Stacy Brindise, 30, was eager to have children. But after trying for several years to conceive, she and her husband, Mike, were still childless. Like millions of couples, the Brindises were faced with what doctors refer to as “unexplained infertility.”
Couples diagnosed with unexplained infertility are typically active, health-conscious people of childbearing age who find themselves—for no apparent reason—without a crib or a bottle in the house. Like many, the Brindises followed a familiar route, first consulting doctors who recommended hormone treatment, which Stacy reluctantly decided to try. The arduous six-cycle program involved daily medications, self-administered hormone shots, and monthly intrauterine insemination with a catheter.
But the Brindises still couldn’t get pregnant.
Physicians next suggested that Stacy try in vitro fertilization. It would involve doses of medication, a considerable price tag (starting at $12,000), and increased chances of her having twins—factors that gave the couple considerable pause.
Nothing had worked and it was time, Stacy decided, to change her approach.
“When people have a medical problem, everybody seems to jump right to drugs as the solution,” she says. “I wanted to see if improving my overall health and well-being would increase our chances of getting pregnant naturally.”
Stacy is not alone in her gut feeling that first addressing her overall health and well-being—before investing in more invasive solutions—might be a key element in her healthcare. High-tech, high-cost approaches clearly have their place, and modern medicine can boast many silver-bullet solutions. But millions of Americans feel that’s not enough. They spend more than $30 billion a year out of their own pockets for alternative treatments, according to data compiled by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Funding for NCCAM—the U.S. government’s “lead agency for scientific research on complementary and alternative medicine”—hit $128 million in 2012, a 156% increase since its inception in 1999.
“Complementary and alternative” is the federal government’s current label for approaches that lie outside the mainstream. However, a nationwide survey shows that approximately 38% of U.S. adults aged 18 years and over use some form of complementary and alternative medicine—anything from acupuncture to meditation. That’s starting to look pretty mainstream, which is one reason many doctors prefer the term “integrative” healthcare.
In 2010, 600 healthcare professionals assembled in Washington, D.C., for a summit on integrative medicine. It was sponsored by the Institute of Medicine, which defines integrative medicine as “healthcare that addresses together the mental, emotional, and physical aspects of the healing process for improving the breadth and depth of patient-centered care and promoting the nation’s health.”
The doctors who champion integrative approaches are not simply proposing “alternatives.” They advocate an updated model of healthcare that integrates mind and body, promotes more interaction and communication in the doctor-patient relationship, puts the patient at the center, and encourages self-care.
The average doctor spends 7 minutes per patient, while the average integrative practitioner spends 30 minutes. —Dr. David Spiegel, director of the Center on Stress and Health at Stanford University
Florence Strang’s successful battle with breast cancer is a prime example of integrative medicine—of taking care of the whole person while trying to cure a disease. She is alive today because of radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery. But Strang also attended a mindfulness retreat led by an oncologist, and she credits mindfulness and awareness practices with helping her cope with the suffering that came with those life-saving treatments.
“I was undergoing a lot of lengthy, painful, and uncomfortable treatments and procedures,” she says. “In one year I had six rounds of chemo, 25 radiation treatments, three surgeries, and I would not be able to tell you how many difficult tests and procedures.”
Strang is a registered psychologist who works as an elementary school guidance counselor. She knew the chemotherapy treatments were helping her fight cancer. But in the process, her body was weakening and suffering profoundly. By her second round of chemo, she knew that if she was going to get through it, she needed to stay focused on the positive.
“The most important thing I did is what I would call mindfulness of healing,” says Strang. “Instead of fighting against these treatments, which left me feeling in such misery, I just observed and accepted what was happening. And I would think to myself, ‘Chemotherapy is my friend. It’s going to save my life.’
“If I observed the treatment from a place of being kind and healing to myself, rather than looking at the treat