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Introduction

You know St John’s Wort is nature’s own Prozac and good for mild to moderate depression, but you don’t know how much to take or for how long. You read somewhere that rotting banana skins can help heal a verruca, or was that one you imagined? Your sister told you there’s a great new hands-on massage treatment which will leave you feeling revitalised and centred, but you’ve forgotten the name and you’d love to escape to one of the new ‘spiritual spas’, but don’t know where to go or what to take with you.

If these are the kinds of things that race around your brain as you try to keep up with what’s new in holistic and complementary health, then this is the book for you. If you’re forever cutting health and lifestyle snippets from newspapers and magazines and then losing them, or if you push your trolley around the supermarket trying to remember which is better – oat bran or wheat bran? – then What Really Works has the answer.

Packed with cutting-edge advice and proven tips to help you lead a more holistic and nourishing life, it takes the legwork out of figuring out how best to enjoy optimum health and well-being for the rest of your life. You don’t have to do the research because I’ve done it for you.

In the first section, BodyWorks, you will learn, for example, about the most important five building blocks of good health – Food, Air, Water, Sunlight and Exercise. You’ll find out why prebiotics are the next big wave in digestive health and how to breathe properly again. Find out why you should not be hiding indoors from sun and how a form of Tai Chi with a broom handle (of all things!) can help keep you in good physical shape.

Section II, which is called Top-to-Toe, is an A–Z of everyday health complaints, from acne to vitiligo. Here you will find the same no-nonsense advice that has made my weekly columns in The Sunday Times, The Times and The Sun such a hit with 18 million readers. You’ll discover it’s true that a banana skin can help get rid of a verruca – but only if you tape the blackened inside of the skin over the head of the wart. You’ll also learn why homocysteine, a normal byproduct of metabolism, is a more important indicator of potential heart problems than cholesterol, and find out how you can reverse lots of digestive disorders.

Again, I’ve read the books, interviewed the health gurus and been pummelled and prodded by a variety of hands-on therapists so that I can report back on what really works. You will find the best nutritional, herbal, homeopathic and other natural remedies to 80 conditions, ranging from whey protein concentrate for athlete’s foot to nettle tea for the common and distressing Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Section III, Hands-On, will help you sort your Reiki (pronounced ray-key) from your Metas (Metamorphic Technique). If you’ve never heard of either, this A–Z section will unravel the mystery and help you decide which complementary treatment best suits you, your stage in life or any particular problem you may currently have. We’ve reviewed some of the very best complementary therapies and can tell you how to find a good practitioner, what will happen during treatment, and what you will feel during the session and after.

Discover, too, how just two supplements and a common herb will give you the same energy levels you had 10 years ago and find out more about the new concept of energy and vibrational medicine, which encourages practitioners to treat the cause and not the symptoms of an illness.

In SoulWorks, we turn to spiritual health – every bit as important as your physical well-being. This section draws from the world’s richest and most potent healing traditions to put you back in touch with your own inner voice. Find out how animals bring signs from those guiding you on your spiritual path. Discover the significance and the names of your own power animals, and learn some of the shamanic techniques that all our ancestors practised before modern medicine was born, when everyone accepted that sickness was a reflection of an ailing soul.

You will, and may already have, found you own spiritual path, but in the chapter devoted to Prayer & Meditation I will introduce you to a simple but powerful meditation technique where you get all the anti-stress and inner health benefits of stilling the mind, without having to sit on a cold, hard floor or remembering to chant ‘om’.

Finally, the last chapter, Time Out, shows you how to nourish your soul by taking off on a spiritual retreat. Forget limp lettuce leaves and carrot juice. The spiritual spa has taken over from the health farm as the ultimate escape for those seeking a new way of living. You can have warm oil poured over your mystical third eye, book an holistic body massage with a therapist who has trained for seven years with Thai monks or practise your yoga Sun Salutations to the sound of the Caribbean sea lapping the palm-fringed shore. In this chapter I recommend my own personal list of the Top 10 best secret hide-aways that really will give your mind, body and soul a break. You won’t find these in any spa or guidebook but you will, if you go to any of them, return to your daily life feeling inspired and spiritually renewed.

One of the biggest criticisms of complementary treatments is that there is no true evidence to show they work. This is rubbish. You just have to dig for it. Of course, most people do not have time to scour the latest scientific papers, read every new health book or talk to the experts, but that is my job. I am never off duty and I love what I do. I consider myself lucky to get paid for it, and even more fortunate to be able to pass what I learn on so that other people can also take responsibility for their own health.

This is not a book you have to read from cover to cover but, if you like, a reference manual which you can dip in and out of at will. There’s an excellent Resources section to help you find the practitioners and products you need to stay healthy, and a comprehensive Bibliography to help you start to build your own ‘health library’, or simply find out more.

Throughout the writing of this book, I’ve had one vivid image in mind. I live in the Chiltern Hills in Oxfordshire, about an hour out of London and opposite a lush green beechwood. As the idea of a book which bridged my twin interests of complementary health and a more sacred way of living took root, I noticed that the early summer foxgloves outside my home were growing with renewed vigour.

One afternoon, while walking my dog, I strayed from the marked footpath and stumbled across a magnificent row of six-footers; standing like sentries guarding the woodland. I had never noticed foxgloves in that spot before and I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again, but what struck me was the realisation that each and every one had it’s roots firmly in the woodland soil and shade but was growing, as fast as it could, towards the light.

I can’t think of a better metaphor for that new and more sacred way of living that so many of us have now set our hearts on. Take a detour from your own fixed path and you too will find yourself reaching away from the shadows towards the light. My wish for my book is that it will be a tool to help other like-minded people find the inner strength to recognise their own journey and embark on it.

Susan Clark

www.WhatReallyWorks.co.uk