• Nutritional Therapy
  
• Herbal Medicine
  
• Hypnotherapy
  
• Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)
  
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
  
• Auditory Processing Therapy

Because of the increasing popularity of complementary and alternative medicine (nearly 40 percent of U.S. adults report using it) more and more people have become curious about it. When using the term "alternative medicine," it refers to practices not typically used in conventional Western medicine. Exactly what's considered alternative medicine changes constantly as more treatments undergo study and move into the mainstream. When an alternative medicine therapy is used in addition to (not instead of) conventional therapy, it's called "complementary." When you use a complementary therapy in addition to a conventional one, it's called integrative medicine.

Examples of Complementary and Alternative Medicine

To make sense of the many therapies available, it helps to look at how they are classified by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), the lead agency that funds for scientific research on CAM in the United States. The NCCAM categories are:

• Whole medical systems
• Mind-body medicine
• Biologically based practices
• Manipulative and body-based practices
• Energy medicine

• Ancient healing systems. These healing systems arose long before conventional Western medicine and include Ayurveda from India and traditional Chinese medicine.
• Homeopathy. This approach uses minute doses of a substance that causes symptoms to stimulate the body's self-healing response.
• Naturopathy. This approach focuses on noninvasive treatments to help your body do its own healing and uses a variety of practices, such as massage, acupuncture, herbal remedies, exercise, and lifestyle counseling.

• Mind-body techniques strengthen the communication between your mind and your body. Complementary and alternative medicine practitioners say these two systems must be in harmony for you to stay healthy. Examples of mind-body connection techniques include meditation, prayer, and relaxation and art therapies.
• Biologically based practices include dietary supplements and herbal remedies. These treatments use ingredients found in nature. Examples of herbs include ginseng, ginkgo, and St. John's wort, while examples of other dietary supplements include amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. Herbs and supplements can be taken as teas, oils, syrups, powders, tablets, or capsules.
• Manipulation and body-based practices use human touch to move or manipulate a specific part of your body. They include chiropractic and osteopathic manipulation and massage.
• Energy medicine practitioners believe an invisible energy force flows through your body, and when this energy flow is blocked or unbalanced you can become sick. Different traditions call this energy by different names, such as chi, prana, and life force. The goal of these therapies is to unblock or re-balance your energy force. Energy therapies include qi gong, therapeutic touch, reiki, and magnet therapy.