Holistic healing is an option for pets
When one hears the word "holistic" many terms may come to mind: natural, charade, new-age, pure, ineffective, and the list goes on. "Holistic" is used most often in regard to health and medicine. What exactly is holistic medicine and how does it work? The word "holistic" means "whole" and describes a whole-body approach to health. Anyone who has suffered an ailment of any kind knows that when the physical body is not well, the emotions can suffer too, and vice versa.
For example, respiratory allergies cause a myriad of symptoms but can also make a person tired or cranky. Depression is an emotional disorder that often causes sufferers to experience physical pain. And those who have a peaceful spiritual life often have tranquility in their emotional and physical lives. Holistic health means having a healthy mind, body, and spirit; treating ailments holistically means evaluating each aspect of an individual and determining how they connect to each other to the betterment of the patient.
Can animals be treated holistically? Absolutely! By doing so, the animal is deemed to have a spiritual and emotional self as well as a physical one, and all three must be treated for the animal to experience holism. This may sound like quackery but it's really common sense. Consider the dog with separation anxiety, for example. We could medicate the dog and do nothing else, or we could desensitize the dog to what frightens him, exercise him, socialize him, as well as use medicinal therapies. The latter may be more work, but would clearly provide better results, as the whole dog is considered rather than simply treating a single symptom.
Holistic medicine employs nonconventional modalities such as herbs, essential oils, acupuncture, natural food, Reiki, flower essences, massage, and many others. It would be impossible to cover the scope of holistic medicine in this article, but I would like to offer a few natural and safe remedies for some common ailments your pet may experience.
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