The difference between alternative medicine and holistic health is

Alternative therapies are Alternative non-traditional intervention tools , overall health is Full-dimensional health management underlying logic ——The former solves the problem of "what method to use to intervene", while the latter answers the question of "what is health?" The essence is the fundamental difference in attributes and positioning.

When I was an intern at an integrative health clinic in San Francisco two years ago, on the first day I met a 32-year-old girl who came with a thick list of alternative therapies. She was 32 years old. She had suffered from allergic rhinitis for three years. She did not use antibiotics or hormone sprays because they said they had side effects. Instead, she switched to aromatherapy nasal drops, mugwort nasal inhalation, and homeopathic sugar pills. After half a year of tossing, the rhinitis did not go away. Instead, she developed allergic asthma. She could not even climb three floors without breathing. Later, the clinic gave her a plan that completely bypassed the debate about whether to use alternative therapies: she would first use low-dose corticosteroids to control her asthma symptoms in the acute phase, and at the same time find a psychological counselor to sort out the emotional stress she had accumulated due to divorce and layoffs in the past six months. She was asked to adjust her daily stay up to two o'clock every day by two hours, take time to go swimming twice a week, and retained the acupuncture she was willing to receive to relieve nasal congestion. More than three months later, she came back for a follow-up examination and found that her asthma had basically stopped recurring, and the frequency of rhinitis attacks had dropped to once every two to three months.

This is actually a typical example of how many people confuse two concepts: they regard alternative therapies as the "answer to health" and believe that as long as they don't use mainstream medicine, they are "healthier". Instead, they ignore the WHO's clear definition of health as early as 1948 - health is not only the absence of disease, but also a complete physical, mental state and social adaptability. This itself is the core of overall health and has nothing to do with whether or not alternative therapies are used.

Don't laugh, I encounter this kind of thing three to five times a month.

I chatted with an old American practitioner who has been practicing homeopathy for 20 years last year. He said that many people come to him now, and the first thing they say is "I don't want to take antihypertensive drugs, please give me something instead." He always persuades people to go to the cardiology department for examination first. “What I am doing is a supplement, not a replacement, and I am not asking patients to ignore their own living habits and just rely on my few bags of tea to stay healthy." I remember his words to this day.

Of course differences between genres do always exist. Most practitioners of the traditional Western medicine system are cautious about alternative therapies. After all, there is insufficient large-scale evidence-based evidence for most alternative therapies. Last year, The Lancet also published a study that clearly pointed out that some patients with advanced cancer gave up chemotherapy and switched to alternative therapies. The five-year survival rate was 57% lower than that of patients who received standard treatment. However, researchers in the field of integrative medicine will also emphasize that the effects of proven alternative therapies as a component of overall health are actually very clear: for example, acupuncture relieves nausea and vomiting after chemotherapy, and mindfulness meditation reduces the recurrence rate of depression. These have been written into clinical guidelines in many countries.

To use an inappropriate analogy: alternative therapies are like mite removers and air purifiers in your home. You can use them instead of brooms to sweep your bed, and in hazy days instead of opening windows for ventilation. You can use them easily, but you cannot expect that these two machines alone can keep your home clean forever - after all, you eat potato chips on the sofa every day, and throw socks all over the floor. No matter how expensive the purifier is, it is useless. Overall health is the rules you set for yourself to take care of your home: throw away garbage every day, sweep the floor once a week, and dry the quilt once a month. Mite removers, air purifiers, brooms, and mops are just tools for you to implement this rule. Which one you use or not depends on the actual situation of your home.

It’s quite interesting to talk about. Many traditional alternative therapies have their own overall health ideas. For example, in traditional Chinese medicine, “the doctor can treat the disease before it’s too late.” It not only prescribes medicine, but also allows you to adjust your diet, mood, and work and rest. In fact, it was thousands of years ago. The concept of overall health, but now many people single out Chinese medicine and use it as a tool to "replace Western medicine". When they have a headache, they take Chinese patent medicines to relieve pain, and when they have insomnia, they take Chinese patent medicines to calm the nerves. Instead, the overall core of it is lost, which is quite a pity.

I have been working in the health industry for so many years, and the most annoying thing is when people come and ask, "Is alternative therapy a tax on IQ?" and "Is overall health a pseudoscience?" In fact, there are so many things that are so black and white. If you have acute appendicitis, do it when you need surgery. Don’t think about using moxibustion instead of surgery. ； If you have been suffering from chronic insomnia and migraines, and no organic problems have been found after repeated tests, then try acupuncture, meditation, and adjust your work rhythm. It will be much more effective than just taking painkillers.

To put it bluntly, concepts are determined by people, and your physical feelings are the most accurate.