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Introduction to Naturopathy: Principles and Practices

Healing Insights

11 Plays1 month ago

Podcast Episode Description: Introduction to Naturopathy: Principles and Practices

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Healing Insights, a podcast brought to you by Rising Phoenix Naturopathy! In this episode, your host, Dr. Tara Coppola, a passionate Naturopathic Physician, invites you to embark on a journey into the world of naturopathy.

Have you ever wondered how holistic healing can align with your health journey? In Episode 1: Introduction to Naturopathy: Principles and Practices, we explore:

The foundational principles of naturopathic medicine and how they differ from conventional healthcare practices.
The rich history of naturopathy and its evolution into a respected modality in modern health.
The core tenets that guide naturopathic healing, including the healing power of nature, treating the root causes of illness, and the importance of individual patient education.
Practical insights on how you can incorporate naturopathic principles into your own life to support wellness and vitality.

Join us for an engaging discussion that elucidates the transformative potential of naturopathy and empowers you to take charge of your health. Whether you're a newcomer to holistic health or seeking to deepen your understanding, this episode is packed with insight and inspiration.

Tune in to Healing Insights and let the journey of self-discovery and healing begin!

Transcript

Introduction to Healing Insights Podcast

00:00:01

Tara Coppola

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Healing Insights. This is the first episode of the podcast by Rising Phoenix Naturopathy. My name is Dr. Tara Kapola, naturopathic physician or a naturopathic doctor, depending on which state you're currently residing in. I am here to help guide you on an adventure in natural healing, to help teach you and educate you on how your body heals itself.

00:00:31

Tara Coppola

Now, before we do this, I need to get a little disclaimer going. The information in this podcast and in future podcasts is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose or to treat any illness. The information is general in nature as to reach the broadest audience and help as many people as possible. Just like the majority of the information on the internet is general in nature.

00:01:00

Tara Coppola

It's not intended to help you diagnose or treat your illness. It is intended to reach a wide audience. This being said, if you are having symptoms or you're having a medical concern, reach out to a licensed medical professional to get diagnosed and treated. All right, now that that's out of the way, let's get rolling.

Understanding Naturopathy's Holistic Approach

00:01:25

Tara Coppola

So today we're gonna talk about naturopathy. The art in medicine of healing and helping the body heal itself. Have you ever wondered how all of these ancient arts have come together to help us heal? Or why so many people are now turning to natural medicine? Well, you are in for a treat. I want you to grab your tea, grab your coffee, sit back, and let's learn. Now, first and foremost,

00:01:59

Tara Coppola

What is natureopathy?

00:02:03

Tara Coppola

Natureopathy is the holistic approach to health and wellness. It is true holism because it encompasses body, mind, energy, all together to bring healing. It utilizes the least invasive needs possible to help facilitate the body to heal itself. And this is the crux The goal of a naturopathic doctor is to help the body heal itself, not to stop symptoms. This being said, there's a time and a place for everything in the therapeutic order. And we will discuss the therapeutic order in another podcast. It's a whole different conversation. In general, we'd want to help the body come in and heal itself.

00:02:56

Tara Coppola

So how do we do that? We utilize things such as botanical medicine, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, physical medicine, nutritional interventions, plus many more. Now, all of these interventions have been around for thousands of years with, uh, yeah, for the most part. And

00:03:26

Tara Coppola

They've been evolving as our understanding of the body has been evolving, as our understanding of the way the body heals has been evolving. So why not utilize a medicine that's in alignment with nature, that's in alignment with your body, if it's going to help you heal. We're in a time now where many people just want to stop symptoms.

00:03:55

Tara Coppola

And that is absolutely okay. Everybody is entitled to have their form of healing in the way that they want it. In naturopathic philosophy, suppressing symptoms pushes the symptom deeper into the body and it proliferates in another area. Many times we see these as side effects of medications or issues that come across when ah organ is removed. Now, that doesn't mean that surgeries and pharmaceuticals are never needed. They shouldn't be utilized as a last resort, and they are very helpful when they are needed. Following the therapeutic order, they should not be the first option, depending on the situation.

Core Principles of Naturopathic Medicine

00:04:52

Tara Coppola

Now, let's talk about the core principles of natureopathy. Natureopathy has six core principles. The first is the healing power of nature. Nature paths believe that nature has the power to help the body heal itself. We have to understand that if our bodies did not naturally heal themselves, we would not be here as a species. We would not have made it.

00:05:22

Tara Coppola

because we would have just succumbed very early on to illness and disappeared. The body has a way to heal itself, wants to heal itself, wants to push towards life, okay? So nature paths utilize the healing power of nature. There are substances in nature that help us to support these processes, whether it be botanicals, hydrotherapy, homeopathy, they can all help us to support these processes.

00:05:51

Tara Coppola

The next principle is to identify and treat the cause. Now, every symptom has a cause in the body, in the mind, in the spirit. It's up to the naturopathic practitioner to find out what this cause is. What does that mean? Let's just take hypertension, high blood pressure, for example. If you have high blood pressure, giving a medication is going to stop the high blood pressure and your blood pressure is gonna come down. Yay, no more high blood pressure. However, high blood pressure is the symptom of what's happening, of the cause in the body. And I guarantee you that the cause of the high blood pressure is not a lack of ACE inhibitor. So you have to think about what is causing the high blood pressure on somebody.

00:06:51

Tara Coppola

It can be a multiple of different things. It can be stress and anxiety. It could be nutritional consumption that is not in alignment with the body. It could be working and pushing the body too hard and never resting. It can be something vascular. There could be vascular issues within that person that's restricting predicting blood flow, creating elevated blood pressure. It depends and it's very individual.

00:07:22

Tara Coppola

So it's all about getting to that root cause. Now getting to the root cause will ultimately lead to a symptom reduction. However, it's not going to be here. Take this to reduce your blood pressure because we want to get to the cause. Now that being said,

00:07:46

Tara Coppola

As I mentioned earlier, there's a time and a place for everything. Sometimes we need to stop the symptoms. If the body doesn't have enough vital force to overcome and jump in with the healing process, we may need to suppress those symptoms. So that way we can then help the body increase its vital force and rise back up.

00:08:10

Tara Coppola

Every case is individual and nothing is going to be the same within these various cases. So you have to go to somebody who is well-informed and knowledgeable in understanding the root cause of the disease. Then the next principle is first do no harm. What this means is what I have brought to up before. We're going to utilize the least invasive means, okay? Understanding the obstacle secure,

00:08:40

Tara Coppola

pulling in some stuff to help to support the organ systems, pulling in nutritional recommendations, pulling in lifestyle recommendations to give the body what it needs to heal that is not causing harm. That being said, again, there is a time and a place for everything. And sometimes we do need more intense therapies like pharmaceuticals or surgery.

00:09:09

Tara Coppola

The next philosophy is one of my favorites is doctor is teacher. As a former teacher myself, I want to educate my patients. I want to empower them to take hold of their health and ultimately not need me. Now this is not a good business model. However, I want to empower my patients to learn how to heal themselves. There is such,

00:09:38

Tara Coppola

growth and such internal vital power within us that to truncate somebody's ability to do this on their own is stopping them from being able to grow to their maximum potential. And I never want to do that. I always want to help empower my patients and I do that by educating them. When we understand more, when we know more, we can do more and we are empowered to do better and improve our health.

00:10:08

Tara Coppola

So doctor is teacher, I will always stand by it.

Holistic Healing and Prevention Strategies

00:10:11

Tara Coppola

Then we come to treat the whole person. This speaks to the true holistic nature of naturopathic medicine. Naturopathic medicine encompasses mind, body, emotions, and spirit to heal. We touch on all of these aspects with our patients to help bring true healing to their body.

00:10:35

Tara Coppola

The naturopathic practitioner is the one that is educated and trained to do all of these things. This doesn't mean that we won't refer out to a specialist when needed, absolutely, wait because any good practitioner should refer out if it's needed. It's about getting our patients the most optimal care, even if that care isn't with us. The last principle is prevention.

00:11:04

Tara Coppola

Prevention is the ultimate goal. In an ideal world, all my patients would come to me healthy and I would just help them prevent diseases. It's not an end all be all. You have to remember, we live in a society that does not support health. We live in a society burdened with toxins and void of nutrients that does not support our health. So we can do all of the things we want for prevention and there are still some things that are out of our control. Nothing is ever 100% certain. If I live a clean, healthy life, I will never get XYZ. We can't guarantee that. What we can guarantee is if you lead a lifestyle of prevention, when you get XYZ or when XYZ happens, your body has a larger capacity to heal itself at that point.

00:12:01

Tara Coppola

And it will not affect you as much as other people, most likely. Again, nothing in this world is 100%. Nothing is guaranteed. Now, you might be wondering, but I mean, how does naturopathy actually help me? What can I use it for? So naturopathy is used for everything.

00:12:25

Tara Coppola

from gastrointestinal complaints such as IBS, Crohn's disease, irritable, that is IBS. Gas and bloating, heartburn, we utilize it for arthritis, for you know female concerns, male concerns, cancer and oncology. Naturopathic medicine can be used for everything.

00:12:51

Tara Coppola

naturopathic medicine can also be used in conjunction with conventional care. It doesn't have to be a one or the other.

Healing Modalities in Naturopathy

00:13:01

Tara Coppola

Anytime you're pulling in naturopathy, even if you're using conventional care, your body will heal faster and more efficiently. So naturopaths use multiple modalities. And I brought this up a little bit a few moments ago.

00:13:19

Tara Coppola

We utilize herbal medicine, nutrition, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, physical manipulation, lifestyle recommendations, amongst other things. We utilize all of these in support of the body's innate ability to heal. That's the ultimate goal. And I'm going to keep repeating myself. I'm going to sound like a broken record. The body has an innate ability to heal and we want to support that. Again,

00:13:49

Tara Coppola

Nothing is 100%, but supporting the body's innate ability to heal gives us a best fighting chance. So herbs and botanicals have been used for centuries for various ailments, and now we're lucky enough to be seeing the research that backs their usage.

00:14:15

Tara Coppola

Our human species has been utilizing plants around us for millennia. It's amazing that now we live in a time where we can research it and we can prove it. There are some things in naturopathic medicine where the research hasn't quite been able to be produced. And that goes into the dynamic of of our whole research industry, which I'm not going to touch on right now. That's a whole different podcast. But herbal medicine is definitely one of those where the research is coming up and we do see a lot of it. So that's fantastic. Then we have nutrition. Nutrition is another one where there's a lot of research and

00:15:06

Tara Coppola

You would be surprised how many patients come into my office saying that their medical doctor told them that nutrition has nothing to do with this. and was i just ah It baffles my mind because what we eat builds every single cell our body is made of. So if we're eating a standard American diet or a sad diet as it's called,

00:15:36

Tara Coppola

our body, our cells are literally made up of junk because that's what's in a standard American diet. So how would it be that nutrition has nothing to do with health? The reason that is because most medical doctors don't have an education in nutrition. They know what they know and they know that very well. They know their pharmaceuticals, they know their diagnostics, they know their surgeries very, very well. They don't know nutrition.

00:16:05

Tara Coppola

Nutrition may be a semester they have in it, one class. So they don't understand the dynamics of how important our nutrients are to our body. It is vital for us to get the right nutrition. Now, there are so many diets out in the world. So many diets. Oh my goodness.

00:16:36

Tara Coppola

anybody can go from eating a standard American diet to eating anything else that's healthier and feel a little better. The problem is that feeling better will only last a short amount of time before signs and symptoms come in again if that new healthy diet isn't geared for that individual person. So it creates a whole frustration within us. Like why is there all this misinformation out there?

00:17:05

Tara Coppola

why can't I get a diet that's good for me? Like where am I supposed to go? X, Y, and Z says this, they say that. It's all this information is opposed. And it's true. And it's so, so frustrating. And we will talk on nutrition at Nauseam in another episode. At the end of the day, we want a diet that is individual to us. And that is the long-term diet. So with these other quick fixes on the internet, you'll feel better for a little bit of time, which is great. It's great to you know start eating healthier, start getting better foods in and feel a little bit better. If you start a new diet and then within a few months to a year, you start to feel worse, that's your body sign that that's not the right diet for you and you should reach out to a licensed naturopathic doctor. Homeopathy.

00:18:05

Tara Coppola

Homeopathy is a another tool that naturopaths use. Homeopathy is a beautiful, energetic medicine that utilizes the philosophy of like cures, like it utilizes a small, small amount of substance to help facilitate energetic healing in the body. It's

00:18:31

Tara Coppola

a holistic practice because it takes into consideration that individual's entire picture and helps to align the energy systems within that individual to bring healing on an and energetic plane.

00:18:51

Tara Coppola

Homeopathy can be practiced a couple of ways. It can be practiced acutely. It can be practiced constitutionally. There's a lot of different ways to utilize homeopathy. and you want to find and utilize the one that's best for you, which is why it's always best to go to a licensed professional. I will touch on homeopathy at in another podcast, but for right now I'm just going to briefly mention that. Physical medicine is another thing that naturopathic doctors use. We use

00:19:25

Tara Coppola

manipulations, we utilize some of us utilize acupuncture, some of us utilize massage, some of us utilize mind body connection physicality for our physical medicine. There are multiple different physical modalities that nature paths can use. And it's about finding the nature path that utilizes the one that speaks best to you and what your body now needs. Then there's hydrotherapy. Hydrotherapy encompasses the healing modality of water to improve circulation, to reduce stress, to increase the immune system and to ease tension within the body. These are only a handful of the modalities that naturopathic physicians use to help facilitate the body's innate ability to heal.

Collaboration and Future of Naturopathy

00:20:26

Tara Coppola

Now, as we move and progress towards the future of our healthcare system, I would love to see a beautiful collaboration between nature paths and conventional medicine. You know, at the end of the day, many, many patients are utilizing naturopathic medicine and not telling their medical doctors because

00:20:54

Tara Coppola

Doctors have fired patients. Doctors have talked down to patients. Doctors have made patients feel like they're making a bad decision and it creates frustration within the patient. I would love to see a beautiful collaborative effort where we all work together with each other to get the patient the healing that they need, not whatever is going to push our ego at the time. So,

00:21:25

Tara Coppola

It's ultimately it's up to the patients to choose the healing that works best for them. And you can't choose something if you don't know. So this is one of the reasons that I'm doing this podcast is to help bring natureopathy a little bit more to the forefront. I have people that have known me for decades and don't know or understand what I do because they've never met or talked to a naturopath.

00:21:55

Tara Coppola

We're almost like elusive, we hide in various corners of the world. So it's time to bring the voice of nature-opathy forward, time to bring the healing of nature forward, time to bring vitality to the forefront. Now, before we wrap up, I want to invite you to explore the healing power of nature-opathy in your health journey.

00:22:23

Tara Coppola

We are going to touch on a lot of different things in this podcast. We're gonna talk about the various modalities. We're gonna talk about research. We're gonna talk about disease states. We're gonna talk about a lot. I'm gonna pull in people for interviews. And if you have questions or if you have something that you're interested in knowing more about, I encourage you to reach out to me.

00:22:51

Tara Coppola

you can reach me on my website, www.risingphoenixnaturopathy.com.

Engagement and Next Episode Teaser

00:22:59

Tara Coppola

You can email me at info at risingphoenixnaturopathy.com. And let me know what your questions are and I'll do my best to get them answered on this podcast. So you can visit my website for resources and tips As I said a moment ago, it's www.risingphoenixmajoropathy.com. You can book a free discovery consultation. You can email me there if you have questions. Whether you are new to this field or looking for more tools, I will have resources up on the website for you. If you found today's episode helpful, please subscribe or like so I can reach more people.

00:23:49

Tara Coppola

If you think someone you know can benefit from learning more about naturopathy, please share this episode with them. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for turning on Healing Insights today and listening to my ah little discussion about naturopathy. In my next discussion, we're gonna talk about vitalism.

00:24:15

Tara Coppola

the core of naturopathic medicine. I'm so excited. I look forward to meeting with you again. Thank you and take care.