Naturopathy Blog
If there is one thing that we all share, it’s the desire to be in good physical, mental and emotional health throughout the course of life. Sometimes though, health issues can get in the way and take life in another direction.
While modern medicine is essential in acute situations when a disease has already presented itself, there are often opportunities to intervene well before this point. The aim of Naturopathy then is not to substitute modern medicine, but instead to focus on prevention by improving health status so that the future risk of developing disease is reduced and the current quality of life is improved. This is achieved with an in-depth evaluation of lifestyle, environmental and constitutional factors and a focus on educating the client around general health principles like food quality, stress management, circadian rhythms, physical activity and reduced exposure to toxicants such as cigarette smoke, industry chemicals and certain personal care & cleaning products.
But we’re more than just a physical body. Another important aspect is our inner world: our thoughts, emotions and beliefs also have an important impact on our health and our relationships, so any outer changes in the way we live go hand in hand with a process of self awareness and personal growth.
With greater awareness and personal growth, people are better able to make sense of things that happen in life, to integrate, learn and move forward even in difficult situations and becoming more proactive in taking their life by the horns.
So is what about eating more natural food, using supplements, herbs and treatments such as aromatherapy or reflexology? When used in the right context, yes – these are wonderful tools – but the real goal is one of increased awareness and autonomy so that we become better at discerning what we need in any given moment based on our individual physical, mental and emotional needs in that moment. If we look at the natural world, this is what animals excel at: a deer in the woods selects only the plants that serve it best, drinks only when it is thirsty and lives in constant contact with the earth and it’s day-night and seasonal cycles. But humans living in the modern world have largely lost contact with these fundamental health-promoting behaviours. Now it’s clear that the modern world gives us many benefits, and few humans would want to return to living in truly paleolithic conditions, but even in the modern age there is still a lot we can do to improve our health by being more aligned with the natural world.
To do this, a Naturopathic approach seeks to apply some basic concepts of the natural world to health:
- Natural cycles align us with the natural world. Our biology has evolved to follow daily, monthly and yearly cycles and functions optimally when we pay attention to these cycles in our daily lives. Modern circadian biology research is adding weight to what has been practiced for thousands of years in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
- We have an innate capacity to heal and maintain balance. Living systems have feedback systems to maintain the optimal conditions for life in a dynamic and ever-changing environment. Symptoms arise when we lose this capacity to self-regulate and maintain homeostasis.
- Natural systems calculate biological costs. Living systems choose wisely where to expend energy and give precedence to short term survival.
- Deeper root causes give rise to visible symptoms. Physical, mental and emotional symptoms can give us the chance to look deeper and correct or update underlying issues.
- We are more than physical bodies. We have more subtle aspects like thoughts, beliefs and emotions and of course the energy that animates us. All these different aspects have an important impact on our overall health.
As a Naturopath I apply these concepts to health in order to uncover reasons why bodily systems may have lost their capacity to self-regulate, but they can be applied to many different aspects of life.
“With greater awareness of our physical, mental and emotional needs as well as of our innate skills and talents, we can start to become more autonomous – not only in making better choices that help keep our physical body in good health, but also in maintaining relationships, interacting with the world around us and contributing back to society in positive ways”
