Do chronic health problems define your life? Do you accept your chronic symptoms as ?just the way I am? or consider your aches and pains to be a ?normal? part of old age? Most people in America have some kind of chronic health problem, ranging from nuisance symptoms like headaches or allergies to full-blown disabling diseases like diabetes or fibromyalgia. What most people don't know, though, is that many of these problems can be much improved or even disappear completely.

If you have tried to reverse your symptoms and have been unable to do so, it might help to understand the distinction between curing and healing. Each approach towards reversing symptoms works differently, and both play an important role in getting better. This knowledge may help you take steps to restore your health faster and more completely.

Curing involves concentration upon symptoms and abnormal pathological tests. The emphasis is on removing symptoms and seeking to return you to the state you were in before you became aware of an illness or were injured. Curing techniques can be very beneficial and invaluable, especially in emergency situations, for temporary relief of symptoms, for injuries, and for individuals whose lives do not permit healing to occur. Seeing skilled practitioners can be an important part of curing.

Healing addresses symptoms differently. A healing approach delves to the cause or root of the symptoms, to work on the underlying factors creating the symptoms, rather than just trying to make the symptoms disappear. Such causes may include lifestyle habits, environmental influences, current or past emotions, traumatic experiences, or beliefs.. Healing may explore what a symptom may be telling you about yourself. It also may help you become more whole and function at a higher level than before. Healing uses inner power and mind/body resources to restore or create a unique balance and harmony resulting in health, vitality and joy. With healing, health improvements may be long-lasting or permanent because they are more thorough.

Curing often works on the physical level. Healing may do so too, and then explore other connections to your health problem, such as the mental-emotional connection. This connection between the body and mind is being addressed more and more by different realms of medicine and science.

Healing can be sometimes like putting together a puzzle, especially with chronic or complex health issues. Various practitioners or methods might each provide a different piece to the puzzle. Using different methods at the same time can sometimes create a kind of healing "synergy" in which the whole is more than the sum of the parts.

Curing and healing can complement each other. Curing may even be an important part of healing.

Some health treatments can both cure and heal. For example, massage can cure by alleviating symptoms and pain on the physical level, often producing dramatic results. Massage can also heal, because of its holistic nature that addresses the wholeness of a person. Massage touches all levels of a person's being, so a person may come into a bodywork session with tight, painful muscles that are causing a chronic health problem, and leave the room not only free from pain, but also with a whole different state of mind and emotions.

Not all healing or curing needs to be accomplished by practitioners or physicians. One of the most effective ways of restoring or recovering health is to practice a self-help wellness program consisting of skilled relaxation, a nutritious diet, and the right exercise for you. These three activities are healing methods that address many of the causes of common health symptoms and illnesses, and can often turn a chronic problem around in a matter of months. This may seem surprising, but it is true that making simple lifestyle changes can be a powerful path to greater health.

As you take charge of your health by using both curing and healing, watch yourself become free of the nuisance symptoms or chronic illnesses that define your life!