natural healing

December 12, 2018 By BalanceYourPower

Chronic Stress

Alternative Treatments for Chronic Stress

Stress is an everyday word that you can encounter too often in this busy, fast-moving world. While a week’s worth of stress may easily be relieved after a Friday night with friends, stress over long periods of time can result into a wide array of conditions, encompassing physical, mental, and behavioral aspects.

Stress is the body’s response to the pressure perceived from our surroundings. While a small daily dose of stress might be normal, exposure to excessive stress for a prolonged period can lead to more serious diseases and behavioral disorders.

Chronic stress is one of the known culprits for developing anxiety, depression, asthma, heart issues, diabetes, and even for premature death.

Conventional versus Alternative Treatment

Conventional medicine often focuses on treating the mind and the body separately. But in most recent studies, more scientific evidence shows the interconnection between the body and the mind through certain metabolic, hormonal, and biochemical changes that the body undergoes when it is under stress.

On the other hand, proponents of alternative treatments have long since believed that the body reacts differently when the mind and body are in a state of imbalance.

Primarily, the focus of alternative medicine is to treat the body and the mind as a whole, creating a unified balance that promotes relaxation and reduces stress.

All Natural Methods to Relieve Stress

Aromatherapy

Ever heard of lavender and bergamot? These are just two of some popular essential oils that are known for producing aromas found to be effective in relieving stress and muscle tension. Other extracts from certain plants and flowers can bring this wonderful effect to anyone who has inhaled the scent. For an even better result, combine aromatherapy with massage.

Massage

Swedish, Shiatsu, Thai – these are just some of the most popular massage techniques that are used worldwide. In general, massage therapy helps relaxes the muscles and improve blood circulation. This not only reduces stress levels, but alleviates pain as well.

You can go from gentle to deep tissue massages, depending on your tolerance. However, if you suffer from any musculoskeletal condition, make sure you to seek your doctor’s advice first to ask if massage is appropriate for you.

Meditation

Meditation is an ancient practice in Asia that was used to maintain peace and tranquility. It offers a wide range of physical, emotional, and mental benefits, including the relief of stress.

Meditation involves different principles and practices, but commonly involves deep breathing exercises and repeating positive thoughts mentally.

Aside from helping the person achieve a calm state of mind, the deep breathing exercises also offer added benefits such as increasing the intake of oxygen-rich air. And oxygen feeds the cells, thereby aiding in healing of the body and mind.

Yoga

Yoga is sometimes considered as a form of meditation and vice versa. The discipline combines physical and mental aspects to control stress, involving specific poses and controlled breathing aimed at unifying the body, mind, and spirit.

Just like meditational practices, yoga can relieve and prevent chronic stress through relaxation techniques.

Acupressure and Acupuncture

These two ancient Chinese arts of healing are based on the concept of life energy or “chi”, which stimulates the body’s own healing ability. Any malady that the body acquires is attributed to the interruption in the flow of chi, when the body’s natural pathways are blocked.

Acupressure and acupuncture are aimed at freeing the pathways from these blocks by working on certain points. Whereas acupressure uses finger pressures on those points, acupuncture employs insertion of very fine needles through the skin on the same points.

Hypnotherapy

Through hypnosis, the power of the unconscious mind is unlocked, which in turn offers relaxation and a renewed, positive outlook that combats stress.

Final Thoughts

Every person develops their own unique way to cope with stress, and alternative treatments only present a few of these options. It is best to engage in a practice that you enjoy and can commit to in order to see long-term results. Finding the source of the stress by utilizing intuition and gentle healing techniques can create a new reality. Book a session and explore your current reality so you can expedite the creation of a new you.

November 18, 2018 By BalanceYourPower

Anxiety

Natural Treatment Methods for Anxiety

Many people who struggle with anxiety turn to prescription medications for treatment, which in some cases can cause even worse side effects or significant dangers to a person’s health. This is one of the reasons so many people are turning to natural treatment methods to help with anxiety issues that are causing problems in their lives.

What Is Natural Treatment?

Natural treatment is simply treatment without chemicals. This can be non-medical treatments or natural supplements or even a mix of both.

No matter what method you choose, be sure to consult your physician and to take any advice or treatments he recommends seriously. But you can also add alternative natural treatments for a more holistic approach to your anxiety care.

Alternative Natural And Non-Medical Treatment Options

There are many non-medical treatments for anxiety that you can use each day to help get your anxiety under control. Non-medical treatments are for people who are willing to commit themselves to a treatment that is not chemical based.

Regular exercise will allow your body to release “feel good” hormones. This is a great non-medical treatment for those who are suffering from anxiety, because you can create a routine where you exercise each day. But you can also use exercise to help when you have unexpected moments of anxiety. This will help your body to become healthier, and a healthy body can deal with anxiety more easily than an unhealthy body.
Sound therapy is another form of non-medical treatment that can be used for anxiety. This is a new discovery that science is using to treat many things including depression and anxiety. The way sound therapy works is that the person listens to high frequency sounds, and these sounds stimulate the brain and recharge it. Sound therapy has been found to create a permanent state of peace and relaxation in some patents.

Herbal Supplements

There are many herbal supplements that can be used to alleviate your anxiety. These can be used as an alternative treatment to prescription medications but should never be mixed with prescriptions without first talking to your health care provider. You should never stop taking prescription medications unless directed by your physician, and should only alter the dosage under your doctor’s care.

St. Johns Wart is the most popular herbal supplement for anxiety, and is the most reliable. It also contains a sedative that can help you sleep. It is best to take St. Johns Wart with your evening meal or right before you go to bed.
Kava is another herbal supplement that is used for mild to moderate anxiety. Unlike St. Johns Wart, Kava does not contain a sedative. You should be very careful when taking Kava because it can affect the liver. It is recommended that you not drink any alcohol when taking using Kava. It is also known to interact with anti-psychotics, so you should speak to your doctor before taking Kava.

Learning How to Handle Stress

Learning how to handle stress is another way you can naturally treat your anxiety. One of the ways you can do this is by keeping a daily journal. Here you will be able to write down all of your feelings, talk about the things that are causing you anxiety, determine if there is anything you can do to change the situation, and create an action plan for changing the situation.

Listening to positive affirmations is another way some people handle anxiety. Positive affirmations teach your brain to think in a new way and after you have listened to them for a while you will find that when you are becoming overwhelmed by anxiety they will automatically play themselves over and over in your mind.

Putting It All Together

Now is the time that you should put everything you have learned together. If you want to alleviate your anxiety naturally, it is not enough just to exercise or just to take a supplement. You have to put all of the techniques together. Taking a supplement while creating an exercise routine, eating right, and learning to manage your stress is the best way for you to naturally cure your anxiety.

The Missing Piece

Finding the root cause of the anxiety might have eluded you in the past. But now you’ve found the way to explore the cause and rip it out by the root. Are you ready to live your best life?

October 28, 2018 By BalanceYourPower

Depression

8 Natural Healing Methods for Depression

Dealing with the blues does not necessarily mean that you have to start popping those orange pills. Studies show that one of the major deterrents to treating mild depression is the fear of patients to be addicted to anti-depressants.

While conventional anti-depression drugs provide an effective way of treating diagnosed depression, it is by no means the only way to elevate your mood. There are a host of natural healing methods that are considered safe and effective in improving mood and altering brain chemistry to take your blues away.

Exercise to Boost Your Mood

Exercising literally pumps you up because it releases feel-good chemicals called endorphins that interacts with your brain receptors and diminish the perception of pain. Much like morphine, endorphins suppress pain by triggering a feeling of happiness and a positive outlook. Unlike morphine though, endorphins are naturally occurring chemicals that do not lead to dependence or addiction.

Scientific evidence points that doing a 30-minute routine of moderate aerobic exercise at least three times a week is effective in alleviating symptoms of depression. Those who maintain their exercise routine even after being treated of their depression are also less likely to return to a depressed state.

Eat Healthy

Depression tends to disrupt normal eating habits, pushing those who suffer the symptoms of depression to either overeat or starve themselves. Taking control of your eating habits does not only keep your body nourished, it also restores a certain sense of control over your life, which also in part relieves your state of depression.

Some studies show that eating foods that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids found in tuna and salmon, as well as those that are rich in folic acid such as avocado and spinach, helps relieve depression by restoring chemical balance in the brain and nervous system.

Meditate To Relax

Much of the anxiety, stress and symptoms of depression that we experience can be relieved by giving ourselves some time to relax and clear our mind. Meditation enables deep relaxation by clearing the mind of distracting thoughts and focusing on proper and deep breathing. It provides us a means to have an altered state of consciousness.

Meditating on a daily basis is a good anti-depression practice because it trains us to let go of our thoughts, focus our attention on the here and now and cultivate an attitude of acceptance and openness, which could also help relieve depression and the negative feelings associated with it.

Do Yoga

Although most yoga techniques also involve meditation, yoga promotes an added incentive of exercising the body to improve balance, strength, and flexibility while also practicing proper breathing techniques to help clear the mind and focus.

As a whole, yoga works to align the spine, invigorate the nervous system, improve blood circulation, promote mental clarity, reduce stress and anxiety, and promote relaxation and emotional wellbeing. It provides a potent way of alleviating symptoms of depression.

Get Enough Sleep

Being in a state of depression can lead to altered sleeping patterns and make getting enough sleep feel like a tiring battle. Unfortunately, being sleep deprived can heighten your depression and make matters worse.

While it might prove difficult to sleep well, make a concerted effort to make necessary changes in your sleep routine to ensure that you get enough shut-eye when you need it most.

Try going to bed and getting up at a specific time every day to encourage your biological clock to cooperate.

Remove all distractions from sleeping such as TV, computer, or even your mobile phone (the male energy of the devices is not conducive to a good night’s sleep). You can also try a short power nap during the day to relax and feel rejuvenated.

Take Anti-Depression Herbal Supplements

Supplement your diet and boost your mood by turning to natural supplements. Try a relaxing drink of chamomile tea or some St. John’s Wort. Both herbs are said to relieve depression and anxiety.

Have a Massage

We know that touch therapy promotes relaxation and uplifts our mind and spirit. Specific massage modalities such as Swedish, Shiatsu and Hawaiian Lomi-Lomi promote relaxation and healing. The use of aromatic oils and music that promotes relaxation during massage provides a holistic experience to deal with the blues.

These natural healing remedies for depression work well to complement whatever medication or psychotherapy session you may be using to help you improve your mood and promote emotional healing.

Create an Environment for Healing

And, of course, we are here to help you discover the emotional and physical imbalances that are creating the environment that might be blocking your natural state of being.