Key West Wellness Center

Category: Holistic Approaches to Health

  • Relieving Stress

    relieving stress

    Relieving stress is one of the most common issues we deal with on a daily basis. Maybe it’s the stress of a given moment or something lurking in the background of our thoughts, but it’s there and it needs to be dealt with.

    There are a number of natural remedies for relieving stress that are widely accepted in the clinical community and beyond.

    Exercise
    Exercise has long been considered a positive outlet for relieving stress, generating endorphins and expending pent up energies. If it’s outdoor exercise then there’s the added benefit of Vitamin D from the Sun, an essential component of a healthy immune system and mediating depression. Controlled breathing exercises help bring the body back to a steady state, and if the air you’re breathing is scented with natural aroma lavender, then so much the better.

    Diet
    Diet is an important part of maintaining the critical balance of chemicals, attitudes and energies in your body. A balanced diet is always a good place to start relieving stress. For moments when stress becomes overwhelming, healing elixirs like chamomile and green tea can be soothing.

    Mindfulness
    Mindfulness is the principle behind practices like meditation and prayer, but it’s not a religious act. Being quiet and focusing inward for a time can do wonders for the mind. Taking time to reflect on our attitudes and refocus our energies makes us feel more in control, limiting stress to a manageable level. We cease to feel inflicted on and instead become a source of positive energy.

    For our clients at the Clinic of Alternative Medicine in Key West, we provide the next level of accessible and effective therapies for stress and stress-related issues.

    Vitamin B Complex Injections
    This vitamin is critical part of maintaining healthy blood flow and preventing heart disease. A Vitamin B Complex injection can give your system a boost when other methods fail. We also carry a full line of herbal medicinal supplements that can be included as part of a daily diet to relieve stress.

    Massage
    We offer massage as a popular remedy and for good reason. Stress can easily be brought on by the conditions of our modern lifestyle. Long periods spent in a seated position can put serious stress on lower back muscles, while long periods spent standing can refer pain all the way from the ankles to the neck. Or maybe you’re storing up stress in areas like the neck and shoulders. A skilled massage therapist can pinpoint problem areas and help relieve tense muscles.

    Acupuncture
    Acupuncture has remained a consistent treatment for stress over millennia. Accessing specifics points in the body’s energy pathways and restoring the flow to areas shut off by stress can make a person feel like new. As the tension ebbs away, relief enters in, creating a sense of calm and wellness that was literally physically closed off due to stress.

    If you’re experiencing stress-related issues, call me at the Clinic of Alternative Medicine in Key West at 305-296-5358 or book an appointment below. I’ll be happy to help.

    Best wishes for great health,

    Dr. Ashley Hoyt, A.P.

    Fill out my online form.

  • Clinic Offers a Natural Approach to Health

    Clinic Offers a Natural Approach to Health

    When people think of going on a doctor’s visit, the first thing that comes to mind is sitting in a waiting room and leaving the office with a prescription for pills they know nothing about. Ashley Hoyt, owner of the Clinic of Alternative Medicine and Day Spa on Duck Avenue, has a different approach for treating patients. “At the clinic we treat more than just pain. We provide vitamin and homeopathic injections, massage therapy, reflexology, skin care and facial rejuvenation. We address your health and enhance your beauty,” said the doctor of acupuncture medicine.

    Hoyt frequently works with several colleagues in the community to provide integrative wellness seminars, health fairs and community wellness days for local organizations — most recently, at the 21st Century Oncology Center. “We use a noninvasive approach using techniques that have been used for thousands of years,” said Hoyt. “We also accept most insurance to further accommodate our patients’ healing experience.”

    A new and, Hoyt says, effective treatment at the clinic is vitamin injection for weight loss. Clinic offers a natural approach to health Patients are treated with a holistic approach “B-12 and MIC are injected into specific acupuncture points to target your health goals. I can help you to increase your metabolism and energy, decrease your cravings and appetite, while maintaining muscle mass and even reduce your stress,” Hoyt said.

    Clinic Receptionist Lillian Mendez receives vitamin injections regularly and loves the benefits. “I get so much energy and I rarely get sick because it keeps my immune system healthy,” she said. The clinic’s practitioners inject the vitamin and homeopathic formulas into specific acupuncture points depending on what the patient needs. Once these formulas enter the system it works to burn calories, increase energy, boost the immune system and even decrease pain. Hoyt said that because the formula bypasses the digestive system, the body can absorb it more effectively. “I find it amazing that moments after I inject a vitamin, some patients can get a faint taste or smell of the formula,” Hoyt said. “It works that fast!”

    A retired Monroe County teacher in the waiting room recently lost 15 pounds and she attributes it to the injections. She also gets massages regularly for her chronic back-pain. “For a long time I thought I had kidney problems and the only treatment that actually worked was massage and acupuncture at the Clinic for Alternative Medicine,” said Myra Allen.

    Food counseling is also offered at the clinic and it is customized to what a person needs for their fitness goals. “I don’t say here is a menu and these are the only foods you can eat,” said Hoyt. “I look at where a person is at and find a realistic way to make their choices better. I had a patient who wanted to lose 15 pounds but did not want to give up her cheese and wine at 5 p.m. She agreed to two small changes and lost 20 pounds, exceeding her goal.” Dr. Hoyt has many tools in her medicine bag.

    The use of auricular (ear) acupuncture is commonly used for many addictive type behaviors— smoking, over-eating, carb addiction, alcohol and more. A small ear tack can be placed in certain points in the ear to decrease cravings, appetite and increase a sense of calm. The tacks can stay in the ear for several days to give support in between acupuncture treatments.

    Hoyt said when this technique was introduced many years ago to a rehabilitation program for heroine addiction it tripled the success rate. “It was a myth that if a pirate pierced their ear, they would get better vision,” said Hoyt. “But if you look at the auricular acupuncture chart you can see that the traditional place to get your ear pierced is also the point that treats the eye. They probably picked up this piece of information on their voyages abroad.”

    The Clinic of Alternative Medicine is accepting new patients and accepts most insurance. To schedule an appointment and start living a healthier life call 305-296-5358.

     

    Kindly reproduced with permission from Alex Press – See Page 14 • Upper Keys Weekly • Aug. 29, 2014

  • Alternative Medicine Gains Now Recognized

    AcuGraph Ashley

    The lion fish on the reef didn’t have a chance. The spear point pierced its spiked sides and it was over. Just like that. We shoot them for that reason, reef needs to be protected. There is irony, or if one prefers, poetry in its demise: The hunter, Dr. Ashley Hoyt, is a certified acupuncturist–a practitioner of spearing patients with needles. Of course, that’s an extremely boorish way of describing acupuncture–the ancient medical discipline that consists of inserting very small needles through a patient’s skin. “It’s more appropriate to refer to them as pins,” Hoyt says. “They’re solid, not hollow like hypodermic needles, and very thin. They’re painless and made of stainless steel.”

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