October is drawing to a close, and with it, another mental health awareness month. I can’t help but wonder if I’m the only one feeling slightly alienated by the fact that the entire month is dedicated to raising awareness around traditional forms of alleviating mental health issues. While they are backed up by vast amounts of research and empirical facts, medical practices such as pharmacotherapy and “talk therapy” counselling are not the only legitimate methods of treating mental illness.
As an advocate of holistic and naturopathic remedies, it’s a shame that the stigma surrounding alternative forms of medicine is often as prominent, or even more so, than the disorders and illnesses they aim to treat. Many forms of holistic therapy are simple and familiar in practice, with little to no spirit conjuring or wand-waving necessary. The notion that healing derived from nature must be magical or ritualistic and therefore illegitimate is frustrating and completely false.
No, you won’t need to bring a lock of your ex-lover’s hair to a consultation and your doctor probably won’t trace you in a salt pentagram during your appointment. Holistic medicine simply aims to reconnect and balance the mind and body. So, if you’ve been feeling a little off-kilter lately, you just might want to check some of these naturopathic approaches out — no voodoo required.
Movement/laugh therapy
Laughing and dancing your way to better mental health seem too good to be true? Think again. Laughter and movement therapies work by inciting bouts of uncontrollable, manic laughter, usually as a result of spontaneous, ridiculous, dance-like movements. The endorphins released in a movement/laugh therapy session are great at decreasing your stress levels (key during midterm season) and carry you on a high throughout the day.
Acupuncture/ electrotherapy
Ever wondered what it’d be like to be a pincushion? Acupuncture may just be the route for you. While acupuncture and electrotherapy are more invasive and require a higher threshold for pain and discomfort, the results can be euphoric. By stimulating various points of the body with a pin or electric current, acupuncture and electrotherapy aim to restore or rebalance the flow of energy in the body. Relief can be almost instant, improving symptoms of depression, anxiety, and other mental ailments.
Hypnotherapy
Contrary to cinematic representations, à la The Matrix and Inception, the subconscious mind isn’t dangerous or difficult to penetrate — in fact, it has the ability to treat addiction, depression, and disordered eating when accessed by a professional hypnotherapist. Working by accessing the subconscious layer of the mind, hypnotherapy is a potentially quick way of uncovering the root causes of mental illness when compared to entering “the Matrix” or your dreams-within-dreams.
Vox Pop is a weekly blog in The Varsity’s Comment section. Vox Pop is a derivation of the latin phrase “voice of the people” and provides students with the opportunity to voice their opinions on anything and everything affecting student life today.
