Remember a time when something broke in your car while you were cruising down the road? Yeah, we’ve all been there when that dreaded check-engine light comes on.
At that moment, you realize “Oh snap, I need to get this fixed NOW!” And if something is broken, odds are that it will stay broken until a mechanic fixes it.
NOW, what if I told you that the most complex organism on the face of the earth doesn’t need a mechanic? That’s because the human body is designed to fix itself.
SERIOUSLY!!! Think about getting a paper cut. We don’t need to take time to consciously grow skin cells, glue them all together, and filter out bacteria everytime we get a cut. Your body literally does that for you in your sleep. It’s like a little construction crew working behind the scenes while you continue about your day. This is the vis medicatrix naturae at work!
That what?!
The vis medicatrix naturae ( or “vis,” for short). The fancy Latin phrase that translates to the “healing power of nature.”
What naturopathic doctors mean by the vis, is that each living being has the ability to heal itself. What this ability exactly is turns out to be difficult to define (we’ll save a philosophical deep dive for another time). Yet no matter your definition of the vis, most people can agree that there are natural processes within us that create and maintain health. The role of the naturopathic doctor is to support those processes.
That said, “natural” is not always a good thing. Some natural processes put us into a state of disease (example: fevers are helpful in fighting infection, but could cause seizures if they get too high). In this case, appropriate intervention is needed to keep the vis in check.
A naturopathic doctor uses tools that help the healing power of nature correct course as gently as possible. Sometimes that means a soft nudge with an herbal tea, sometimes a forceful push with a concentrated supplement, and sometimes a full tackle with a drug or surgery. It all depends on what is required in a specific situation — there is never a one-size-fits-all solution.
Do you recognize the healing power of nature at work in your own body and the world around you? Share in the comments below.