6 Questions To Ask Before Spending $$$ On An Alternative Healing Therapy

Hope is good; it’s important to be optimistic.

It’s important to keep an open mind and to be perceptive, too. That’s how you go about improving things and fixing problems. That mindset leads to solutions.

When it comes to alternative healing therapies, however, there’s a long history spurious treatments being long on promises and short on effectiveness.

A term for this, “snake oil”, has a rich history. But the broad category of products it describes aren’t necessarily in rich in effectiveness.

Caveat emptor, let the buyer beware, should be the watchword.

There are too many to list here for the purposes of this article.

Fact is, more alternative therapies are coming out all the time. They’re limited only by the human imagination.

Yet you don’t want to miss out on any potentially effective therapy.

Before you spend your hard-earned money on any of it, or risk making matters worse, make sure you have answers to these six questions.

These questions work for mainstream medicine too.

1. What do I hope to gain from using this or doing this?

Knowing where you hope to end is always a great way to start any project. 

The New Life Expo in New York has a workshop titled “Activating Your Merkaba Through Lucid Dream Control.” 

First, find out what you hope to gain by activating your merkaba. That, of course, would include finding out just what it is. It’s not in my notes from the Anatomy and Physiology course I took years ago. The workshop should tell you, but it’s best to have a general idea before you attend. Be resilient and humble enough to ask the “dumb” questions.

Research with a purpose.

I didn’t know what a “merkaba” was before I started writing this. If they mentioned it in my Anatomy & Physiology class, I forgot.

I looked it up. A merkaba is defined as “A Love Oriented Dance of Energy that expands the size of the Consciousness in one’s Light Body to a Love-Love Light Body so one may activate 7 Merkabas from the Angelic to Solar Sun level in this Universe and experience multiple dimensional levels simultaneously.” (Merkaba.org)

Activating it might not even solve your problem. It seeming doesn’t help one write or explain anything very clearly.

2. How does the thing work? 

This is important to know even when your mainstream, conventional doctor is prescribing the medicine. Have at least a general idea of what’s going on. While you might find the explanation complicated and tedious, it’s essential. 

The key to understanding the explanation is to define the terms. It’s a specialized situation, so that means the language will probably be the type you don’t use or hear every day. When you have the terms defined, list them out, and draw pictures.  

All scam treatments and therapies will use technical-sounding language to try to pull the wool over your eyes.

It’s nothing more than fast talking.

When you can explain what’s going on to a child, you understand the process fully.

That’s the level of understanding you should strive for. 

The cold truth: nobody cares about the health of you and your family the way you do. Sure, your doctor and their staff care some, and some more than others, but the fact is it’s your neck on the line. Understand?

When the doctor wants to put you on medication to reduce the LDL cholesterol and triglycerides and increase the HDL cholesterol, know what that means. Why? If you do, you’ll be more inclined to get those numbers where they should be. 

Similarly, if you’re considering shungite, know how it’s supposed to work and how do you know this?  

Shungite is a rock found in Russia that’s supposed to amplify meditation. It’s supposed to act as a conductor of your energy and move you toward your desired goal faster. 

How? It doesn’t seem we know. That’s what they say anyway. Accept that we don’t know everything. There are still plenty of mysteries in the world. There always will be. Know as much as you can about what you’re considering.

And if you’re going to activate your Merkaba, be sure you understand precisely how and what that entails. 

3. What’s the worst that can happen? 

Primum non nocere — First Do No Harm — is the ancient Hippocratic oath. This is the ethic and mindset that’s supposed to underscore modern medicine — though “not harm” apparently doesn’t include injury to your pocketbook in the United States. 

You’ll see all kinds of people on the Internet who propose all sorts of cures, some of them which can harm or even kill you. 

Before you consider drinking hydrogen peroxide to supposedly bleach impurities out of your cells, know what’s the worse that can happen if you drink hydrogen peroxide. 

“Do No Harm” to yourself is an important consideration. It can be easy to overlook. 

One doctor I spoke with refuses to recommend a neti pot to patients who suffer from allergies or congestion relating to the common cold. 

The neti pot is a small pot that’s filled with an irrigant. It’s held up to the nose. The mucus is flushed out. 

He believes, however, the risk is too great no matter how much relief they might provide. If the water is too hot, for example, it can burn the inside of the nose. If the water has some kind of infective microorganism, the microbe can kill. Purified water also doesn’t count for safe use. The water has to be boiled and then cooled. 

The man carries the “do no harm” ethic out that far — even though he recognizes the pot can be helpful in some situations.

Bad outcomes might be rare, but they can be extreme — death. “Do no harm” is a principle you should apply to yourself when you’re trying to help yourself. 

4. What are the alternatives?

Healthyline.com sells the Chakra Rainbow Mat in three different sizes. It purports to help you achieve higher levels of enlightenment and spiritual awakening with “advanced” chakra balancing and cleansing.  

It retails from $699 to $1499 plus tax.

Whether or not your research reveals chakra balancing and cleansing would help you, it’s essential to define what you believe your problem is.  

For example, say you have sore feet and you determine you have a chakra blockage at your root chakra. Further, suppose you determine your energy flow can be improved by rubbing your feet according to the alternate theory. Maybe better shoes might help. 

The mat uses red jasper stones to stimulate the root chakra, the feet. Those can be purchased for around $4-10 online or in a rock shop. 

You could put together a home version to positively affect all the chakras for a lot less, surely. 

Better yet, perhaps a simple exercise mat will do the trick.

Gemstones are a form of energy healing and that encompasses a lot of territory.

The sellers of the Chakra Rainbow Mat would undoubtedly argue their mat is a good value. They might even say their mat would work better than the one you made. That’s not my point. The point is you need to know what you’re buying, and you need to price around. 

That goes for everything. That includes deciding between brand name versus generic drug. Conventional versus alternative medicine. Everything.

Those men and women running health companies alternative and otherwise are thinking of you as a customer. You’re better off thinking of them as a product.

5. Are there other benefits or side effects?

Consider the therapy, medication, or treatment as a package. Consider both its positives and negatives.  

For example, for insomnia, Ambien (zolpidem tartrate) has side effects that include oversedation, dizziness, and hallucinations — not racism, the drug’s manufacturer famously told comedian Rosanne Barr.   

Before taking anything, understand these potential side effects. Decide if they might be worth the risk. 

You might consider getting outside during the day, exercising, and a regular sleep schedule might be the better way to go in trying to help your insomnia. 

In addition to sleeping better, exercise has the side effects of better health, better mood, and increased strength.  

Yet taking a pill is easier and faster. 

You need to consider both the positives and negatives. 

6. How long does it take to see results?

A lot of sellers and treatment proponents will be cagey about this answer. It puts pressure on them. It sets expectations.  

Yet, it’s a fair question and needs to be included in the mix. 

A general idea is fair. A lot of worthwhile therapies might not affect an immediate improvement.

When you push the drug adenosine through an IV when someone has supraventricular tachycardia, you can see results within 15-30 seconds when it works. The heart pauses for a few seconds and then resets.

Not all therapies or cures work so fast. It’s not fair to expect them to. You’ll know whether to expect them to if you know their mechanism of action. Still, it’s an important question. It needs an answer. 

All these questions do.

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