Naturopathy is a science and a philosophy that has evolved over many centuries. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said that we are what we eat, breath and drink. He also said let your food be your medicine. We all know the saying “prevention is better than cure”.
Naturopathy is based on the premise that the body has the inherent ability to heal itself. This is a vitalistic view held by naturopaths. Today medicine is based heavily on a materialistic view and does not consider the importance of natural law. The belief that the body could heal itself by using the elements of nature because humans and all living things on the planet are an extension of nature and therefore conform to natural laws, “laws not framed by the human hand”, led to Naturopathic treatments based on 5 natural methods. Cleansing or building foods/diets, clean water, clean air, relaxation/breathing and exercise to stimulate vitality. From these modalities came fasting, monodiets, juice therapy, and hydrotherapy, heat therapy in many forms, massage and so forth.
Today however, naturopathy is very different in its approach. Our soil and air have been denatured by modern technology and war, the processing of food has devitalitised the raw materials given to us by nature and chemicals added to our food are often very harmful; naturopathy has had to evolve to deal with this artificial environment that we have created; so the birth of supplements and nutritional products to supplement our diets and to cleanse us from the chemicals in our soil, water and air has become essential.
Our sedentary lifestyle that is usually full of stress has also necessitated naturopathy to evolve in a way that it can provide natural methods to deal with these issues. So a naturopath today has to study nutrition, dietetics, medical herbalism, homoeopathy, massage, relaxation techniques, counselling and communication skills, environmental medicine, and so forth to deal with the complexity of issues affecting health today.
However, the basic principle of “prevention is better than cure” is still at the forefront of naturopathic medicine today. So naturopaths look at the whole person as a triad of mind, body and spirit and treat the patient as a whole instead of treating only the disease. The naturopath has to look at how the disease has come to manifest in the patient, and make the patient aware of the whole picture so that the patient may become his/her own physician. This is truly the job of a health practitioner - to make the patient aware of oneself and ones’ health so that the patient can take the responsibility to heal oneself.
The body can heal and prevent disease by the use of the natural laws in the treatment of mind body and spirit. These were based on the use of clean water, clean air, healing diets, exercise and relaxation.
· Water treatment includes the use of water internally and externally (hydrotherapy)
· Clean air includes such practices and diaphragmatic breathing
· Healing diets include such practices as fasting with water or juice, mono diets (one type of food only), the proper mixture of foods and the healing properties of foods used in individual diseases and cases
· Exercise in moderation; exercise that did not tax the natural state of one’s vitality. It included gentle forms of exercise such as those focused on breathing and specific exercise programs for the treatment of diseases such as asthma, arthritis, sinusitis, etc.
· Relaxation included the principles of proper sleeping habits and physical rest and mental relaxation, and the practice of proper thoughts that were based on moral and ethical principles.
The most important principle in the treatment of disease using diet, air and water was that they must be pure. Pure air and water contain a vital force, which is just as important as the physical elements they provide. (Please see our water filtration range of products) Food depended on its nutritional and vital aspects on the purity and the vitality of the soil.
Unfortunately, in civilised societies such properties have long disappeared. Now only the principles remain. Getting down to the beach and out into the countryside however, brings us back to these elements. We should try these practices to revitalise our minds and bodies.
