Complete Wellness: Enjoy long-lasting health and well-being with more than 800 natural remedies

by Neal's Yard Remedies

Enjoy long-lasting holistic health and prepare natural health remedies for common ailments with essential oils, herbal remedies, and pure foods.

Complete Wellness delivers a head-to-toe guide to healing for every part of your body. Targeted instructions allow you to tap into the restorative powers of herbs and plants and their therapeutic essential oils and use tried-and-true, centuries-old herbal remedies to treat a host of common ailments.

In addition to healing remedies, the book explores the key building blocks for optimizing health and well-being in each part of the body, pointing you to the top herbs, nutrients, and essential oils each area needs not only to stay well, but to reach the very peak of wellness--whether to boost circulation, enjoy glowing skin, balance gut flora, or maximize energy levels. Guidance is given on incorporating ingredients into everyday regimens, helping you to stay in optimal health.

Follow step-by-step demonstrations on how to blend your own teas and tinctures; concoct all-natural-ingredient creams; create therapeutic aromatherapy oil blends; discover delicious recipes for wellness; and master a variety of other practical techniques and tips for lifelong well-being. Make the most of nature's resources with Complete Wellness.

Genres: Health, Nonfiction, Self Help, Cooking, Reference

304 pages, Hardcover

Published September 18, 2018

Reviews

[Ren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you believe pharmaceuticals shouldn't be our first line of treatment when we get sick? Or that we don't need a pill to stay healthy? Yes? This would be a great reference for you! Pharmaceuticals do have their place, but looking at more natural remedies is a great place to begin.

The layout of this books makes it easy to use. We begin by learning about the various natural ingredients we'll be using - herbs, essential oils and foods - and also get an overview on therapies such as massage, acupuncture, reflexology and more. Then we move into the various body systems - mind and emotions, digestive system, urinary system, etc - as well as sections specifically for men, women and children. Each section starts with suggestions for staying healthy and then moves into natural treatments for a number of ailments. The table of contents makes it easy to go directly to the information we are in search of, including a list of the food recipes and their locations in the various sections. Great, easy to access information. I'd love to have a copy of this one on my shelf!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, DK, for the opportunity to read and review this informative book! All comments are my own, unbiased opinion.

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun and pretty book with a great premise, but the title is a misnomer as it's not at all complete. This is way too big of a theme to cover in one book. It barely scratches the surface of each topic. Like many "natural healing" books, it makes me think of putting all the possible answers in a hat and pulling out 2 or 3 to list. Shrug. It's not the fault of the book really, as you can't list more than 800 remedies and 100 different ailments in a 300 page book and expect anything near "complete" answers.

All that said, whoever did the art and editing made it beautiful. The layout is light, pretty, and easy to read. You're likely to find helpful information but then I suggest getting more in depth books to go from there.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

[Lili · Rating 5 out of 5]

From Netgalley for review:

I have to say, it is refreshing to see a book labeled 'Complete Wellness' cover things other than herbal remedies. It has diet, lifestyle, and other alternative medicine approaches to various health problems. In usual DK fashion, it is a very visually dynamic and easy to navigate book. I think this book would be perfectly safe for a beginner to someone with a basic understanding of herbal medicine and alternative medicine to use, more advanced readers might find it a bit redundant, but having a very clear and helpful guide for newbies is great. Especially when most the things listed in the book are easy to obtain and fairly harmless if attempting self medication.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. From food suggestions, vitamins and essential oils and more to help cure literally whatever ails you. I borrowed it from the library and I need to get my own copy.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides information on natural remedies for different health problems. They take the different problems--like stress or toothache or carpal tunnel syndrome--and suggest possible remedies under several subsections: herbs, essential oils, food, supplements, and other therapies. Under each section, they briefly named the remedy and explained what it does, when to avoid using it, and how to use it. For example, under essential oils, "Basil strengthens resistance to stress. Avoid during pregnancy. Add three drops to a diffuser." There is not a lot of information for each remedy. I would've liked information on how long one can take the remedy as I know that some should not be taken long-term.

They covered problems with moods, different parts of your body, immunity and intolerances, women's health, men's health, and children's health. They also explained step-by-step how to make a herbal infusion, extract, macerated oil, decoction, syrup, herbal capsule, poultice, essential oil blend, balm, cream, and essential oil compress. Again, there wasn't a lot of depth to the information provided, but they do provide the basic information on how to do these things. They also included a few recipes for things like smoothies, soups, and salads.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher through Amazon Vine.

[Sandy Sandmeyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of DK Books. They are always well-written, well-illustrated, and informative. I'm also a huge fan of using natural practices for the first line of defense. This books walks through each part of the body, starting with the mind and emotions, and ends up with chapters about women's, men's, and children's health. Herbs, essential oils, food, and therapies are all discussed for each section of the book and allows the users to choose what remedies could work for them. The book explains how to make 11 different types of recipes like tinctures, syrups, balms, compress, and decoction. I think that DK has hit it out of the park again with Complete Wellness. This book is easy enough for a layperson to understand and an excellent resource for any lover of natural healing.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is actually THE BOOK that I have been looking for for years!  It lists conditions and which herbs, essential oils AND FOODS can help.  

I love that this book incorporates food as a part of a holistic health plan.  What we eat is so important and should, in my opinion, be considered part of a holistic health plan.  Food is medicine.  We can prevent so many conditions just by eating the right foods or avoiding certain things like a lot of salt, sugar or processed foods.

I love the very simple page on How Herbs Heal.  The different types of herbs Mucilaginous, Adaptogens, Carminative, etc. are laid out and very simply explained.  Mucilaginous herbs help with inflammation; adaptogens help the body deal with stress; carminative help with gastrointestinal issues.  Essential oils are also explained in terms of type - antimicrobial, antispasmodic, toning, etc.

There are detailed explanations on making tinctures, macerated oils, decoction.

There were holistic suggestions of eating disorders, such as the herbs oat straw, chamomile and ashwagandha; the essential oils rose, bergamot and ylang ylang; fermented foods, fibre, milk and bananas.  I have never seen eating disorders and specific instructions for anorexia and bulimia in a book of this kind.  Yet my personal experience with having an eating disorder is that by following a whole food, plant based diet, and eliminating processed foods, I don't have the feeling that I overdid it and need to purge.  I believe it is something in the processed foods that made me feel that way.

I am putting this on my Christmas list!!  I have other books like this, but none that add food as an element of healing and I think that is a critical element.  Our bodies require certain nutrients and our modern diet is often lacking some of those nutrients, thus we end up with issues but by knowing what ailments respond to which nutrient we can heal ourselves without ingesting a lot of supplements (I view supplements similarly to medicine--only if absolutely necessary).  The information on food is not something I have seen in books before, therefore I am giving this 5 stars.

[Kitten Kisser · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Very Useful Book, But Not Complete

It has taken me about a month to read this book from cover to cover. A lot of it is repetitive, making it pretty boring at times. The most important thing I think I need to address right away is that I don't think this is suitable for beginners. The reason I say this is, because the book provides only the most basic of info. If you don't know more about herbs, you could potentially use them incorrectly. For example, when the book mentions the herb Tulsi aka Holy Basil it never mentions that you shouldn't take it if you are trying to become pregnant (I have read elsewhere that it can lower fertility). In the section on childcare, I didn't see any mention about not giving honey to infants under 1 year. I also found it interesting that some herbs like andrographis are never mentioned. Andrographis is an amazing herb to help if you think you might be getting sick. My family & I have been using it with much success for well over a decade.

I also want to mention that if you have an autoimmune disease, you are much better off if you have already educated yourself regarding natural treatments & lifestyle changes. If you are already familiar with following an anti-inflammatory diet, the basics in this book can offer additional assistance. If on the other hand, you have only just discovered you have a health issue, using this book to "fix" it simply wont be enough. You really need to educate yourself on what the health issue is you need to address. Learn everything you can about it. The more you know & understand not only about your health issue, but your own body as well, the better able you will be to make the right decisions for the best results.

This book is suitable if you are already familiar with herbs. If you have an aliment (that you are also very familiar with) you can use this book to look up a remedy to help you on your way. As mentioned a lot of the information is regurgitated throughout the entire book (which might be why I'm doing a little of the same). If an herb is good for a wide variety of aliments & it is recommended, then you will see the basic info. for it again & again in the various treatments for various health issues.

This book is also worth grabbing if you are considering an herbal supplement but want to make sure that all of the herbs are safe for YOU. Just use the index at the back to look up the herb/s in question.

The main theme in this book, is to cut out processed foods & all sugars if you wish to have good health. There is nothing new about this advice. It is proven effective, yet so few of us follow such sound advice. If you have any ailment, eating real organic wholesome foods is the number one way to improve your health. If you take away anything at all from my ridiculously long review, I hope it's this.

The beginning of the book lightly explains the holistic nature of using herbs, essential oils, foods (immune boosting, anti-inflammatory, etc.), therapies (such as massage, acupressure, etc.).

Before each Treatment section the book lightly explains how certain foods, supplements & essential oils can affect our health.

Mind & Emotions: Anxiety, Depression, SAD, Stress, Concentration & Focus, Fatigue, Insomnia, Libido, Emotional Shock, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Skin, Hair, & Nails: Dry, Cracked, Chapped Skin, Abscesses & Boils, Acne, Irregular Pigmentation, Eczema, Psoriasis, Urticaria, Rosacea, Athlete's Foot, Ringworm, & Jock Itch, Corns & Calluses, Herpes Infection, Warts & Verrucas, Cellulite, Stretch Marks, Excessive Sweating, Dandruff, Thinning Hair, Weak, Brittle Nails, Fungal Nail Infection, Ingrown Nails

Eyes & Ears: Dry Eyes, Eye Strain, Puffy Eyes & Dark Circles, Sties, Conjunctivitis, Cataracts, Macular Degeneration, Glaucoma, Earache, Dizziness & Vertigo, Hearing Loss,

Mouth & Throat: Gingivitis, Toothache, Halitosis, Mouth Ulcers, Sore Throat & Tonsillitis, Laryngitis, Mononucleosis

Digestive System: Constipation, Diarrhea, Gas & Bloating, Hiccups, Indigestion, Nausea, Food Poisoning, Gastritis, Gastroenteritis, IBD, Diverticulosis, Gallstones, Appetite Loss, Eating Disorders, Obesity, Gut Dysbiosis

Urinary System: UTI, Bladder Control, Bladder Stones

Heart, Circulation, & Blood: Poor Circulation, Anemia, Blood Pressure, Heart Palpitations, High Cholesterol, Varicose Veins, Atherosclerosis, Stroke

Brain & Nervous System: Headaches, Restless Leg Syndrome, Carpal Tunnel, Memory & Cognition, Neuro-Degenerative Disease

Respiratory System: Colds & Flu, Phlegm, Bronchitis & Coughs, Sinusitis, Asthma, Snoring

Bones, Joints, & Muscles: Back Pain, Neck Pin, Knee Pain, Muscle Cramps, Frozen Shoulder, RSI, Sports Injuries, Bunions & Hammer Toe, Gout, Osteoarthritis, Osteoporosis

Systemic Disorders: Body Odor, Fluid Retention, Inflammation, Vasculitis, ME, Fibromayalgia, Insulin Resistance, Diabetes, Thyroid Problems, Adrenal Insufficiency, Cancer Support

Immunity & Intolerances: Hay Fever, Candida, Convalescence, Lupus, RA, Food Intolerance, Celiac Disease, MRSA

Women's Health: PMS, Period Problems, Vaginits & Vulvitis, Endometriosis, PID, Fibroids, PCOS, Pregnacy & Breastfeeding, PPD, Menopause

Men's Health: Balanitis, Premature Ejaculation, ED, Prostate Health

Children's Health: Colic, Diaper Rash, Cradle Cap, Fever, Teething, Croup, Roseola, Adenoids & Tonsils, Impetigo, Head Lice, Bed Wetting

First Aid: Bruises, Cuts, Burns & Scalds, Insect Bites & Stings, Nosebleeds, Splinters, Sprains & Strains, Dehydration, Fainting, Heatstroke, Shock

How To Make:
An Herbal Infusion
An Extract
A Macerated Oil
A Decoction
A Syrup
Herbal Capsules
A Poultice
An Essential Oil Blend
A Balm
A Cream
An Essential Oil Compress

Recipes:
Overnight Oats
Smoothies
Spreads
Soups
Salads
Dips
Energy Bites

It ends by providing charts & safety guidelines.

[Chris Malone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book so well-presented and fascinating that I think I will buy a copy (I borrowed from the library). It is the sort of tome that I would like to have on my bookshelves to dip into. Detailed sections on different parts of the body are very well set out, with readable text and inspiring images. The book even has a section on coeliac, which pleased me. There are chapters explaining how to make various potions yourself. I learnt many new facts by leafing through with great pleasure.

[MK · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book presents 800 ways to achieve Wellness through a holistic approach. Specifically, it recommends incorporating natural foods, plants, herbs, and aromas for anxiety and stress.

You can prevent mental health problems by being conscious of a holistic healthy lifestyle when you are healthy both physically and mentally.

This book has smaller text and fewer images and illustrations than other DK books, but it has useful contents.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

nicely organized to find natural treatments for ailments and general health. I found it informative, especially considering the listed dosages for natural alternatives. slightly overwhelming, but a good one to have at home for health concerns. lovely illustrations!

[Anna Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book is a great go-to guide for most ailments or issues you run into and use well researched studies to back up many claims. I rated -1 star because some of the details of why certain remedies are effective are missing or giving very brief obvious answers.

[E G Melby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Made quite a few notes on info to investigate further

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book with tips and tricks for health and well-being. Natural remedies galore. I might try some of their ideas.

[Colleen Yang · Rating 5 out of 5]

great reference for all sorts of conditions and their natural remedies.

[eb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ehhhhh. There's some good info in here, but you have to dig for it under the blatant sales pitch for Neal's Yard products. Not my style.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m totally in my Holistic, Natural, Apothecary Era! I love Neal’s Yard products, their ethos and the scents of their products are just incredible. So I could not think of a better place to start! I picked this book up from my local library and have immediately reserved their Natural Beauty book. I’ve been looking at switching up things I use for more environmentally friendly and natural remedies for a few months now. My focus within this book has been mostly around what will benefit me with my premature menopause. I adore essential oils, and regular use a pulse point roller which is a blend of Lavender, Bergamot, Cedarwood & Patchouli. We currently only have 3 herbs in my garden, but this has inspired me to create a herb planter and get started on some home remedies! I particularly enjoyed the ‘how to’ guides on infusions, tinctures, etc - they are so easy to follow.

[Jackie Lantern · Rating 4 out of 5]

A large variety of homeopathic solutions to very real medical problems. Many of the ingredients I wouldn’t have the first idea where to get, but I’m assuming if you’re into this angle of treatment, you would know how to find them. I do have some doubts as to the efficacy of some of the treatments suggested, so I would highly highly recommend running anything you try past a doctor or pharmacist first. Please don’t assume that these treatments can’t hurt you just because they’re natural, loads of over the counter things kill people every day. Still, I appreciate the time and the research done by the authors to compile this reference. It’s arranged in a very user friendly matter according to the problem you’re trying to treat, the format is great.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive introduction to holistic wellness. Whereas many "holistic" and "natural" health books emphasize plants exclusively, Complete Wellness introduces plants, traditional medicines/supplements, lifestyle changes, and even therapy, depending on the particular illness or area of focus. As opposed to simply listing treatments, Complete Wellness briefly explains which nutrients each remedy provides, and explains how they help. It suggests taking an integrative approach to health. There are a few recipes for making tinctures, balms and other herbal concoctions. There are also smoothie recipes. Complete Wellness has a little bit of everything, which is exactly what you would expect from a title like this. It's a little bit basic, so people who have been using holistic/ integrative health techniques for a while might not gain much new insight, but it's so well-structured that I can see Complete Wellness becoming a handy reference book. Instead of looking through several books for the different treatment possibilities, Complete Wellness lays out the most common/useful treatments together, organizing them first by body part, then by illness. I highly recommend this book. Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC!