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The following is only a partial list of the many holistic healing methods available in Canada today.
Aromatherapy
Aromatherapy uses essential oils and hydrosols to promote personal health. Combining the sciences of chemistry, physiology and botany with the art of essential oil blending is believed to help achieve physical, mental and emotional balance and harmony. The basis of aromatherapy is the connection between the body and mind and the powerful effect that the botanical remedies have on human health.Essential oils can be used safely at home for many ailments using different delivery methods, such as room diffusers or body and bath lotions.
Art Therapy
Art therapy offers an opportunity to explore thoughts and feelings in a creative and safe way. It involves using a wide variety of art materials, for example paints, clay and batik, to create a visual representation of thoughts and feelings. No special artistic talent is needed for this to be effective.
Chakra Balancing
Imbalances in the chakras are known as energy blocks. When there is unreleased emotion such as fear, anger or guilt accumulated from past experiences or when there’s been a lack of nurturing, love, and encouragement during the developmental period, the energy flows less freely to/from the chakras.
Imbalances occur when there is too much or too little energy flowing through the chakras. By understanding how each chakra affects a particular body function and life issue, it is possible to identify where a chakra is malfunctioning. Various techniques can then be used to balance the chakra system and restore health in the individual physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
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Feng Shui
Many businesses and individuals rely on ancient Chinese rules to dictate how their buildings and offices are laid out, even the work desk should conform to these basic rules in order to encourage business. A room that does not conform can create confusion and loss of wealth and more important to many, health.
Feng Shui is the Ancient Chinese system of balancing and creating harmony in your immediate environment. Most of us are familiar with the concept of yin and yang and the balance of Chi energy that flows through our bodies. Taking these principles further, we can alter the Chi that flows around our homes or places of work to create an environment that is conducive to good health, happiness and the creation of wealth. Some very simple alterations to your immediate environment can bring harmony into your life.
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Flower Essence Therapy
These remedies work vibrationally in a holistically organized system for the healing of humans and animals. Flower essences affect the physical side of the individual by working on the subtle realm and they promote transformation on an emotional and mental level by encouraging life-enhancing, consciousness raising messages aimed at restoring wholeness.
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Guided Imagery
The power of the mind to influence the body is quite remarkable. Although it isn't always curative, imagery can be extremely helpful for many of the problems that people bring to the attention of their primary care physicians. Your imagination can be a powerful tool to help you combat stress, tension, and anxiety. Imagery is very powerful and crosses many disciplines.
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Healing Crystals
The power and the energy of crystals can be remarkable, particularly in the field of healing where crystals play an important role in releasing and clearing negative energies. Each crystal has a unique vibrational resonance that can amplify, transmute, stabilize and balance the body.
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Kinesiology
Kinesiology is a system of natural health care which combines muscle testing with the principles of meridian energy flow and acupressure points in the body. Muscle testing is used as a diagnostic tool and combining this with a range of gentle but powerful healing techniques, health can be improved and vitality increased.
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Massotherapy
Massage stimulates the release of endorphins, the morphine-like substances that the body manufactures, into the brain and nervous system. Massaging provides deep relaxation by relieving muscle tension, spasm, and stiffness. All of these contribute to pain. Experts suggest that tense muscles are usually deprived of oxygen, because the tightness reduces blood circulation to the area. Massage improves blood circulation, bringing with it what the muscle needs-oxygen and other forms of nourishment. The muscle then relaxes, and pain decreases. Massage also relieves mental stress and anxiety. Massage is providing the benefit by the therapeutic value of touching that helps a person in pain. Massage can help any pain originating from muscle tension: example - head, back, neck, and shoulder pain are all can benefit from massage. Releasing tightness and tension in muscles is the most obvious effect of a good massage. Massage also is beneficial for relieving pain associated with arthritis, injuries, or even recent surgery.
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Mindfulness Meditation
A practice Buddhists call vipassana, or sometimes called insight meditation. It is the art of becoming deeply aware of the present moment. Mindfulness means fully experiencing what happens in the here and now. It is the art of focusing our minds on what's happening in and around us in this very instant. Mindfulness helps you turn down all the noise in your head- the guilt, anger, doubts, and uncertainties that distract us moment to moment. The key is not so much what you focus on but how you do it. What is more important is the quality of the awareness you bring to each moment. That awareness should be meditative in the sense of being a silent witness, accepting and nonjudgmental. It teaches acknowledgment of the moment-to-moment reality and prepares those who use the technique to respond to that reality less impulsively, more effectively and intuitively.
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Naturopath
The principles of naturopathy state that the body has the ability to heal itself by its vital force; disease is the resistance by this force to abnormal conditions in the body, disturbing the normal functioning of its organs and tissues and, naturopathy is a holistic treatment which approaches the client as a whole and not merely the symptoms of the complaint.
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Pet Assisted Therapy
The therapeutic use of animals has gained increasing attention in recent years for a wide variety of patients -people with AIDS or cancer, the elderly, and the mentally ill. Unlike people, with whom our interactions may be quite complex and unpredictable, animals provide a constant source of comfort and focus for attention. Animals bring out our nurturing instinct. They also make us feel safe and unconditionally accepted. We can just be ourselves around animals. Animals such as dogs and cats provide unconditional, nonjudgmental love and affection. Animals can shift our narrow focus beyond ourselves, helping us to feel connected to a larger world.
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Reflexology
Reflexology is based on the principle that every organ in the body is reflected in certain reflexes in the feet. The feet are a microcosm of the human body. By manipulating the reflex areas on the feet, energy congestion in the body is released. Correct stimulation of the feet reflexes, while the client is relaxed, improves the energy flow and the blood supply. This results in an overall feeling of well-being and this enables the body to function efficiently. Reflexology is a completely safe, natural aid to restoring the body’s healthy balance.
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Reiki
Reiki is a Japanese holistic, light-touch, energy-based modality. Working as a support mechanism to the body, Reiki re-establishes a normal energy flow of ki (life force energy) throughout the system, which in turn can enhance and accelerate the body's innate healing ability. Through a series of hand positions usually a few inches above the body, the energy worker allows for the flow of energy through their body. The client’s body then draws off the amount of energy that is required. There is no manipulation of the skin or tissue, as Reiki is not massage.
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Shiatsu
The Shiatsu Practitioner exerts firm rhythmic pressure to the body using thumbs or fingers on a sequence of points designed to awaken the meridians. Shiatsu incorporates creative use of the whole body and includes stretching and leverage. Tension is viewed as a stagnation of the bodily flows along the nerves, meridians, lymphatic ducts and blood vessels. Lack of exercise, poor diet, alcohol, drugs and stress all contribute significantly to this stagnation. These physical tensions or blocked emotions lock the homeostatic mechanism of the body, restricting proper functioning. Blockages or distortions can cause either an overflow of energy, ‘Jitsu’ (excess) or an underactive condition ‘Kyo’ (empty). The pressure points or ’tsubos’ are reflections of the internal functioning of the body systems, and are used for diagnostic as well as treatment purposes. Treatment focuses not only on relieving pain and discomfort but also on responding to tensions and toxicities in the body before they develop into illnesses.
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Yoga
A holistic solution through structured, theoretical and practical components to balancing body, mind and spirit. Some techniques will bring calmness, others will encourage the flow of energy, all with the benefit in bringing awareness to the body.
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