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What are your goals for the New Year? Are you hoping to travel more? Make time for your friends, or perhaps it’s a career related aim? Whilst those are all important resolutions to make, why not ensure 2017 is the year you take care of your health. This doesn’t just mean increasing your salad intake, it’s also about taking time out to boost your wellbeing. We all live increasingly busy lives that tend to be constantly wired, whether that’s checking our emails, refreshing our social media pages or sitting hunched over the laptop all evening. Netflix is partly to blame for that last one…
That bad backache that doesn’t seem to shift, the insomnia that’s driving you insane or the stress of work life, these are all ailments that can have a serious effect on your overall health. It’s time to stop ignoring them and see to the root of the issue, which leads us back to maintaining your overall wellbeing instead of brushing it off. Have you ever considered the route of alternative therapies? These are relatively low-cost but generally effective holistic treatments that have the ability to produce amazing results for your health, some can even be done from home!
Whether you’re targeting a specific ailment, or want to investigate how alternative therapies such as aromatherapy could help you, check these out for a good starting point:
Meditation
Meditation can be fantastic for reducing stress and increasing your mindfulness. This goes back to our inability to truly switch off these days with technology consuming our thoughts and actions every day. Just think how many times you check your smartphone in a 24 hour period, refreshing your inbox, scanning Instagram and so on.
Clear an hour one evening and prioritise a session of meditation. You can either head to a local class, or if you wouldn’t feel comfortable meditating in a group then there’s the option to practice from home. There are tonnes of amazing, free resources on the web as well as guided meditation videos on YouTube that will help if you’re a newbie. Studies have actually proven that meditation can reduce stress, as well as aiding anxiety sufferers. Now you might be thinking, how could this work? Meditation is all about training the mind and being able to consciously zone out. It won’t necessarily come to you overnight, it will be a gradual course of learning but the outcome is definitely worth the journey.
Acupuncture
Now this is one you definitely can’t do at home, but it’s worth exploring if you can fund a few sessions. You’ll probably instinctively associate acupuncture with back pain, and whilst you’re correct to do so, it’s also a lot more than that! It can be particularly effective for migraines and tension headaches. Recent research has found a strong connection between acupuncture and its ability to treat tension headaches. It’s definitely a therapy you should look into if you want to avoid popping the ibuprofen every day. As well as backs and headaches, it can also be a particularly effective treatment for arthritis, knee pain and even hot flushes.
A consultation with an acupuncturist may help you in deciding whether this route might help your particular ailment, but as well as this it’s also great for overall wellbeing and relaxation.
Aromatherapy
Struggle with a regular sleeping pattern? A sleep study revealed that 77% of Brits do not wake up feeling refreshed, making us a very sleep-deprived nation! In fact, 95% people use some sort of electronic device at least a few nights a week whilst they’re in bed. That’s a whole lot of fluorescent screens just before bedtime. It’s really no wonder we struggle to get a solid night’s sleep! Aromatherapy can be an effective treatment in encouraging sleep, due to its powerful neurotransmitters which stimulate the right parts of the brain to send you off into slumber. Try scents such as ylang ylang, lavender or bergamot and just spritz onto your pillows before you settle down.
It may not cure extreme insomnia overnight but combined with meditation, it should provide a much more relaxed state of mind which will have a positive effect on your sleeping pattern!
Now these are just a few key examples, but there are tonnes of other fantastic alternative therapies out there which can really boost your overall wellness! Reiki, reflexology and even Indian head massage are further healing treatments which you may wish to consider. Whatever it is you’re in need of, be sure to make 2017 the year of your own personal health!
