Three Perspectives of Health: Medical, Alternative, Natural Hygiene
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'Health' means something slightly different to everyone, yet all approaches to caring for it will fall into one of three distinct categories.
1) The Medical Approach
2) The 'Alternative' or 'Complementary Medicine' therapeutic approaches
3) Natural Hygiene (This approach is named after 'Hygiea' the goddess of health.)
In order to evaluate any of these approaches to health care, a basic understanding of what health is and how the body functions must first be grasped.
Here are some statements about 'health' to help you to understand its meaning:
1) Health is the natural state of all living things
2) Health is a state of dynamic aliveness
3) Health is reflected in the ability of an organism to cleanse, repair, heal and re-balance itself.
4) Health is the united vibrancy of mind, body and spirit
5) Health is not lost through the process of chronological aging
Some facts about your human organism
1) Every activity of your body, from the digesting the food to the healing of a flesh wound, is governed and directed by your brain
2) NOTHING can heal your body other than your body's own healing mechanisms. Even with the most advanced technology we cannot mend a broken bone, heal a cut or even grow hair ONLY THE BODY HAS THE INTELLIGENCE TO DO THIS.
3) Just like every other creature that walks, crawls, swims or flies on this planet earth we have:
- a) a natural diet that we are designed to consume
- b) a type and level of physical activity that we are designed to regularly perform
- c) a specific requirement for sleep and rest
- d) a specific requirement regarding natural sunlight and darkness
- e) a specific requirement for oxygen intake
4) Your mind and your body are inseparably linked and are constantly affecting each other.
In order to secure physical health you must:
1) Remove all physiological abuse from your diet and lifestyle
2) Don't misuse any part of your physical body by asking it to do something it is not designed for.
3) Not neglect with disuse any aspect of your physical body
4) Not overuse or overwork of any part of your physical body
5) Provide your body with all of the raw materials (such as foods) and lifestyle habits (such as exercise) that it requires in order to thrive
6) Develop a joyous, peaceful and loving psychological disposition
It also needs to be understood that your health is dependent upon the symbiotic interdependence of all life forms with whom we interact and share our Ecosystem.
When taking all the above into consideration it can be seen that:
1) Any evaluation of an individual's health must take into consideration all aspects of them as one entire functioning life force including their physical body and their psychology.
2) Ill-health and disease is always caused - it does not happen for no reason.
3) A healthy diet and lifestyle will result in vibrant health just as an unhealthy diet and lifestyle will result in sickness.
4) The first requirement in all situations where health has been lost is to identify the causes and remove them.
5) The second requirement is to provide the body with all it needs to heal, flourish and thrive.
Now let us examine the three approaches to health care according to the following criteria:
1) Does this approach teach the person that they can take responsibility for their own health, resulting in them feeling empowered? Or does it lead them to feeling a victim of fate?
2)Does this approach focus on identifying and removing the causes of the problem, or does it focus on suppressing the symptoms expressed by the body?
3) Does this approach appreciate the fact that ALL physical healing can ONLY be done by the body itself and that we can either support or interfere with that
4) Does this approach take into consideration every aspect of an individual, including their psychological and emotional health, or does it just focus on the particular organ or body part demonstrating symptoms?
The Medical Model
Criteria number 1 - Does this approach teach the person that they can take responsibility for their own health, resulting in them feeling empowered? Or does it lead them to feeling a victim of fate?
The medical model encourages patients to relinquish all responsibility for their health and hand that power over to the medicine men. It is a very disempowering form of brainwashing that results in a God-like worship of medical professionals and leaves patients feeling helplessly fearful and out of control of their own body.
Criteria number 2 - Does this approach focus on identifying and removing the causes of the problem? Or does it focus on suppressing the symptoms expressed by the body?
The focus of the medical approach is to get rid of the symptoms
Criteria number 3 - Does this approach appreciate the fact that ALL physical healing can ONLY be done by the body itself and that we can either support or interfere with that process?
Quite the opposite. The medical approach is based on the idea that the body can only be healed by being dosed with poisons or having parts or organs removed altogether.
Criteria number 4 - Does this approach take into consideration every aspect of an individual, including their psychological and emotional health, or does it just focus on the particular organ or body part demonstrating symptoms?
Not at all. The medical model views the human organism as a collection of separate parts.
Note: The valuable work done by the medical model is almost exclusive to the Accident & Emergency departments and those procedures performed that 'buy people time' to change their dietary and lifestyle habits - such as By-pass heart surgery.
The 'Alternative Medicine' or 'Complementary Alternative Therapy' approaches.
Criteria number 1 - Does this approach teach the person that they can take responsibility for their own health, resulting in them feeling empowered? Or does it lead them to feeling a victim of fate?
There is some, minimal and oftentimes diluted, suggestion that changes in diet and lifestyle can enhance the therapies being given.
Criteria number 2 - Does this approach focus on identifying and removing the causes of the problem? Or does it focus on suppressing the symptoms expressed by the body?
The focus of all forms of 'natural' therapeutics is still to get rid of the symptoms
Criteria number 3 - Does this approach appreciate the fact that ALL physical healing can ONLY be done by the body itself and that we can either support or interfere with that process?
No, this approach subscribes to the fallacy that the body is incapable of healing itself without some outside interference. It is for this reason that 'alternative' / 'natural' therapists prescribe numerous potions / elixirs / herbs / tinctures / topical applications / inhalants and so on. ALL of these 'remedies' are toxic, UNNATURAL and interfere with the body's ability to cleanse, heal and rebalance itself. When the body demonstrates recovery whilst such ignorant interference is being implemented it accomplishes it IN SPITE of that interference - not because of it. Approaches, such as acupuncture, certainly can interfere with the body's intelligent self-direction of its nervous energy, but such intervening can cause dire consequences. The inside of the body is like a giant building site with numerous tasks, of different magnitude, going on simultaneously. The body is elegantly programmed to give priority to the most important task. If someone has acupuncture in order to promote healing of a fractured bone, for example, they may well succeed in diverting the body's healing forces to that area of their body. What they may not know is that they are distracting it from the far more important task of addressing a potential cancerous situation elsewhere. The result is that the bone heals pleasingly quickly but a few months later they are diagnosed with cancer.
Herbs, extracts of flowers and other refined and fragmented drugs are not, as most people believe, natural. They are plants that have been distorted and perverted from their original form to a state of total unnaturalness. The only things that the human body is designed to consume are foods of its biological adaptation and pure water. If an entire meal cannot be made of a single substance then it is not a food and has no place inside the body. Garlic is a good example. It contains mustard oil (used in chemical warfare) and allicin (a toxic alkaloid). The stench smelt on a person's breath following its consumption is evidence that the body is doing all it can to expel and rid itself of this toxic non-food.
Criteria number 4 - Does this approach take into consideration every aspect of an individual, including their psychological and emotional health, or does it just focus on the particular organ or body part demonstrating symptoms?
There is a more 'holistic' approach taken than the medical model.
Natural Hygiene
Criteria number 1 - Does this approach teach the person that they can take responsibility for their own health, resulting in them feeling empowered? Or does it lead them to feeling a victim of fate?
Natural Hygiene teaches the person that they are responsible for their own health resulting in them feeling empowered?
Criteria number 2 - Does this approach focus on identifying and removing the causes of the problem? Or does it focus on suppressing the symptoms expressed by the body?
Natural Hygiene teaches that whatever the health problem the first thing to do is to identify and remove the causes of that problem and then to go about providing the body with all that it needs to heal itself.
Criteria number 3 - Does this approach appreciate the fact that ALL physical healing can ONLY be done by the body itself and that we can either support or interfere with that process?
100% YES.
Criteria number 4 - Does this approach take into consideration every aspect of an individual, including their psychological and emotional health, or does it just focus on the particular organ or body part demonstrating symptoms?
Totally, in an all-encompassing way. Natural Hygiene recognises everyone as a complex and unique individual.
Copyright Prof. Rozalind A Gruben, October 10th 2000. Used with permission
