Many of you may have been to a Naturopathic Doctor. However, do you know if your Naturopathic Doctor adheres to the philosophy of Vitalism? Vitalism is the belief that your body has an amazing ability to heal itself if given the right conditions. In order to let your body do its healing work, the first step is to honor its intelligence!
This blog post is inspired by the last two weeks of my radio show on the Voice of Vashon, called Peak Health. Claire Denise and I spoke about Naturopathic Medicine in a show titled Honoring Your Body’s Intelligence. You can listen to the show here.
Do you know what it means to honor your body’s intelligence?
Many people think that Naturopathic Medicine is using natural substances instead of pharmaceutical substances to treat a symptom. For example, instead of taking aspirin for a headache, using white willow bark (Salix alba) to resolve the headache. Both of these substances contain salicylic acid and are simply treating a symptom.
This is not what Naturopathic Medicine is about!
Naturopathic Medicine is about finding the root cause of a symptom. In the example of a headache, is it a tension headache due to stress? Is it a migraine headache due to shift in hormones? Or is it simply a headache due to dehydration?
Thus, a Naturopathic Doctor must dig deep with you to uncover the root cause of your symptoms.
What does it mean to honor your body’s intelligence?
It means realizing that the symptoms you are having are happening for a reason. Suppressing the symptoms can drive the illness deeper in the body.
When your car’s check engine light goes on, do you put duct tape over the light? That would surely not make the problem go away.
Thus, we don’t want to do the same thing with our bodies!
When you have a cough, do you take a cough suppressant? Your body is coughing to rid your body of mucous produced as a result of an infection. When we suppress the cough, we are not honoring the body’s intelligence. Instead, we want to support the body in ridding itself of the infection. In the case of a cough, a Naturopathic Doctor will use herbs, vitamins, homeopathy, and minerals that stimulate the immune system and hydrotherapy to stimulate the healing ability of the body.
I encourage you to honor your body’s intelligence and believe in its ability to heal itself!