Puzzle – can 1000 individual pieces in a box equal a finished painting?
Doesn't the last piece missing in the puzzle make you nervous and irritated? After all, an almost finished picture is not complete without this one element. We are satisfied with the whole, a complete work in which each part has its place and meaning, and all together create unity and harmony.
This holistic approach in various spheres of life is becoming more and more popular. Today we are talking about holistic health, education and even business. The term comes from the Greek word holos, which means whole or everything. It was introduced into modern parlance by Jan Smuts in his 1926 book "Holism and Evolution" to describe a philosophy that assumes that reality and understanding it require looking at the whole, not just the individual parts.
Plato already spoke about the importance of a holistic approach to health: "The biggest mistake in treating the human body is that doctors do not know the whole thing. No part will be healthy until the whole is healthy.”
Ancient civilizations, living in harmony with nature and perceiving man as a whole, saw balance in all areas of life as an important condition for maintaining health. The father of medicine, Hippocrates, said: "Health requires a state of balance between environmental influences, lifestyle, and the various elements of human nature."
A similar approach is taken by the oldest medical systems - Chinese medicine and Ayurveda. In Chinese medicine, there are no separate organs or systems - everything is connected into a harmonious whole, and health is a state of harmony between Yin and Yang energy and the free flow of Qi (life energy).
In Ayurveda, health is not merely the absence of disease, but a state of harmony and balance between the body, mind and soul. The disease is perceived as an imbalance of the three doshas (biological forces) - Vata, Pitta and Kapha, and treatment involves restoring harmony between them.
So the concept of holistic health is nothing new, it has been part of human understanding of health and disease for thousands of years.
In the holistic approach, the patient is not a disease entity, but a perfect system, which consists of the body as a whole, and not individual organs, mind, emotions and spirituality. Health is based on the balance that a person achieves at all levels of his existence - physical, emotional and spiritual. Therefore, every aspect of life requires mindfulness - from diet, sleep quality and physical activity to family relationships, work, relaxation and personal and spiritual development.
In this approach, the disease is the result of an imbalance between these areas, and treatment focuses on getting to its causes, rather than treating the symptoms. Patient participation in this process is crucial.
Integrative medicine is based on a holistic understanding of health, which combines knowledge and treatment methods from various medical and therapeutic traditions in order to provide comprehensive care to the patient. Its primary goal is to promote health and prevent disease through practices and activities that support physical, mental, social and spiritual health. Integrative medicine uses methods of academic medicine, functional medicine, Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, homeopathy, naturotherapy, osteopathy, manual therapies, psychotherapy, searching for individually tailored therapy methods to the needs and characteristics of each patient.
The role of integrative medicine is recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) by developing possibilities of incorporating proven methods and therapies of traditional and complementary medicine into the medical care system. “Integrating traditional medicine into mainstream health care – appropriately, effectively and, above all, safely, based on the latest scientific evidence – can help fill gaps in access to health care for millions of people around the world. This would be an important step towards a person-centred, holistic approach to health and well-being," says Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO.
The effectiveness of this approach is confirmed by more and more scientific research. However, it is primarily the increase in social awareness of health care, the need to take comprehensive care of one's well-being and openness to various therapeutic forms and methods that make the holistic treatment model and integrative medicine begin to play an important role in the health care system.
Book recommendations
Holistic medicine
Stacie Stephenson
Let's stop treating our well-being and health as something we can't control. The modern perception of well-being is often fragmented, focusing on specific symptoms rather than the person as a whole. Dr. Stacie Stephenson brings readers a new perspective on health. This renowned, leading specialist in functional and integrative medicine has helped thousands of people by focusing not on treating disease, but on building their own health, giving them the knowledge, confidence and inspiration without which they would not be able to do it. Anyone who reads this book can change their life by using the tools it contains to transform energy levels, body weight, physical fitness and overall well-being - from improving the quality of sleep to building an iron immune system. The author starts with the basics, such as choosing the best diet, and emphasizes the crucial importance of physical exercise and interpersonal connections for vitality and longevity. He then presents a holistic approach to improving your health and tips on how to achieve it. The book is divided into practical subchapters: about supplements, detoxification, nutrition, and also contains a psychological aspect showing how to think about diseases that appear in our lives. The colorful, warm and positive tone of the book makes it feel like a friend who turns out to be a leading authority in the field of health and willingly takes the reader under his wing. In addition to practical advice, Stephenson motivates and inspires readers with the fact that good health can create a ripple effect that changes the entire family and local community, and even helps build a world vibrating with positive energy. The program included in Holistic Medicine step by step helps you make fundamental lifestyle changes, showing you how to regain health and radiate positive energy not only outside, but also inside yourself.
The above description comes from the publisher.
Be. Holistic health paths
Orina Krajewska
Is longevity possible? Can lifestyle diseases be avoided? How to deal with them? How to fight to win or improve the quality of life when you are sick?
Every year in Poland, approximately one hundred and fifty thousand people find out that they have cancer. We are increasingly familiar with malignant tumors, chronic and autoimmune diseases from our immediate surroundings.
Patients and their loved ones are usually lost and often left to their own devices. In acts of desperation, they grope between conventional and alternative medicine, not knowing who to trust. Meanwhile, the ideal path of both prevention and treatment is integral medicine - looking at the patient in a holistic way, taking into account the patient's individual needs and preferences, respecting the unity of the body, psyche and spirit.
The book is a collection of several conversations conducted by Orina Krajewska with outstanding specialists representing various fields related to human health - from conventional medicine, through Eastern medicine, herbalism, treatment with diet and exercise, to psychology and spirituality. Among the interlocutors are prof.: geneticist prof. Jan Lubiński, psychologist Wojciech Eichelberger, holistic medicine specialist Dr. Preeti Agrawal and prof. Chinese medicine Li Jie.
The book is a guide for those who want to holistically take care of their health and the health of their loved ones today.
More information
https://www.who.int/health-topics/traditional-complementary-and-integrative-medicine#tab=tab_1
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1550830709002341?via%3Dihub
