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Holistic Healthcare...Holistic Healthcare: What is it, and why use it? Holistic healthcare is also known as complementary
and/or integrative health care, and it is inclusive of Mind-Body Therapies.
Although you may hear the term ‘alternative’ used interchangeably
from time to time, it is important to understand that healthcare professionals
working within medical communities use integrative and holistic modalities
that are complementary and part of an overall care plan. As healthcare practitioners,
the care that we provide is practiced within a medical framework, rather
than as an alternative to, or separate from. As is required by nursing licensing,
for example, nurses who use holistic therapies, must do so based on valid
research, theory, clinical relevance, competence and expertise, as well as
within the guidelines of nursing standards of practice, and scope of practice.
Of course, let’s not leave out the most important element ~ the ‘heart
of caring’. To understand how holistic, integrative healthcare interventions work, we
must understand the mind-body connection. Through medical research and science
we now know that something as intangible as thoughts, feelings and beliefs
can profoundly affect our bodies. The amazing, multidirectional communication
between systems, such as the nervous, immune, and endocrine (hormones) systems,
are all ‘talking’ to each other through direct and indirect anatomical
and biochemical pathways. Bio-chemicals known as ‘messenger molecules’ pass
on their informational messages via cell receptors, which affect cellular
metabolism and regulate cellular outcomes, but it doesn’t stop here.
The cells are just as capable of sending information back to the brain and
other systems (i.e., hormones from the endocrine system can talk to cells
in the immune system via these biochemical messengers, and cytokines, secretions
of immune system cells, affect the nervous and endocrine systems). Our bodies
are having a ‘group conversation’ at all times, which is continuously
communicating what we think and feel. Coping with pain, anxiety and agitation - are a few of the conditions that cause and exacerbate emotional, psychological and physical stressors. With a little help from healthcare professionals who act as Therapeutic Partners”, using these types of interventions, we can provide, and teach our communities how to intervene in these stress responses and elicit the relaxation response by changing the mind-body conversation, thereby promoting positive psycho-physiological benefits. For instance, strengthening immune functioning through relaxation decreases the chances for infection (even reducing our vulnerability to everything from colds to cancer). Other benefits of relaxation are increased problem solving and creativity, which can promote coping skills, therefore change behaviors, and life experiences.
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