PARADOXICAL
The faith chroniclesFriday, September 27, 2024
Wellness: A Movement, a Lifestyle
Wellness: A Movement, a Lifestyle
Wellness is a big word. It emerged in mainstream use in the past few decades as a kind of catch-all that deserves other big words when defined. For indeed when discussed as an umbrella term, it cuts across disciplinary lines and, like other complex concepts, there is difficulty in capturing it its entirety it in one sitting.What exactly is wellness? In broad strokes, it is understood today as the state of being well in body, mind, and spirit. It is, in this sense, almost synonymous to the concept of wholeness.
But to physicians, it used to be just an innocuous word meaning “the state of having a clean bill of health.” Psychologists, in their own rarefied view, naturally referred to it as being mentally sound. The religious would, of course, regard it on a higher plane: it means having a soul in a state of purity.
But things eventually changed such that these disparate fields were shaken from their position of self-assurance, forcing them to acknowledge aspects of wellness they hardly ever considered before, pleading incapacity. From the Age of Specialization or Differentiation, there was a notable shift to the Age of Integration.
Suddenly, the lines blurred, and at least to my eyes, a kind of comedy ensued, as food became medicine, kitchen comestibles turned into cosmetics, and physicians sounded like psychologists and pastors and vice-versa. The “non-overlapping magisteria” that are science and religion, as Stephen Jay Gould put it, suddenly stopped being parallel lines and start intersecting with each other.
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The winds of paradigmatic change were practically blowing in all directions, as a result. The comparatively rigid field of medicine especially was not spared the upheaval, which came largely unanticipated. What was once laughable, because shrouded in superstition, was now given some scientific consideration. And what was once suspiciously called “alternative” was now being touted as “complementary” or even “supportive,” if not “integrative.” A “holistic” approach to medicine emerged, based on the concept that the mind, the body, and the spirit are intricately connected, such that a disconnect in one realm instantaneously affects the others. Now, there is talk about the "gut-brain axis."
But as in any major changes, there were always the holdouts. Many M.D.s today remain contemptuous of the new modalities of treatment, convinced that Western medicine is the only orthodox path to healing. Still, they cannot discount the fact that not a few of their fellow practitioners are giving complementary medicine a second look. Dr. Sigfried Galang of The Farm at San Benito is one such doctor. He is among those who believe that “health is the perfect balance between the physical, mental, and spiritual body of an individual,” taking his cue from Dr. Dennis Gersten’s aphorism: “Holistic approach means recognizing that the mind and spirit have a direct powerful effect on how the body functions.”
For Dr. Galang, however, the holistic approach inherent in the wellness movement is more about disease prevention than cure, as for example, in the various detoxification processes he advocates at The Farm. Their most popular therapy, he says, is colon hydrotherapy, specifically “colema” or coffee enema (Dr. Gerson therapy), which is touted to detoxify the liver. Apart from colonics, this particular Lipa City resort offers a very long list of “integrated medical services,” including “nutritional microscopy,” acupuncture, art therapy, “miracle science,” and “biorhythm analysis.”
Perhaps even more tellingly, popular and specialized medical websites such as WebMD, PubMed/NCBI, and FirstConsult now devote space to herbal and Chinese medicine, not as an afterthought, but with uncharacteristic attentiveness. On the other hand, ordinary folks – mouthing their weariness over synthetic drugs’ exorbitant price and perceived side effects, and scared of going through invasive surgery and pain – are having the same reconsideration on their own. They are prodded, no doubt, by a host of TV and AM radio shows devoted to alternative medicine.
By the ’90s, the Philippine government itself had no choice but to adjust. In 1992, Department of Health (DOH) Secretary, Dr. Juan M. Flavier, launched the Traditional Medicine Program. In 1997, President Fidel V. Ramos signed into law Republic Act 8423 or the Traditional and Alternative Medicine Act, from which sprouted the Philippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Health Care or PITAHC. Another well-known doctor, Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan, openly advocated herbal medicine at the risk of being laughed at by peers. By the 2010s, 10 traditional medicinal plants would be “endorsed by the DOH as herbal medicine.” Flavier would be known as the “father of alternative medicine” in the Philippines, and Galvez Tan an “integrative doctor.” Eventually, another batch of herbals would be added to the endorsed list.
However, Dr. Irene Peñamante, a naturopath, says that in the Philippine context, what is regarded as new today is, in fact, rooted in ancient practices. She said wellness has a long, checkered but interesting history, from quack doctors of pre-conquest era peddling what passed for as their version of snake oil, followed by the so-called mananambal, magtatawas, and albularyo (from herbolario) who resorted to the “tapal-tapal” (application of fire-heated leaves) method of healing. Western medicine, she continued, was introduced during the American era, and with it came the introduction of synthetic drugs. Completing the picture was the popularity of the hilot (a sort of massage therapist), the medico (who mixed Western medicine, or allopathy, with indigenous practices), and the faith healer. It would take several decades more before the concept of using health food, particularly herbs, to regain health would again take center stage. Naturopathy, an American-European concept, is currently undergoing certification in the country.
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When the wellness concept inevitably invaded the hospitality industry, it was in this melded form: part-medicine, part-psychology, part-spirituality. Newspaper columnist Cory Quirino was no longer just a beauty expert but a health and fitness connoisseur as well, not to mention a spiritual guru. In the traditional trimedia, now called “legacy media,” there was suddenly an explosion of ads pushing as beauty-enhancing agents what used to be exclusively known as food ingredients. Hotels and resorts began offering gourmet food not only for the flesh but also for the soul. Organic produce, meaning nutritious food produced without pesticides, as well as food labels certifying fair trade and sustainable practices, became sought-after. Farm-to-table and locavorism were among the new concepts being bandied about, as were herb-infused bath products and biodegradable packaging. Being green and socially responsible was suddenly cool in the hospitality industry.
Then one day, everybody who’s anybody in the business was offering a host of massage techniques and spa treatments. In their 2007 book, Wellness on the Islands: The Philippine Spa Experience, Luca Invernizzi Tettoni and Elizabeth V. Reyes focus on the spa as the vortex of the wellness enterprise, but the inside pages reveal a fuller extent of what this "spa experience" means. This old travel and lifestyle writer thought he has tried it all (name it – from shiatsu, Thai, Swedish, ventosa, cranial massage with lavender oil, to foot spa and even dagdagay, the Cordillera foot massage using sticks, with the exception of maybe the kawa bath in Antique), but this book shows he still doesn't know half of it. There is also apparently the use of hot stones, herbal pouches, mud and clay, seawater and seaweed, coffee and sugar, rice, salt and sand, banana leaves to diagnose problematic body parts, berries and lemongrass, hair spa, hand spa, and honey and bee sting therapy. And these are all often mentioned in the same breath as yoga, tai chi and qigong.
Notably, part of this development was the resurrection, and modernization, of the hilot, together with a cachet of native terminology: suob, baños, hampol, kalawag… An unthinkable prospect became a fad too: juicing as a cleansing strategy, i.e., the use of vegetable and fruit juice as a way, supposedly, to get rid of food-borne toxins in the body such as pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, and preservatives.
The field of psychology, for its part, became replete with practitioners who espoused the eclectic psychospiritual approach to counseling and therapy, merging two supposedly separate branches of knowledge and praxis. Would the development of the subfield of nutritional psychology be far behind?
With high-end hospitals striving to look like hotels and resorts, further blurring the lines, it would not take too long before religious retreat houses started reengineering their meals too to resemble “cleansing diets” and “spa cuisine,” their facilities upgraded to include therapeutic massages, and their rooms refurbished to look like luxurious vacation houses that anticipate paradise by approximating it on earth. Then again, the mind-body-spirit dictum has already extended its long tentacles to the spiritual realm, if we go by priests and nuns openly connecting bodily ailment and soul disease in case we are still missing the point. It’s anybody’s guess where this continuous merging of formerly disparate consciousness will lead us.
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Now if the foregoing sounds like we have taken the concept too far, that’s because that is how far indeed the mammoth wellness train has traveled: from being all about physical fitness to being an entire movement, if not lifestyle, and as such, one that is poised to become a mainstay of the future.
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