Gracey Holistic Health

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Types of holistic healing services

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In an earlier blog post, I’ve talked about how holistic medicine treats the mind and spirit in addition to the body. I’ve also mentioned how my practice offers acupuncture and other complementary treatments.

But what are these treatments? And how do they work to heal the body in ways that you might be unfamiliar with? Check out the list below to learn more:

Japanese, non-insertive, and auricular acupuncture

These styles of acupuncture differ in the size and shape of the needles, the way the practitioner uses the needles, as well as where the needles are stimulating the body.

  • Japanese acupuncture: The stimulation of acupuncture points throughout the body using thinner needles and a gentler technique with shallow insertion. Needles are generally placed on different points of the body along meridians.
  • Non-insertive (Shakuju Therapy) acupuncture: The stimulation of acupuncture points along the meridians of the body without insertion of the needle into the skin.
  • Auricular acupuncture: The stimulation of acupuncture points on the external ear surface for the treatment of health conditions throughout the body.

Stretching, aromatherapy, essential oils, mindfulness, fitness and dietary consultations

While we don’t necessarily think of stretching or dietary consultations as holistic treatments, there are numerous benefits to these that impact your health beyond your body.

  • Stretching: A natural therapeutic treatment to alleviate muscle or tendon tension. This includes kinesiology taping, which helps provides stability and support to muscles and other soft tissues by microscopically lifting and gently stretching the skin, and correspondingly increasing blood/lymph circulation and reducing inflammation.
  • Essential oils: The use of aromatic plant oils to elicit a certain physiological and psychological reactions from the body.
  • Mindfulness: The practice of being present.
  • Fitness consultations: A service where your physical health is assessed to provide guidance for improving physical fitness, whether it be tai chi or more traditional forms of exercise like jogging to lifting weights.
  • Dietary consultations: A service where your physical health is assessed to provide guidance for improving food choices and eating habits.

Moxibustion, tui na, gua sha, reiki, and cupping

Some holistic healing services are still unfamiliar in the western medicine vocabulary. While less mainstream, many patients have found relief and healing through these techniques.

  • Moxibustion: The process of burning dried mugwort, also known as moxa, on parts of the body or on needles inserted at acupuncture points. The warming and therapeutic properties of moxa is said to strengthen the immune system and to bring more qi (sometimes understood as blood flow) to a bodily area.
  • Tui na: A therapeutic form of massage to knead, roll, press, and rub at meridians, acupressure points, and groups of muscles and nerves.
  • Gua sha: A process to improve circulation by scraping the skin to stimulate microcirculation of the soft tissue
  • Reiki: A technique to regulate the qi in a person’s body by laying hands on the patient.
  • Cupping: The application of cups on the body to create suction and stimulate blood flow.

Integrative medicine and traditional chinese medicine

These holistic healing services are an approach to care, rather than specific healing practices.

  • Integrative medicine: Patient centered healthcare that addresses the full range of physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual and environmental influences. Integrative doesn’t necessarily have to mean alternative medicine.
  • Traditional chinese medicine: A way of looking at the body that focuses on improving the amount and circulation of qi (the body’s vital energy) through various techniques.

Get help from Gracey Health

There are many ways to get help and get healthy. Stop in to our Belmont or Brookline offices, and we’re happy to talk about which healing services may be right for you.

How to set a healthy resolution

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We’ve all had the best intentions January 1st—to go to the gym, to stop eating sweets, to mediate more, to learn a new language, to spend more time with the family. But for many of us, that resolution doesn’t make it to December 31st. We’re only human, after all!

So how can you keep the momentum going with your New Year’s resolution this year?

Focus on what to do, not what you want

If your resolution is to “get healthier,” great! But that’s not very specific. To get started:

  1. Clarify what the resolution means. Maybe that involves improving your mood, losing weight, or cutting the junk food, or all three!
  2. Find the actions that you can take. Perhaps that means getting your baseline health measurements. Perhaps it’s reading a nutrition book. Or maybe it’s going to the gym three times a week. Once you find a way to turn your resolution into behaviors or actions steps, you’ll find it’s (a little) easier to hold yourself accountable.

Short-term process over long-term progress

Thinking of that big end goal can be very daunting. That can lead to stress and anxiety, which oftentimes sets us back from our goal instead of helping us move forward!

Focus on the process and steps required to get to where you want to go, instead of on the goal itself. For example, it’s far easier (and more self-affirming) to focus and congratulate yourself for going to the gym three times a week than by focusing on your target goal weight or the vague concept of “healthier.”

When you can break your behavior down into smaller chunks of time and be present to the process of what your doing, you’ll feel more empowered while still making progress and likely enjoying the challenge.

Check-in constantly

The best way to evaluate whether your process is working or not is to keep track. Perhaps you find that you don’t get to the gym as much as you’d like because you sleep in frequently. Once you know what’s making your process (and progress) difficult to achieve, you can adjust either the process or your routine to keep yourself on track.

In this example, maybe that means getting to bed earlier.

How Gracey Holistic Health can help

While we can’t help you with every New Year’s resolution, the most popular resolutions focus on health and well-being. Gracey Holistic Health focuses on healing the body, mind, and spirit. With health and lifestyle coaching, we can help you plan out how to reach that resolution. And with offices in Belmont and Brookline, we’re always close by if you need help getting back and staying on track.

Holistic medicine: Treatment for all of you

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Picture this: you blow a tire on your car and have to take it into the shop. The mechanic replaces your tire. Two days later, your car breaks down because the mechanic didn’t inspect it for other possible issues.

Frustrating, right? Unfortunately, some doctors, because of their specialized focus, miss how all systems are doing. This means that their patient’s overall health may go unchecked—like the mechanic in the story above.

A great mechanic would fix the immediate problem, conduct a brief inspection of the car’s health, and (as needed) fix it or offer suggestions for proper care while it’s in the shop.

In short, that’s what holistic medicine can do for your health!

What does holistic medicine mean?

The American Holistic Health Association defines holistic medicine as “the art and science of healing that addresses the whole person – body, mind, and spirit.”

Healing the body

My practice offers acupuncture and other complementary treatments to heal the body. These therapies are becoming more common, with some 2016 Summer Olympics athletes like Michael Phelps seeking these treatment options.

Healing the mind and spirit

While western medicine has advanced treatments for healing the body, it only takes one grueling 5-hour trip to the emergency room to understand that the spirit can oftentimes be threatened as the body is being healed.

It makes sense, then, that healing the mind and spirit starts with a meaningful patient-practitioner relationship. This relationship is fundamental in Eastern medicine practices and has been shown to have real, measurable results.

In a paper titled “Relieving Pain in America“ published by the Institute of Medicine:

“One factor in the success of a placebo—or any pain treatment, for that matter— is the prescriber’s empathy or skill in communicating with the patient. Evidence suggests that for patients treated with placebo pills, a positive relationship with a practitioner improves outcomes (Kaptchuk et al., 2008) and, in a sense, engages the brain to help in pain control by instilling optimism and confidence. Because placebo use could undermine trust, Kaptchuk and colleagues (2010) told patients they were receiving a placebo, and the treatment still produced statistically significant improvements in terms of mean global improvement scores, reduced symptom severity, and adequate relief at both an 11-day midpoint and 21-day endpoint (Kaptchuk et al., 2010).”

But what do mind and spirit treatment options look like?

In my practice, I provide lifestyle coaching for that purpose. Diet, exercise, and mindfulness are important facets of how you live your life. These lifestyle factors are linked with your health holistically, and improving even one can put you back on the right road towards better health.

Gracey Holistic Health

My practice focuses on addressing these three key aspects of health, and I employ multiple approaches to help my patients holistically. Periodic tune-ups offer an opportunity to check-in with yourself to insure that your systems are running well. As my patients know, that’s why I offer seasonal tune-ups.

So, if you prefer optimal performance then you need to keep yourself well-tuned. On that note, if you think it’s time for a full-body tune-up, I’m your mechanic.