How to UnBreak Your Health: Your Map to the World of Complementary and Alternative Therapies, Second Edition

Alan E. Smith
Loving Healing Press (2010)
ISBN 9781615990429
Reviewed by Vicki Landes for Reader Views (06/10)

Today more than ever, we are bombarded with stories of horrible drug side effects and greedy medical insurance companies.  While we pay out the nose for health insurance, we spend hours in a waiting room and only get to talk to a doctor for a few minutes before he or she slaps you with a prescription and sends you out the door.  Modern medicine, in all of its advances and breakthroughs, serves to treat the symptoms more so than the actual cause.  As the system gets worse, more and more people are turning to alternatives; “How to UnBreak Your Health: Your Map to the World of Complementary and Alternative Therapies” hopes to guide those lost in today’s medical maze towards hope and recovery.

“How to UnBreak Your Health” is a comprehensive collection of the various complementary and alternative therapies available to the ailing.  From well known practices such as massage, yoga, chiropractic, and acupuncture to lesser-known yet rather surprisingly effective techniques like Applied Kinesiology and Cold Laser Therapy.  Author Alan E. Smith breaks down each and every method and gives just enough information to explain the concept without getting ‘bogged down in the weeds.’  The information he gives includes the background of each therapy, what they involve, who came up with the theory and technique, and what type of health issues they seem to work on best.  Websites and other reference information are also presented for further research. 
 
“How to UnBreak Your Health” is a fantastic resource for anyone looking to take more control of their health.  Since Smith gives only a short synopsis of each method, he maintains a manageable-sized book for the non-professional while including over 330 different complementary and alternative therapies in 150 categories.  Further, he doesn’t dissuade his readers from utilizing traditional medical avenues; instead he encourages using both traditional and alternative practices in tandem as to complement each other.  In concluding his work, Smith gives some advice on questions to ask an insurance company regarding coverage of complementary and alternative therapies. 

As a self-labeled ‘doubter,’ I began reading “How to UnBreak Your Health” with plenty of skepticism.  While I found just a few of the mind and spirit/energy therapies to be a bit ‘hokey,’ the majority of the methods presented made complete sense.  Alan E. Smith speaks with intelligence while imparting enough enthusiasm on his readers to get them energized without going overboard.  “How to UnBreak Your Health” has changed my opinion of complementary and alternative therapies!