Those of us who claim that we do not practice any form of alternative medicine or therapies have missed out considering all the simple remedies that we apply at home.

Consider the following examples:-

- Do you massage your neck at the back when you have a splitting headache?

- Do you put an ice pack on a sprained ankle?

- Have you not ever used some aromatherapy for your room?

- Have you not ever take some honey when you are having a bad throat?

- Have you not ever taken chamomile tea for cooling and for de-stress?

- Do you drink your mums traditional herbal chicken soup home brewed for 10 hours meant for strengthening and warming your internal body?

In fact, these represent just a few out of the many simple remedies that we use in our everyday life. When we think of alternative medicine or therapies, we conjure images of some out-of-the-ordinary practices. Of course, alternative medicine and therapies can range to the more unconventional ones like hypnotherapy, past life regression, energy healing, etc. But mostly, they are not.

Here comes some surprising statistics. The World Health Organization estimates that between 65 and 80 percent of the world's population (about 3 billion people) rely on traditional (read: "alternative") medicine as their primary form of health care. It further states that when these traditional medical treatments are introduced into Western culture, they are seen as complementary or alternative.

Most of us tend to fail to factor in these alternative everyday remedies, but choose to think that we are believers of conventional medicine versus alternative medicine. After all, conventional medicine is very much backed by well documented research, statistics and proven theories; whereas alternative medicine is not. Still, having the benefit of practicing some of these home remedies, there is no denying that they do help in providing some form of relief and treatment. In addition, they dont cost much in terms of money and time, and most importantly, have few or little side effects.

It is therefore, a good idea to spend some time to get to know more about these alternative therapies and remedies and apply them more diligently to our everyday life. We may choose to include massage therapy, aromatherapy, eating a healthy diet, practicing yoga and relaxing breathing techniques. In the end, our spending on drugs and doctors bills is likely to be less and at the same time, we will be adopting natural methods to heal ourselves.