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Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Energy Medicine

One of the most interesting fields of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is Energy Medicine.

The National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) says that Energy Healing has two aspects where the energy can be measured and those that can't often those systems have a general term for the energy called biofields.

Every aspect of Energy Medicine is focused on helping to bring the body back into some kind of balance or homeostasis.

For the mesured kinds of Energy Medicine you have things such as Magnetic Therapy and Light Therapy.

Magnetic Therapy is as simple as it says, it uses magnets or their fields to help the body's natural healing process.  The research on this topic is still growing, though there is some strong evidence for its use in healing carting kinds of fractions.

Light Therapy is again is like its name.  It using different kinds of light wave lengths to help the body, one of the most commonly know forms of this is using “natural spectrum light” to help someone with Seasonal Affective Disorder adjust to the seasonal changes of light.

So far biofields have not been measured, and some people doubt their very existence.

Some of these are Reiki, Vortex Healing and one of the most well know of the latter is Oriental Medicine and its subsets; acupuncture, Qigong, Tai Chi (this is also a martial art it has found its way into CAM) to name a few.

In both Reiki and Vortex Healing the practitioner uses forms of what they call Universal Healing Energy to help the client to heal, these reports range from helping with mental disorders to healing people with chronic fatigue syndrome.

People have been trying to find these elusive biofields for a number of years.  One of the most tools for this is to use electroencephalogram (EEGs) to measure a client's energetic response to reciving acupuncture or Reiki.

Complementary and Alternative Medicine Techniques: Reiki (Energy Healing)

Reiki is a complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) techniques that falls under energy healing technique that first came from Japan.  Mikao Usui, first developed the techniques that are used in Reiki around 1922 though some sources this varies.  Like many forms of energy healing it relies on manipulating a form of energy in this case what is viewed to be a universal healing energy.

The practitioners of Reikie use symbols to help them channel and focus the Reiki energy.  Traditionally these symbols are called cho ku ray, sei hei ki, and hon sha ze sho nen; though some modern teachers have added more symbols.

These symbols each have their own use, such as cho ku ray can be used to clear a room of negative.  Sei kei ki is  great to help someone who is having emotional or mental issues, and hon sha ze sho nen is used to transmit the energy over space as well as according to some teachers over time.

There are three levels of practitioners for Reiki that are called degrees, these are first, second and third which is traditionally called Master or in some modern teachings Master/Teacher or Master because they will teach Master level without giving the transmission to teach others.

Usui taught Reiki as a healing technique but also had many meditative practices in his teachings as well which have fallen to the way side.

Many people who come to Reiki are searching a less intrusive manor of healing or one that has more of a spiritual aspect that some feel is missing from Western Medicine.

Some find that it has helped with them with issues on a psychol-spirtual level, to physical healings such as aches and pains, to some that even say that it has helped with chronic illnesses to even cancer, though the scientific evidence behind this is limited.

There is a lot of controversy around the history of Reiki, both in the West and in the East.  Usui seems to have taught around sixteen student to the Master Level.

There are some who say that Reiki died out in Japan, and then others who said it didn't.

There is to much controversy and to many branches for me to cover them in this article.  

Sources:

http://nccam.nih.gov/health/reiki/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiki

http://www.aetw.org/reiki_gakkai.html

So You Don't Know CAM from CAD.

So you don't know what Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is.  And you don't even know why you might want to know about it.

Well according NIH in 2007 about 33.3% of American adults had reported using CAM.  With the rising in health care costs many people are trying to find other ways to stay healthy.

CAM ranges all over the place, from things as simple as Yoga and Tai Chi, to thing as complicated and esoteric as shamanic healing and holographic breathing.

Lets take a quick look at some of the divisions of CAM.  

The first and most important ones are what does Complementary and Alternative medicine MEAN?

According to the Oxford American Dictionary Complementary means completing; forming a complement.  Which is just what it is.  In CAM Complementary means using tools such as massage to help someone who's going through physical therapy, or using aromatherapy to help someone deal with the affects of chemotherapy. 

Alternative therapies are again just that something that is being used instead of a Traditional Western Medicine (TWM) technique.  This can come in many forms from someone using Fish Oil (a dietary supplement) to deal with depression instead of a antidepressant drug to someone using Qigong or Reiki (both forms of energy healing) to treat cancer instead of chemotherapy.

In addition to individual techniques there are what NIH calls Whole Systems.  These represent health techniques that have developed either in a separate culture from TWM and have their own ways to diagnose; or have grown up inside or along side TWM and have developed additional therapies.   A couple examples of these are Traditional Chinese Medicine and homeopathic medicine.  

As both a practitioner and a person who generally is interested increasing peoples understanding of what CAM is and what it is not, and where to be cautious when they're looking into CAM for the first time, I've created this blog.

We will be exploring different techniques as well as I hope things go on answer your questions.

Sources:

http://nccam.nih.gov/health/whatiscam/overview.htm

http://nccam.nih.gov/news/camstats/2007/camsurvey_fs1.htm