About Folk Holistic Medicine 

Folk holistic Medicine is a combination of healing practices passed down orally from generation to generation. It is the hundreds of years` worth of healing experience that is stored in folk tradition and has the following distinguishing characteristics:

1. It aims not only to treat the afflicted organ but to have an overall beneficial effect on the entire organism. Some of the principles of folk medicine include taking an individual approach to each patient and treating not only the symptoms of the illness buttaking care of the whole organism at the same time;
2. It relies primarily on a system of practices that do not have a negative effect on the body such as physiotherapy (the use of water, air, sun and physical exercise), herbs (phytotherapy), various diet plans and others;
3. The means and methods of healing employed by folk medicine are not expensive, the ingredients required are affordable and the procedures can be carried out in the comfort of your own home.

Despite their beneficial effects, the methods of Folk Medicine are not universally applicable. Currently there are many other treatments and medicines that also have their advantages. This is only logical since folk medicine develops and advances much slower than and in a different direction from conventional medicine. Folk medicine recommends treatments that use primarily physical means and herbs while conventional medicine uses primarily chemical means.

Conventional medicine often uses elements of folk medicine and the progress it has made is great. Thanks to the breakthroughs in biology, anatomy, physiology, pathology, pathophysiology, biochemistry, biophysics, pharmacology, etc, conventional medicine has become one of the most advanced branches of science. This is why it is necessary to coordinate the use of folk medicine alongside conventional medicine in order to avoid mistakes and undesirable results.

Bulgarian folk medicine has been forged from people`s experience through the ages. There are grains of rationality in many of its practices which need to be developed further scientifically and substantiated theoretically. holistic medicine.

Many scientific diagnostic methods and avast number of healing practices and ways to protect against illness are borrowed from folk medicine and have been perfected in accordance with contemporary knowledge. Phytotherapy, for example, started out as a very important branch of folk medicine and has been perfected into a science.Experience shows that the treasure chest and spring of wisdom and experience that is folk medicine still has plenty to offer. Doctors and scientists who delve into folk medicine continue to stumble upon interesting and useful pieces of information, materials and facts even today. Doctors shake off the dust that the centuries have covered this information with, study it using the methods of conventional medicine, find scientific evidence to support it and use it to expand the contemporary art of healing.

The guiding principles of folk medicine can be formulated as follows:

1. Patients should be treated using primarily natural means;
2. Lifestyle and diet changes should be made in addition to the treatment in order to strengthen the whole organism;
3. Treatment (both the medication and the dosage) should be strictly individual;
4. Treatment should be comprehensive, it should have a beneficial effect not only on the organ in question but on the whole organism as well;
5. Generally treatment should never be rushed (with the exception of special and emergency cases) because the body should be given the opportunity to battle the illness;
6. It is necessary to make patients believe in healing and to convince them that the illness can be overcome. This can be achieved through eliminating the fear and the psychological tension it causes.

Folk medicine puts these principles into practise through:

1. Various procedures from naturopathy (physiotherapy):compresses,poultices, baths, rub downs, massages, use of air, sunlight, physical exercise, etc;
2. Phytotherapy;
3. Eliminating the psychological stress and nervous tension related to the illness with the help of oral persuasion.

The use of natural healing therapies aims at restoring the health of the patient in a safe way. They work to restore the afflicted organ and its suppressed and altered functions and to reincorporate these functions into the complex and functionally interdependent structure of the organism as a whole. The natural healing therapies must be selected specifically for each patient and administered in the correct way and in the appropriate dosage in order for them to achieve their purpose and have the desired healing effects, namely: to improve the wellbeing of he organism as a whole, to strengthen the body`s defenses,to restore its neuropsychological processes,to help it fight offinflammation and microbes, to regulate the excretory functions of specific organs and glands, etc.During the treatment it is necessary to pay attention to the psychological state of the patient as well: they have to believe that they will get better, they have tostay optimistic and not lose willpower, to have trust in themselves and in those administering the treatment and to use auto-suggestion. All of these will help counteract the intrusivefears and thoughts that come with some illnesses. The desired effectis achieved through the spoken word alone.

Folk medicine uses the healing properties of nature: sunlight, air, water, food (a predominantly plant-based diet consisting mainly of fruit and different vegetable juices), sleep (which provides the necessary respite for all bodily functions), a cheerful mood, happiness, laughter,physical exercise, various massages and diets – raw foodism, healing through the use of milk, thermal waters, electricity, starvation, phytotherapy, etc, etc.Phytotherapy, for example, is one of the main methods used throughout the ages in Bulgarian folk medicine.

It is easy to see that the methods and ingredients used by folk medicine are readily available. They can be found in the environment surrounding the patient. They are an integral part of everyday life and help the body carry out its normal physiological functions. When there is an illness these same ingredients and methods are used in an altered quality and quantity and with a different force and level of influence depending on the needs of the patient, the nature of the illness and the parts of the body that are afflicted.

List of some of the popular folk medicine methods:

Sweat-inducing infusions

8 Effective Anti-Inflammatory Poultices

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