The releasing of tension and pain is something that people strive to achieve when providing addict help. Tension and pain are usually seen as conditions to be treated. If you can get relief from these symptoms it will ease the suffering.
The result of treating tension and pain in a two dimensional frame leads to an observation of the symptoms and then making a choice from available options as to what best treatment there is for your particular range of symptoms.
Drugs are known to provide swift and effective results – there are prescriptions and medications you can take for stomach ache, headache, back ache – in fact every kind of pain. Most painkillers work by cutting off feeling in certain nerves, stopping the nervous system from recognizing that it has a problem. When the analgesic effects wear off and you still suffer from physical pain – you simply take some more medication.
Similarly when people suffer from emotional tension and pain – which is expressed as feelings of depression or anxiety – anger and frustration – drugs are available to treat the unwanted symptoms and make people feel instantly better.
There are also a variety of health care options which act directly to make people feel more comfortable. This can involve relaxation techniques, relaxation and therapeutic massage, aromatherapies, and meditation – because these methods don’t directly involve drug use they are often called holistic therapies.
Genuine holistic treatments involve not only the person to be treated, but their whole environment. The scientific method deals only with observable events which can be measured and compared. This reductionist view of the environment only responds to “evidence based” facts and knowledge.
The holistic approach looks at symptoms and pain in the context of a whole environment, not limited to what can be seen and observed under a microscope.
When we feel stress and anxiety there is no doubt that it brings about physical changes in the body. Finding chemicals that will modify these natural responses to stress only provides symptomatic relief. Treating symptoms without moderating underlying causes can actually promote and intensify in the longer term the difficulties we have.
When stress causes physical change to the body it is called an affective response. When an affective response feels painful – it signals a need to make changes in your life. Tension is felt in the body when the physical imperative to make change is rejected or denied. If healthy changes are not made, the body accepts this new status quo – chemical changes take place so as to best accommodate to the toxic environment.
Symptoms of stress can be strange and weird – we want to have a healthy body. We don’t see pain and tension as a call to make changes. We don’t want to deal with our pain – just want it taken away. It is of concern that science is now experimenting with quick acting anti depressants. Depression definitely causes distress and feelings of unease – you need to look at the causes – not blot these feelings out.
Tension and pain can be relieved by natural chemical process in the body. Trauma to the body in the form of drug use and lifestyle stress impacts on the body – the body is disabled from achieving a healthy homeostasis.
Drug use and lifestyle are choices that we make. Holistic methods are respectful of and work towards restoring the body to health. Medicating to eradicate symptoms that are distress calls from the body would seem to be a strange way to operate if you want to bring about good health and give addict help.
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