medicine is not meant to be a complete substitute for every medical issue you will ever have.
No matter what branch of the alternative medicine tree you visit, you will be asked to make a major look at all of your life. You will have to look at your medical history. You will have to look at the kinds of people you hang out with. You will have to look at what drugs (illegal or legal) you take. You will have to diet and exercise. All of this intense soul searching is looking at everything that can contribute to making you ill.
You are not just a body. You are also a mind, a soul and a bundle of emotions. You are also connected in the wide web of everyone and everything around you. Your stress, your job, your mate, your friends, your pets, your neighbors all contribute or take away from your health.
Is alternative medicine effective? Yes, but only when you want it to be. No herb or aromatherapy oil is going to help your asthma if you chain smoke Lucky Strikes. You have got to choose between breathing easy and Lucky Strikes. It’s that hard…and yet that simple.
With alternative medicines, you are asked to believe in your own powers of healing and thinking outside of the coloring book lines. With conventional medicine, you are told everything of what you need to do and when. You don’t have much of an input. But with alternative medicines, you are expected to be responsible for your own health and the decisions that go into making you well or ill.
When is alternative medicine effective? When you choose it to be.
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