j0437219In a study that looked at the major natural health and complimentary therapies available online, what appeared in the top 10 may surprise you. This study considered the most searched for natural health topics, with the exception of exercise and fitness, which by far enjoys the highest level of popularity among health and fitness enthusiasts.

1 Massage Therapy

Of all the therapies considered in our study, massage therapy dominated the popularity ratings of the top 20 natural health therapies, taking up almost 28% of all the scores. This actually was no real surprise because massage, in its various forms, has always enjoyed a high degree of popularity. What’s interesting to note is that new Eastern methods, and especially Indian forms such as head massage, are becoming highly sought after.

For more information on massage therapies, please visit:

http://www.massagehealththerapy.com/

2 Aromatherapy

Our study showed that aromatherapy is also very dominant in the popularity ratings of the top 20 therapies considered, having scored 23% in popularity. This actually surprised us a little, because although we had expected aromatherapy to be popular, we had not prepared for quite this amount of fame. There are about 450,000 instances of searches for aromatherapy information every month in Google alone.

To find out more about aromatherapy, please visit:

http://www.aromaweb.com/articles/default.asp

3 Reflexology

Our study showed that reflexology is a close third favourite among natural health practices on the internet, with a popularity rating of over 19% among the top 20 therapies in our study. Reflexology relies on the inter-connectivity of the human body, and in particular, the nervous system. However, reflexology focuses primarily on feet and hands. Many have professed the healing power of reflexology techniques.

To Learn more, please go to:

http://www.reflexology-research.com/whatis.htm

4 Traditional Chinese Medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine comes fourth in our list of the top 10 sought after natural health techniques, and scores 12% of all the popularity points in the top 20.

You can find more information here:

http://www.tcmpage.com/

5 Physical Medicine

Physical Medicine is concerned with the practices of rehabilitation physicians or Physiatrists. A physiatrist is a medical doctor, but their primary focus is the provision of non-surgical treatments and also prevention of conditions. Physical medicines came in at 3.7% of all the popularity scores in the top 20.
Please see:

http://www.rehabmed.net/patient_ed/physiatry1.html

6 Homeopathy

We had expected homeopathy to feature more prominently than some of the natural health techniques above, but it came in at the half-way popularity mark, with a score of about 3.1% out of the points in the popularity scores of the top 20 natural health techniques.

Additional information:

http://abchomeopathy.com/homeopathy.htm

7 Rolfing

Rolfing, which is a therapy concerned with soft tissue manipulation, had a similar score to homeopathy, at just over 3.0%. In all honesty, these two could easily interchange positions, as their popularity score was almost identical.

http://www.rolf.org/about/index.htm

8 Nature Cure

Nature curists are perhaps the “vegans” of the natural health world. They have strong beliefs in living at one with nature. With green issues becoming ever more popular nowadays, the rest of the world perhaps stands only to catch up. Nature cure, a technique for natural health scored a popularity rate of 2.4%. However, with 50,000 searches every month in Google alone, that is not to be sniffed at, and accounts for a lot of people seeking information on nature cures.

http://www.naturecureco.com/

9 Hygiene Health

Hygiene health is considered by some as a veritable and highly valuable natural health practice. It accounted for 24,000 searches in Google, and scored 1.2% in our chart.

http://www.webhealthcentre.com/HealthyLiving/personal_hygiene_index.aspx

10 Acupuncture

Strictly speaking, acupuncture is a branch of Traditional Chinese Medicine. However, with 22,000 incidences of people looking for information about acupuncture every month, we thought we should score it separately. It came in at around 1.1% popularity out of all the scores of the top 20.

http://acupuncture.com/education/theory/acuintro.htm

Out of the top 20 natural health therapies that we looked at in our study, the 10 described above took up more than 96% of the popularity ratings, with bottom 10 accounting for less than 4%. These bottom 10 therapies together made up a total of some 53,000 monthly searches. They were:

  • Chelation Therapy
  • Iridology
  • Colour Therapy
  • Ozone Therapy
  • Applied Kinesiology
  • Colonic Health
  • Hair Analysis
  • Cranial Osteopathy
  • Psychological Counselling
  • Nutritional Health