Healed by Touch: How Effective is Energy Medicine?
Few treatments are said to be more controversial compared to those collectively recognized as "energy medicine." This term became famous during the late 80s as a description of medical interventions believed to impact energy fields. They are also known as "biofields," that surround living organisms and the flow of essential energy through the cells, tissues, and organs of the body.
Essentially, non-contact and the so-called "energy healing" methods have been used in all regions of the world for thousands of years already.
Even though extensively used to treat an array of medical and mental conditions, study findings are quite a challenge to interpret due to issues inherent in gauging a putative mechanism of action, not to mention quantifying results.
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During the healing process, the patient stays fully clothed, while either seated or lying down.
How 'Energy Healing' Started
Healing Touch, which was founded in the late 80s by an American nurse, usually engages a 10- to 40- minute treatment session. A practitioner is passing his or her hands over the body of a patient to sense or identify imbalances.
During the healing process, the patient stays fully clothed while either seated or lying down. Then, through the use of a gentle touch or "near-body sweeping motions," the practitioner reestablishes what they call in practice as "biofield balance."
Previous research proposed that Healing Touch can lessen the pain from spinal cord injuries, as well as other sorts of chronic pain.
When treating patients, HT utilizes only very light or "near-body touch" to stimulate the energy field, penetrating and surrounding the body.
According to reports on this alternative treatment, various energy medicine types apply techniques "to influence these fields" by using light or near-body touch on the patient's body or by placing hands through the field. Other examples of this therapeutic method include Jin Shin Jyutsu, Quigong, and Reiki, among others.
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Conditions Healing Touch is Applied For
Since HT treatment requires just an open and interested participant and practitioner, it is applicable for almost any symptom or illness.
A lot of hospitals have incorporated HT for their patients to be calm and ready for operation, chemotherapy, as well as other anxiety-provoking procedures.
Several researchers have suggested that this type of therapy may reduce the healing time of wounds and shortens hospital stay.
Other common symptoms for Healing Touch comprise headaches or migraines, chronic pain, common anxiety, and sleep disorder, among others.
Specifically, the treatment helps individuals who experience pain but are not capable of tolerating customary massage or touch like "fibromyalgia and burn patients."
Nonetheless, the "energetic" treatments like HT have been characterized as well by many researchers like not having any therapeutic value.
Meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health recognizes HT, as well as the other energy medicine types, as among the most debatable complementary and alternative treatment practices as neither the "external energy fields nor their therapeutic impacts" have been proven compellingly by any "biophysical means."
Answer to Stress and Anxiety
While Healing Touch can treat nearly any condition, as earlier mentioned, in general, study findings have proposed that HT universal beneficial impacts on stress and anxiety linked to pain and some medical conditions including trauma, although small sample sizes, insufficient controls, and probable biases reportedly impede generalization on benefits of HT in clinical practices.
Lastly, despite the scarcity of empirical evidence for Healing Touch, Therapeutic Touch or TT, and other energy treatments, consistent patient reports present that biofield treatments frequently lead to substantial improvement in quality of life, not to mention help enhance the ability of a person to deal with lingering stress and anxiety.
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Nov 07, 2020 08:00 PM EST
