Dr. Wendy Dearborne Choice Expert & Coach

Information on different holistic  and integrative modalities.

National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine www.NCCAM.nih.gov

Provides information on all types of therapies and the current integrative research being conducted.

Medicine is a Music Therapy

www.musictherapy.org  

Music Therapy is an established healthcare profession that uses music to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals of all ages.  Music therapy improves the quality of life for children and adults with disabilities or illnesses.  Music therapy interventions can be designed to:

·         promote wellness

·         manage stress

·         alleviate pain

·         express feelings

·         enhance memory

·         improve communication

·         promote physical rehabilitation

Sound and Light therapy

www.light-and-sound.co.uk

The treatment is a combination of three therapies, Auditory Integration Training, Light Therapy & a Sound Modulation system. This combination has almost doubled the rate of success,

Communication & speech difficulties
Tantrums & behaviour problems
Autism & autistic type behaviours
Sound sensitivity
Dyslexia & learning disabilities
Short Attention Span & ADD/ADHD attention deficit hyperactive disorder

Reiki

www.reiki.org

www.reikifed.co.uk  Uk Reiki Federation

Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by "laying on hands" and is based on the idea that an unseen "life force energy" flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one's "life force energy" is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy.

The word Reiki is made of two Japanese words - Rei which means "God's Wisdom or the Higher Power" and Ki which is "life force energy". So Reiki is actually "spiritually guided life force energy."

The secret art of inviting happiness
The miraculous medicine of all diseases
Just for today, do not anger
Do not worry and be filled with gratitude
Devote yourself to your work. Be kind to people.
Every morning and evening, join your hands in prayer.
Pray these words to your heart
and chant these words with your mouth
Usui Reiki Treatment for the improvement of body and mind
The founder , Usui Mikao

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Excellent website!!!

Color therapy

Insight journal

www.anxiety-and-depression-solutions.com

The next time you're in a restaurant look around at the decor. Are the colors bright and cheery, or old world and regal? The designers didn’t choose those colors randomly.  The colors selected such as red, orange and yellow or colors with these undertones have been proven to stimulate the nervous system and increase your appetite. This idea is associated with an ages-old principle called "color therapy".

Color therapy is based on the fact that physiological functions respond to specific colors. Exactly how does this happen? Attached to the brain are pineal glands, which control the daily rhythms of life. When light enters through the eyes (or the skin), color has a vibration and people who are blind and color blind will have the same response to people who can see, it travels neurological pathways to these pineal glands. Different colors give off different wavelengths, which are frequencies and these different frequencies have different effects on our physical and psychological functions. The example given above with yellow, red and orange in the fast food restaurant is just one way this principle works.

Let's look at specific colors and their proven effects.

·         Black: self-confidence, power, strength

·         Blue: calming, lowers blood pressure decreases respiration

·         Green: soothing, relaxing mentally as well as physically, helps those suffering from depression, anxiety, nervousness

·         Violet: suppresses appetite, provides a peaceful environment, good for migraines

·         Pink: used in diet therapy as an appetite suppressant, relaxes muscles relieves tension, soothing

·         Yellow: energizes, relieves depression, improves memory, stimulates appetite

·         Orange: energizes, stimulates appetite and digestive system

·         Red: stimulates brain wave activity, increases heart rate, respirations and blood pressure, excites sexual glands

Color therapy can be practiced either with colored light or color pigments such as paints or swatches.

Using colored light for therapy has been in practice a very long time and we see it happening every day, whether we realize it or not. Research was also done to test the effects of colored light on muscles. When subjects were using a hand grip and exposed to blue light, their grip lightened, while other tests have shown that when muscles were exposed to red light the electrical activity in them increased.

Exposing the body to colored light is also believed to aid in healing. Green light is believed to help heart problems and cancer, while blue is used to treat ulcer pain, inflammatory disorders and back problems. Red helps treat skin problems, bladder infections and anemia while orange works on allergies and constipation. Yellow light can also heal muscle cramps, hypoglycemia and gall stones.

Color therapy can also be incorporated by using paints or simple blocks of color. Back to blue and its calming effects, studies have shown that when disruptive children were placed in blue classrooms, their aggression subsided dramatically. An even more interesting report stated that when officials in England switched the color of bridges in London from black to blue, the rate of suicide at the Blackfriar Bridge decreased by 34%.

Pink is another color that has had proven remarkable results. As part of a weight control program at Johns Hopkins Medical University in Baltimore, patients are given a color square called "bubble gum pink," which has shown to suppress appetite and stress related snacking. This same color has reduced the violent tendencies of prisoners as well as having calmed excitable mental patients.

So, if we want to experiment with color therapy on a private basis do we need to carry color swatches around with us? Not necessarily. Practicing color therapy can be as simple as choosing the color clothing you'll wear to what color you paint your bathroom.

If you have a busy day coming up and you need to feel energized, wear orange. If you desire to give off an air of power and strength, wear black. On the other hand, some say that if you are uncoordinated DON'T wear red.

Since yellow helps improve memory, try studying by writing your notes on a yellow legal pad. If you desire total relaxation at the end of a long day and take a long soak in the tub, paint your bathroom green.

So you see, there are many different ways to experiment with how color affects you. But if you tend to get the "between meal munchies", you might want to carry around that swatch of bubble gum pink.

Art therapy

www.arttherapy.org     USA

www.baat.org   British Association of Art Therapists

The American Art Therapy Association (AATA) is an organization of professionals dedicated to the belief that the creative process involved in art making is healing and life enhancing. It’s all about expression and understanding self through your personal expression.

Creative writing can be used in the same way.  To express ones self

Hydrotherapy, Water therapy

 www.internationalspaassociation.org  Hydro and Water Therapies

Water therapy:  Drinking several cups of water daily upon wakening and fasting for a short period of time.  This purportedly cleansing the colon.

Hydrotherapy:  Thalassotherapy (from the Greek word thalassa, meaning "sea") is the medical use of seawater.  The properties of seawater are believed to have beneficial effects upon the pores of the skin. Thalassotherapy was developed in seaside towns in Brittany, France during the 19th century.  Trace elements of magnesium, potassium, calcium, sodium, and iodide  found in seawater are believed to be absorbed through the skin. The effectiveness of this method of therapy is not widely accepted as it has not been proven scientifically. The therapy is applied in various forms, as either showers of warmed seawater, application of marine mud or of algae paste, or the inhalation of sea fog. Spas make hot seawater and provide mud and seaweed wrapping services. This type of therapy is common in the Dead Sea area.

Healing Touch

http://www.healingtouchprogram.com/htp/faq.shtml  USA

www.wfh.org.uk    World Federation of Healing UK

Healing Touch is an "energy therapy" that uses gentle hand techniques, thought to help re-pattern the patient’s energy field and accelerate healing of the body, mind, and spirit.

Healing Touch is based on the belief that human beings are fields of energy that are in constant interaction with others and the environment. The goal of Healing Touch is to purposefully use the energetic interaction between the Healing Touch practitioner and the patient to restore harmony to the patient’s energy system.

In a Healing Touch session, the practitioner begins with a centering process to calm the mind, access a sense of compassion, and become fully present with the patient. The practitioner then focuses intention on the patient’s highest good and places his or her hands lightly on the patient’s body or makes sweeping hands motions above the body.

Healing Touch practitioners believe that this process balances and realigns energy flow that has been disrupted by stress, pain, or illness. The process eliminates blockages in the energy field so that the patient is in an optimal state for healing to occur.

Healing Touch complements other healing techniques a patient may already be using, including conventional medical practice in hospitals, clinics and in-home care, or other body-mind oriented therapies such as massage, guided imagery, music therapy, acupressure, biofeedback, and psychotherapy. It is not intended as a cure.

What are energy therapies?

According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), this category of complementary therapies involves the use of various types of energy fields. In general, the goal of energy therapies is

Massage

American Massage therapy association

http://www.amtamassage.org/about/definition.html

 www.gcmt.org.uk  General Council of Massage Therapy UK

MASSAGE THERAPY is a profession in which the practitioner applies manual techniques, and may apply adjunctive therapies, with the intention of positively affecting the health and well-being of the client.

·         MASSAGE is manual soft tissue manipulation, and includes holding, causing movement, and/or applying pressure to the body.

·         THERAPY is a series of actions aimed at achieving or increasing health and wellness.

·         MANUAL means by use of hand or body.

Aromatherapy

www.naha.org     USA   

www.ifa.org  International Federation of Aromatherapist  UK 

Aromatherapy can be defined as the art and science of utilizing naturally extracted aromatic essences from plants to balance, harmonize and promote the health of body, mind and spirit.  It is an art and science which seeks to explore the physiological, psychological and spiritual realm of the individual's response to aromatic extracts as well as to observe and enhance the individual's innate healing process.  As a holistic medicine, Aromatherapy is both a preventative approach as well as an active treatment during acute and chronic stages of illness or 'dis'-ease.

It is a natural, non-invasive treatment system designed to affect the whole person not just the symptom or disease and to assist the body's natural ability to balance, regulate, heal and maintain itself by the correct use of essential oils.

"Aromatherapy is essentially an interaction between the therapist, client and essential oils, working together to bring forth the healing energy which will help the client regain their sense of well being and vitality." 

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Reflexology

Foot and hand reflexology is a scientific art based on the premise that there are zones and reflex areas in the feet and hands which correspond to all body parts. The physical act of applying specific pressures using thumb, finger and hand techniques result in stress reduction which causes a physiological change in the body. 

Reflexology is a holistic energy-based modality, working through the energies of the nervous, electrical, chemical and magnetic systems of the body. It utilizes manual techniques unique to the field of Reflexology. These techniques are applied to reflex maps resembling the human body, which are believed to exist on the feet and hands. 

Acupuncture

www.aaaomonline.org

Acupuncture, one of the main forms of therapy in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), has been practiced for at least 2,500 years. In acupuncture, certain points on the body associated with energy channels or meridians are stimulated by the insertion of fine needles. Unlike the hollow hypodermic needles used in mainstream medicine to give injections or draw blood, acupuncture needles are solid. The points can be needled between 15 and 90 degrees in range relative to the skin's surface, depending on treatment.

Acupuncture is thought to restore health by removing energy imbalances and blockages in the body. Practitioners of TCM believe that there is a vital force or energy called qi(pronounced "chee") that flows through the body, and between the skin surface and the internal organs, along channels or pathways called meridians. There are 12 major and 8 minor meridians.

Qi regulates the spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical harmony of the body by keeping the forces of yin and yang in balance. Yang is a principle of heat, activity, brightness, outwardness, while yin represents coldness, passivity, darkness, interiority, etc. TCM does not try to eliminate either yin or yang, but to keep them in harmonious balance. Acupuncture may be used to raise or lower the level of yin or yang in a specific part of the body in order to restore the energy balance.

Naturopathic Doctor

http://www.bastyr.edu/education/naturopath/about/definition.asp

Definition and Description of Naturopathic Medicine

Naturopathic medicine is a distinct profession of primary health care, emphasizing prevention, treatment and the promotion of optimal health using therapeutic methods and modalities which encourage the self-healing process, the vis medicatrix naturae.

Homeopathy

http://www.homeopathy.org/index.html

http://www.answers.com/topic/homeopathy

Homeopathy, or homeopathic medicine, is a holistic system of treatment that originated in the late eighteenth century. The name homeopathy is derived from two Greek words that mean "like disease." The system is based on the idea that substances that produce symptoms of sickness in healthy people will have a curative effect when given in very dilute quantities to sick people who exhibit those same symptoms.

Homeopathic remedies are believed to stimulate the body's own healing processes. Homeopaths use the term "allopathy," or "different than disease," to describe the use of drugs used in conventional medicine to oppose or counteract the symptom being treated.

Osteopaths

Osteopathic Physicians (D.O.) are fully-licensed to prescribe medicine and practice in all specialty areas including surgery. D.O.s are trained to consider the health of the whole person and use their hands to help diagnose and treat patients.

Chiropractic

http://www.amerchiro.org

Chiropractic is a health care profession that focuses on disorders of the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system, and the effects of these disorders on general health.  Chiropractic care is used most often to treat neuromusculoskeletal complaints, including but not limited to back pain, neck pain, pain in the joints of the arms or legs, and headaches.

Doctors of Chiropractic – often referred to as chiropractors or chiropractic physicians – practice a drug-free, hands-on approach to health care that includes patient examination, diagnosis and treatment. Chiropractors have broad diagnostic skills and are also trained to recommend therapeutic and rehabilitative exercises, as well as to provide nutritional, dietary and lifestyle counseling.

Local Information

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