In my experience as a holistic health practitioner and in researching some of the self-help methods recommended on this site, I sometimes come across negative attitudes or opinions about the effectiveness of treatment methods that I know to be very effective and beneficial.
Now, no treatment works for everyone, and perhaps these negative opinions were from people who really gave these techniques a good try and they just did not work. But I often get the sense that the negative opinions are actually coming from individuals who have a “been there, done that” attitude and they never actually did what was recommended. Instead, they took a brief look at the information, or tried one or two doses of a product, or did one or two tries at an exercise, or whatever it was. At best, they gave it a half-hearted try and when it failed to produce immediate, dramatic effects, they gave up and dismissed it as being worthless.
As a health care practitioner, I have seen the “been there, done that” attitude numerous times in patients. For that matter, I’ve HAD the “been there, done that” attitude myself from time to time. It’s very much a part of human nature to search for something new and different rather than simply employ time-tested, effective methods. For many of us, there’s always a part of us looking for a new and better way. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that, unless in our search for that new and better way, we fail to utilize previously established techniques, boring though they might be, that would bring us the outcome we are seeking.
So what happens with the “been there, done that” attitude is we either dismiss the “tried and true” treatment altogether without even trying it, or only give it a half-hearted effort. I have seen this many times over the years when I prescribe physical or mental exercises or recommend supplements or remedies to patients.
For example, I might prescribe a given exercise to be done twice per day, every day. When I follow-up with the patient a week or so later, I always ask how they’ve been doing with the exercises. The majority of the time, the patient will say something nondescriptive like “OK” or “alright” (which usually means they haven’t done them at all). A few will proudly proclaim that they’ve done the exercise “at least 5 or 6 times” since the last time I saw them (which might sound good, but since they were instructed to do them twice per day for a week, they should have done them 14 times!).
To make a long story short, very few patients actually follow-through on self-treatment recommendations and rather than take responsibility for not following the recommendations, most will tell themselves that the exercises, diet, supplements, etc. didn’t work – and look for something new and better. I can’t tell you how many times patients will ask me for additional exercises to do or new supplements to take when they haven’t consistently used the first ones I’ve prescribed.
My point here is that if you suffer from any of the vast majority of health problems, there are usually effective natural treatments and techniques for handling the problem, but the it usually takes some time and consistent use to get good long-term results. You can’t just do an exercise or use a supplement or herb (or for that matter, take a medication) once or twice and expect to be “cured” for life.
Repetition and consistency are key to getting good results from any health intervention.