Do you wish that the pathway to optimum health was paved with less visits to the doctor and fewer prescription medications? It can! Sixty-two percent of all Americans have discovered the secret healing powers of exemplary alternative remedies. They are safe, effective, and have few side effects.

Ask your doctor how you can hasten recovery time and minimize the use of prescription drugs with the help of the following:

• chiropractic care
• hypnosis
• massage therapy
• acupuncture

Chiropractic care

Have you ever removed the skin off turkey when preparing a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving? Are you familiar with the thin, transparent, membranous substance underneath the skin and surrounding muscle? That substance is called fascia. It resembles saran wrap and covers every cell, muscle, bone, and organ in the human body. It also forms a uniform, continuous lining underneath your skin. It is thought that meridians travel through this see-through substance, and that is why you feel the results of meridian therapy very quickly in many different places in your body.

It seems unbelievable, but there was a period when I fervently wished I would have a headache, just so I would know how one felt. A few of us learnt a basic trick of married life pretty early on – that a headache could be used as an excuse to get out of doing stuff that we didn’t want to do, and those were the days when my friends used a headache as an excuse to play hooky from school. While I went along with them, I used to wonder how it felt to actually have one, but my luck held, and to tell you the truth, my headaches started (both literally and figuratively) only when I hit adulthood and all the tensions associated with it. And boy did I regret that wish I made so long ago!

Pain is the result when the body undergoes an injury. Have you ever twisted your ankle? As soon as the ankle swells up with inflammation, pain begins, and the muscles surrounding the site of injury undergo muscle spasm. That is, they tighten up. This tightening of muscle around the injury is the body’s natural way of forming a splint around the ankle with the purpose of immobilizing the injury to prevent further damage. Sometimes, the body maintains this spastic state even after the injury begins to get better. This is bad because the healing process slows down leaving behind weakened tissue, energy blocks in the meridians, and trigger points.

Rolfing is form of bodywork that involves loosening the fascia covering our muscles and other organs and aligning the body to help promote better posture. It is the goal of rolfing to provide postural release and support the body so that it functions to its fullest potential. Structural abnormalities can promote dysfunction or even pain. Loosening the fascia helps realign the body. Fascia not only covers up our muscles, it also wraps around all the other structures of the body thus holding them in place. Whenever there is a misalignment, the body must fight against the detrimental effects of gravity. This causes our bodies to exert more effort to engage in normal movement. When there is no misalignment, the body works in conjunction with gravity providing ease of movement.

Myofascial release is a highly specialized stretching method utilized by massage therapists to treat patients with various soft tissue disorders.

To know what myofascial release is and why it works so well, one must know something about fascia. Fascia refers to the thin layer of connective tissue that covers all organs of the body. This tissue covers every muscle bundle as well as every muscle fiber inside each bundle. All muscle stretching really is stretching of the fascia and the muscle, collectively known as the myofascial unit. When a person injures his muscle, the fibers and the surrounding fascia become short and tight; i.e. muscle spasm. This imbalance of stress can radiate through the fascia and ultimately to other parts of the body, thus promoting pain and various other symptoms in places you normally would not expect. Myofascial release addresses these symptoms by releasing the uneven tightness in the injured fascia.

It has been hotly debated whether or not the massage therapist should use herbal oil as part of the general massage of the entire body. As a recipient of regular massage, I find that the oil benefits me greatly by reducing the friction between me and the therapist’s hands.

Whether or not the massage therapist uses oil, there are health benefits to getting a massage.

A good massage:

1. Relieves high blood pressures and promotes normal blood pressure.
2. Relieves stress-related disorders associated with sleeplessness and headaches.
3. Relieves many kinds of aches and pains especially in the joints.

Lymphatic massage is a gentle kind of massage. This massage serves to stimulate the lymphatic system to increase metabolism, remove cellular waste and debris, and promote a healthy immune system. Lymphatic massage is also known as lymphatic drainage.

The body’s lymphatic system is the focus of a lymphatic massage. The lymphatic system works for the immune system by draining out waste and cellular debris and fluid. This is how the body gets rid of toxins, that cause illness, from your cells and tissues. When the lymph system becomes blocked or narrowed, fluid starts to build up, thus causing the entire body to feel tired and weak. This makes us susceptible to disease and infirmity.

Breema bodywork is a kind of body therapy that utilizes simple forms of tactility and body movement. There exists two kinds of of breema therapy.

• Self-breema exercises
• Bodywork

The purpose of both kinds is to increase the energy flow of the body and to bring the body to the present time. Self-breema exercises utilize gentle body stretches and nurturing touch in a nonjudgmental environment to bring about mental, physical, and emotional balance for optimal health.

Touch is considered one of our most basic needs. Many times, we can tell the difference between a “good touch” and a “bad touch.” Do not be misled into thinking that these kinds of touch are purely sexual in nature. When we go to a professional massage therapist or body worker, we can detect something special about his/her quality of touch. However, it can be difficult to explain what makes his/her type of touch so unique. For the massage therapy client, it is helpful to know the four levels of touch:

• spiritual
• mental
• emotional
• physical