What do you consider ‘alternative medicine’? I would say in the last 20 years, alternative medicine would be anything other than the usual western medicine that the majority of us grew up with. I grew up going to the doctor yearly for a checkup, getting a prescription if I was sick, and not doing a lot of research if I was diagnosed with something. Whatever the healthcare professionals said, I believed. To get a massage was more of a gift, not necessarily a remedy. In my world, healthcare and massage (or alternative medicine in this case) never met. One didn’t seem to acknowledge or care about the other.

Fast forward to the past 10 years. Medicine has come a long way but so has the use of alternative treatments for our health. Massage is more common and accepted and I’ve noticed a definite uptick in physicians acknowledging it’s value. Now that the medical community is acknowledging the use of certain drugs to be more damaging than helpful in the long run (think opioids), I think the search for alternative forms of treatment other than chemicals is moving up in priority.

A recent Pubmed study showed that people who practice alternative medicine aren’t doing so because they shun western medicine, they do it because it aligns more with their lifestyle, health, and values.

There is a definite case for western medicine. Miracles happen every day because of the brilliance of our healthcare providers. Just be open to looking at alternatives when faced with life’s challenges. You might discover a whole new world of comfort.