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NATURAL THERAPIES FOR INSOMNIA: NATUROPATHY

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:56:04 +0000

Naturopaths not only advise on nutrition but look at their patients’ whole lifestyle, including their working life and any anxieties causing particular stress, and will work with patients to deal with the problems underlying insomnia. Many naturopaths are also trained in osteopathy (described in the next section), which helps to relieve structural and muscular tensions and pain.

Sometimes called nature cure, naturopathy is one of the best established forms of natural and holistic medicine; it has had its followers in Britain since well before the Second World War. It is based on the principle that the body has its own restorative powers, and under the right conditions will heal itself. The right conditions for good health include nutrition, exercise, relaxation, a balanced and unstressed musculo-skeletal system, and a positive outlook on life. Treatment therefore consists chiefly of removing impediments to health rather than adding extras, although naturopaths may use some herbal and homoeopathic preparations as well as nutritional supplements when appropriate to individual needs.

Practitioners may advocate fasting, to rid the body of accumulated poisons — either a complete fast, or a few days on fruit or fruit juices. Fasting doesn’t suit everyone, and the naturopath will take your personal needs and system into account before recommending it. Hydrotherapy (water cure) is also traditionally associated with naturopathy, including treatments such as encouraging the circulation around arthritic joints by alternate applications of hot and cold water, or using sitz baths to improve the circulation in the abdominal area. More elaborate forms of hydrotherapy are applied at some health farms.

Naturopaths will also advise on appropriate exercise and relaxation techniques, and support you in making changes to your lifestyle.

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Anti-Depressants/Sleeping Aid

NATURAL THERAPIES FOR INSOMNIA: NATURAL RECONNECTIVE THERAPY

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:55:10 +0000

Although only recently introduced to Britain, Natural Reconnective Therapy is believed to have its origins in Ancient Egypt. It is a method of using gentle pressure on different points of the body with the main focus on the connective tissue, which feels like a deep and very relaxing massage. Practitioners also use their thumbs to separate and realign the vertebrae, totally painlessly.

Like other natural therapies, it aims to restore the body’s self-healing mechanism, and it can treat not only difficult musculoskeletal problems like whiplash injury and slipped discs, but a variety of other conditions.

Natural Reconnective Therapy can help the sleepless not just by dealing with specific aches and pains but by erasing stress from the body. The treatment involves the unique theory that the body contains a system of memory banks, specific places in the connective tissue where tensions are stored. For” example, a nervous system memory bank and a heart memory bank can be found in the shoulder-blade areas. Memory banks can be likened to cassette tapes on which every trauma is recorded; if one becomes full up, physical or emotional ill-health follows. An important part of the treatment therefore consists of a specific method of massaging the appropriate points, wiping out the effects of stress. Thus treating the nervous system memory can erase the effects of emotional trauma and stress which deprive so many people of sleep.

Patients are also recommended to adopt the Way of Life system of eating, which helps to restore the body’s natural harmony.

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Anti-Depressants/Sleeping Aid

ANXIETY DISORDERS: WORKING THROUGH TO RECOVERY

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:23:01 +0000

The working-through process

Recovery is not as simple as we would like it to be. In the beginning, it feels as though we take one step forward then two steps backwards. This is why so many people feel they are never going to recover. It is also part of the reason why so many people become discouraged and give up.

We need to understand the step-by-step process of working through the various stages of recovery. Understanding the working-through process is of the utmost importance, yet it is rarely discussed as an issue.

Patience

One of the first things we need to learn is patience. Everyone, naturally enough, wants recovery now. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not next week, but this very second. This creates further stress which keeps the whole cycle going. Whether we like it or not, we all have to learn patience, with the working-through process and with ourselves. Learning to be patient with ourselves is learning to be kind to ourselves. Being kind to ourselves means we are not putting ourselves under any further unnecessary stress.

We need to direct our energy into the determination to commit ourselves, time and again, to the working-through process despite setbacks.

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ÑHILDREN’S SLEEP PROBLEMS/BUILDING THE BASICS: N PRACTICAL TERMS

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:01:02 +0000

As we’ve seen, sleeping through the night is not as simple or common as we might assume.

? Arousals during the night are normal and need not cause problems.

? Sleep problems can arise when a child cannot put himself back to sleep after the arousals.

? It may be harder for children to sleep undisturbed because a child goes more rapidly through the sleep cycles than an adult; there are more periods of arousals and therefore more chances to awaken.

? Deep sleep occurs early in the night and again for a short while near morning. Sleep terrors are likely to happen at this time.

? Light sleep and dreaming occur in the remainder of the night. Nightmares (vs. sleep terrors) happen during that time.

? You can determine your child’s sleep state by her sleep behavior and by what time she went to sleep.

? This information will help you assess the nature of the sleep disturbance and what your response will be.

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ANXIETY IN THE BODY: NERVOUS RASHES

admin — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:34:57 +0000

There is a close relationship between the skin and the nervous system. In the early development of the fertilized human ovum into the embryo, adjacent cells are split off so that some will ultimately develop into the skin and others into the nerve cells of the central nervous system. When our skin is gently stroked our nerves are calmed, but when our skin is tickled our whole nervous system is convulsed. It is therefore not surprising that activity of brain cells is often reflected in the activity of the cells of the skin. In other words, emotional stresses in the mind are apt to produce nervous rashes in the skin. This is such common knowledge that it is reflected in our everyday speech when we talk of something “getting under our skin”; and we can observe emotional reactions in the skin when people blush with embarrassment, go pale with fear, or turn livid in anger. Thus the self-management of nervous rashes involves both a reduction in the general level of anxiety and a reduction of responsiveness to emotional stress.

A doctor’s wife came to see me because of a nervous rash which she had had for the past two years. I showed her a little about relaxation, and as she lived in the country it was arranged that she would return to the city in a month’s time for an extended visit so that I could help her further. But she wrote cancelling her appointment, saying that the rash had already cleared.

She came to see me some two years later when she had a slight recurrence. The rash quickly settled down just as on the previous occasion.

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