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A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z
A
Acupressure: Type of Chinese medicine that involves the stimulation by a therapists fingertips, knuckles, or hands or from blunt-tipped instruments to stimulate specific points on energetic meridians or points on a patients body.
Acupuncture: A form of ancient Chinese medicine that treats many conditions including diseases, drug or alcohol addiction, and sinus problems by stimulation of needles to directly manipulate a network along 12 major pathways or energetic meridians, connecting specific internal organs with energetic points on the network and rebalances Ki to relieve pain and restore health .
Alexander Technique: A method of movement to improve balance, coordination and posture, and to reduce tension.
Allergist: A physician specialising in the diagnosis and treatment of allergies.
Allopathic medicine: The conventional mainstream western approach to medicine and healthcare based on treating symptoms and isolating a specific disorder rather than treating the person as a whole.
Alternative medicine: A group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine. Alternative medicine includes treatments such as acupuncture, homeopathy and hypnotherapy.
Alternative therapies: Interventions for improving, maintaining and promoting health and well being, preventing disease, or treating illness through the use of natural, rather than chemical, approaches.
Anthroposophic medicine: This medical system takes into account the spiritual and physical components of illness. A treatment regime may include herbal and homeopathic medicines as well as dietetics, art and movement therapies, massage, and hydrotherapy.
Antioxidant: Substances the body can make to inhibit the destructive actions of chemicals called free radicals; Vitamins C and E are also antioxidants but called nutrients.
Applied kinesiology: Finds out if there are health imbalances in the body's organs and glands by determining weaknesses in specific muscles. By stimulating or relaxing these key muscles, an applied kinesiologist can diagnose and resolve a variety of health problems.
Aromatherapy: Therapeutic use of essential oils extracted from flowers, stems, leaves, roots, or fruits of a plant or tree either applied to the skin or inhaled, for healing or mood alteration.
Artificial flavour: Any substance with the purpose of imparting flavour that is not derived from an herb, spice, fruit, vegetable, or other plant or animal source.
B
Bach Flower Remedies: Are a set of 38 different herbal remedies made from essences of the petals and heads of flowers. Each essence is made from a particular type of flower. Bach flower remedies are non-toxic, non-addictive, and utilize the mood-altering properties of the plants to harmonize and balance emotional sensitivities. The remedies act as catalysts to alleviate the underlying causes of stress. They are related to homeopathy in terms of application, this system was developed by British physician Edward Bach (1886-1936).
Bioelectromagnetics: The scientific study of interactions between living organisms and electromagnetic fields, charges, currents, energies, and forces.
Bioenergetics: A method of studying and understanding the human personality, the body and its energetic processes. Bioenergetic therapists understand that the body and mind are functionally identical and that repressed emotions affect the body and mind by creating chronic muscular tension and diminishing energy.
Biofeedback: The process of providing an individual with information, normally in an auditory or visual mode, to control heart rate, blood pressure, or skin temperature; enabling the individual to gain some voluntary control over the body. Biofeedback is used especially for stress-related conditions such as asthma, migraine headaches, insomnia, and high blood pressure.
Bioflavonoids: Bioflavonoids are any of a group of biologically active flavone compounds that may help maintain the capillary walls, reducing the likelihood of haemorrhaging. They are widely found in plants, especially citrus fruits.
Botanical name: Refers to the Latin name of the plant in the biological classification system. A botanical name is composed of the genus followed by the species.
Botanical medicine: A term for herbal medicine therapies derived from plants.
Bowen technique: System of gentle but powerful soft tissue movement that affects the body both structurally and energetically to restore its self-healing mechanisms. It is safe, painless, and non-invasive, gives lasting relief from a wide variety of acute or chronic conditions.
C
Calcium: Calcium is a mineral essential to human health and is the most abundant mineral in the body, up to 2% of total body weight with over 99% found in the bones. It is important in building and maintaining bones and teeth and in other functions such as muscle contraction, blood clotting and regulation of heartbeat. Foods abundant in calcium are dairy products, seaweed, dark leafy greens, tofu and nuts. If taking calcium supplements, chelated forms such as calcium citrate, calcium lactate or calcium gluconate are absorbed by the body more efficiently.
Complimentary and alternative medicine: This is the umbrella term for a large range of treatments, therapies and theories on the nature of health and illness.
Complementary medicine: Complementary or natural treatments that are used alongside conventional medicine.
Certified Organic: See Organic
Certified Organic Farming: Cultivation without the use of artificial herbicides, fertilizers or pesticides. Certification by an independent third party ensures the plants are grown, harvested, transported and processed in ways that protect their integrity.
Chakras: Touch therapies first practiced by ancient Indian metaphysics, describes seven major vortices of energy in the human biofield, each linked with a particular nerve plexus and endocrine gland. Chakra balancing is the clearing of energy blocks from the chakras.
Chi: (also c?hi or Qi ) The Chinese word for life-force energy.
Chinese medicine: Ancient and modern therapeutic methods, including acupuncture, herbal medicine, massage, heat therapy, and nutritional and lifestyle counselling-treating a diverse range of acute and chronic illnesses.
Chiropractic: A system of healing that recognises the bodies capacity to heal itself and remove impediments to health, includes physiotherapeutic practices, exercise, rehabilitation and nutrition. Acupuncture may be used by some chiropractors. A high priority is placed on preventive health and wellness education.
Colonic therapy: Colonic irrigations with fluid under gentle pressure are a method of and therapy for bowel cleansing designed to detoxify the large intestine.
Complementary therapies: Therapies that complement, or are adjunctive to, conventional medical therapies.
Craniosacral therapy: Gentle manipulation of the brain, spinal cord, bones of the skull, sacrum and interconnected membranes to correct misalignments and distortions in the structure and function of the craniosacral mechanism that surrounds the central nervous system.
Creative visualisation: A meditative technique in which the meditator imagines that the conditions or things he or she desires are already manifest, helping to bring those conditions into being.
D
Detoxification: The process of removing the build-up of wastes and toxins from the body, through fasting, adhering to specific diets, colon therapy, vitamin therapy, chelation therapy, and hyperthermia.
Dietary supplements: Are products taken by mouth that contains a "dietary ingredient" intended to supplement the diet. Dietary ingredients may include vitamins, minerals, herbs or other botanicals, amino acids, and substances such as enzymes, organ tissues, and metabolites. Dietary supplements come in many forms, including extracts, concentrates, tablets, capsules, gel caps, liquids, and powders. They have special requirements for labelling. Dietary supplements are considered foods, not drugs.
Distillation: The primary method of producing essential oils is through steam distillation. Distillation is an age-old process. Water is heated to create steam passes through fresh plant material stacked on a rack above, causing the cell walls of the plant to break down and release the essential oil. The water and essential oil vapour then pass through a cooler that condenses the steam and the oil into a liquid. The liquid is collected and the oil separates from the water.
E
Ear candling: Treatment for wax build-up, hearing problems, and ear and sinus infections. Treatment involves placing a narrow, specially designed tubular candle at the entry to the ear canal, while the opposite end is lit. The heat from the burning cylinder creates a vacuum and draws debris from the ear canal.
Eastern medicine: A broad term for Oriental, Indian, Tibetan, Japanese, and Chinese medicine, all of which share philosophies about the energy system of the human body and the necessity of balance and harmony. Practitioners are trained to use a variety of ancient and modern techniques of diagnosis and treatments.
Environmental medicine: Explores the role of dietary and environmental allergens in health and illness. Most chronic physical or mental illness can be improved. Factors such as dust, moulds, chemicals, and certain foods may cause allergic reactions that can dramatically influence diseases ranging from asthma and hay fever to headaches and depression.
F
Flower Essences: Flower essences are dilute liquid extracts of various flowers and plants used to treat people, similar to homeopathy. Flower essence therapy was developed in the 1930's by Dr. Edward Bach, an English physician who believed that disease was the result of imbalance or negativity at the level of the soul and that flower remedies act to balance these in harmonies on an emotional and spiritual level. Flower essences are prepared in an exacting way that preserves the essence or energy of the flower. Flower essences are generally used as part of an overall program of health. Also see Bach Flower Essences.
Fragrance: Aroma. Products labelled as fragrances are not pure essential oils. They are derived by synthetic means.
Feng shui: Ancient Chinese art of placement involving arranging of interior spaces and placing houses and buildings within a landscape to best facilitate the flow of energy and ensure health, prosperity, wisdom, and other positive qualities to the inhabitants. Importance is placed on colour selection and furniture placement in order to promote a healthy flow of chi or vital energy.
G
H
Hair analysis: A diagnostic technique that involves laboratory analysis of a sample of hair, a "useful guide" to bodily well-being.
Herbal therapy or botanical therapy or herbalism: Uses parts of plants (seed, stem, flowers, root, bark, leaf) for the relief of conditions, ailments, or complaints; the earliest known form of medicine.
Holistic medicine: Sometimes called alternative medicine or natural medicine and involves a whole mind-body approach to health care with an emphasis on preventive medicine. It is effective at relieving chronic conditions like recurrent colds, headaches, arthritis, and even cancer. This approach to health care which treats the patient as a whole person, not simply as a disease process or a collection of symptoms. Holistic health care practitioners may combine allopathic medicine with complementary therapies, taking into account the emotional, spiritual, social, nutritional, mental, environmental, and physical aspects of health and illness.
Homeopathy: Homeopathy is an alternative medical system that treats the symptoms of a disease with natural substances or remedies.
Hydrotherapy: Treating of illness with hot or cold water, externally or internally to restore and/or maintain health. Treatments include full body immersion, steam baths, saunas and colonic irrigation.
Hyperthermia: The body protects itself from viruses, bacteria, and other harmful substances through the use of numerous defence systems. One of these is fever. Fever raises the body's temperature above normal in an attempt to destroy invading organisms and sweat impurities out of the system. Fever is a highly effective and natural process of curing disease and restoring health, and has been recognized as such for thousands of years. Hyperthermia deliberately creates fever in the patient in order to utilize this natural healing response.
Hypnotherapy: The clinical use of hypnosis, in which the patients powers of consciousness are activated and subconscious memories and perceptions are brought into consciousness.
I
Iridology: A diagnostic technique which uses the markings and patterns of the irises of the eyes to determine the condition of various systems or organs of the body.
Infusion: Infusions are liquid preparations made by extracting herbs with either hot or cold water. Infusions are usually used for the more delicate plant parts such as the leaves and flowers.
J
K
Kinesiology: Established if there are health imbalances in the body's organs and glands by determining weaknesses in specific muscles. By stimulating or relaxing these key muscles, an applied kinesiologist can diagnose and resolve a variety of health problems.
Kosher certified: To be Kosher-certified, a Kosher certification company must inspect the production process from start to finish, checking every conveyor belt, container and piece of processing and packaging machinery to ensure that nothing non-kosher gets into the food.
L
Life force energy: Energy that animates the body and the universe, and which, when unblocked and properly directed, can help the body to heal itself. Also called chi, ch?I, Qi, ki, prana, pneuma, and rlun.
Light therapy: Health disorders can be traced to problems with circadian rhythm, the body�s inner clock. It governs the timing of sleep, hormone production, body temperature, and other biological functions. Disturbances in circadian rhythm can lead to health problems such as depression and sleep disorders. Natural sunlight and various forms of light therapy can help re-establish the bodys natural rhythm.
M
Macrobiotic diet: Low-fat, high-fibre diet of whole grains, vegetables, sea algae, and seeds that are prepared in adherence to specific principles.
Magnesium: Magnesium is a mineral essential to human bodily health. It is present in the bones, muscle and soft tissues such as the brain, heart, liver and kidneys. Foods rich in magnesium are legumes, seeds, nuts, whole grains, tofu and leafy green vegetables. Food processing removes much of the magnesium from foods, many people living in the western world who eat a diet high in refined foods are deficient in magnesium. Magnesium is critical to many cellular functions such as energy production, cell reproduction and protein.
Manipulation: Spinal manipulation includes procedures in which the hands are used to adjust, apply traction, massage, stimulate, or otherwise influence the spine and spinal tissues to help improve health.
Massage therapy: Systematic, therapeutic stroking, rubbing, or kneading of the skin and underlying muscle tissue for the purpose of physical and psychological relaxation, relief of sore muscles, improved circulation, and other therapeutic effects.
Meditation: A technique of mind control assists with inner calm and peacefulness, profound experiences of self-realization and awareness. Meditation is a discipline found in many of the worlds religions; it is used by holistic health practioners for its impact on stress-related disease.
Megavitamin therapy: Administration of vitamins vastly exceeding the amount recommended for nutritional balance.
Meridian: Eastern traditional medicine, believes that the body has 12 parts, or meridians, that loop through the body in an endless circuit, connecting the principal organs and other body parts. Meridians are said to carry ching qi that regulates the relationship between, and the functioning of, various body structures.
Mind-body techniques: The whole self. The term carries with it the connotation that mind and body are inextricably linked, and what affects, benefits, changes, or hurts one does the same for the other.
N
Naturopathy: Integrates traditional natural therapies such as botanical medicine, clinical nutrition, homeopathy, acupuncture, hydrotherapy, and naturopathic manipulative therapy with modern scientific medical diagnostic science and standards of care. Naturopaths recognize the innate intelligence and inherent healing ability of the body; great emphasis is placed on preventive medicine.
Natural flavour: Natural flavour (natural flavouring) means the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavouring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavouring rather than nutritional. Natural flavours include the natural essence or extractives obtained from plants.
Natural health: Is a self care system of natural therapies that build and restore health by working with natural recuperative powers of the body.
Natural therapy: Is the methods used by advocates of natural health.
Nutrition: The process of nourishing or being nourished, especially the process by which the body assimilates food and uses it for growth, replacement tissue, maintaining health and wellbeing.
O
Organic: Organic is a system of growing and processing that protects the health of people, plants, animals, and the environment. Organic food is produced by using renewable resources, by conserving soil and water, to enhance environmental quality for future generations. Organic foods are produced without pesticides, fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients, bioengineering or ionizing irradiation. Before a product can be labelled as organic, an approved certifier must approve the growing, handling and labelling of the product to insure that it complies with all organic regulations.
Organic certification: Established rules under the National Organic Program that regulate the growing, handling, labelling and certification of organic foods sold. (See also Organic.)
Osteopathy: A system of therapy uses normal body mechanics and manipulation to correct faulty body structures which provides comprehensive medical care.
P
Pilates: An exercise system focused on improving flexibility and strength for the total body without building bulk.
Pressure points: Points along the energy channels in the body where energy tends to pool or get blocked. Pressing, massaging, or otherwise manipulating these points can help to rejuvenate energy flows through the body, facilitating the bodys ability to balance and heal itself.
Q
Qi: (also referred to as Chee, Chi, Qui or Ki): In Eastern philosophies, the energy that connects and animates everything in the universe.
Qigong: (gi gong and chi-kung): A 5 000 year old system of health and life-force maintenance and healing art. Chinese exercise that stimulates and balances the flow of qi, or vital life energy by using breath, movement, and meditation to cleanse, strengthen, and circulate the blood and vital life energy.
R
Raw Food: Food can be considered raw if it has not been heated above 46 degrees Celsius, and hasn't been frozen.
Reflexology: A body work technique in which the practitioner applies pressure with thumbs and fingers to points on the feet, hands and ears said to correspond to specific organs and parts of the body.
Reiki therapy: An Eastern touch alternate therapy in which the practitioner systematically uses light hand placement in one of 12 meridian positions on the patient's body to balance and direct healing energy to those areas.
S
Shiatsu: A form of acupressure used in Japan to treat pain and illness as well as for general health maintenance.
Swedish massage: The most common form of bodywork in Western countries. It is based on scientific anatomy and often vigorous and its aim is to improve circulation of blood and lymph.
T
Tai chi: This form of movement helps achieve health and tranquillity while developing the mind and body. Tai chi teaches the individual how to control the nervous system and rest the entire body, believed to be an effective way of staying healthy.
Therapeutic Massage: See Massage Therapy
Tibetan medicine: Tibet is known to be land of medicines in Asia. It's natural medical tradition is a vast science with fully-elaborated notions of the bases of health and sickness, a simple and efficient system of diagnosis and a vast array of treatments based on diet, lifestyle, medication, and external treatments.
Trigger points: Specific points in the muscular and fascial tissues that produce a sharp pain when pressed; may also correspond to certain types of traditional acupuncture points.
U
V
Vitamin E: Vitamin E is an essential nutrient that it must be present in the diet because the body cannot manufacture it. Vitamin E food sources include some vegetable oils, nuts and whole grains (soy is one of the most common natural sources).
Visualization: A variety of visual techniques used to treat disease based on inducing relaxation in the patient who actually wills away his disease.
W
Wellbeing: A term is generally used to describe the healthy balance of mind, body and spirit that results in an overall feeling of wellness.
Western medicine: A term used by holistic health care practitioners to describe allopathic medicine, orthodox medicine, or the way medicine has traditionally been practiced in the West. It is based upon the separation and division of the mind, the body and the diseased part, this causes human beings to be separated from nature. Pharmaceutical products and surgery are the major methods used to combat disease.
Wholistic medicine: See Holistic medicine
Wholeness: It implies a reality, system or truth in which all parts or aspects are present in right and healthy relationship with each other.
X
Y
Yin and Yang: Chinese words for complementary and opposite forces that make up the life force (Qi) (3).
Yoga: Ancient philosophical system and spiritual practice from India; involving stretching exercises, breathing practices, and meditation.
Z
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