National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health

05/23/2025

Are you feeling stressed? Or anxious? Are you having trouble sleeping?

Check out our new 42-page eBook, “Stress, Anxiety, and Sleep Problems: Considering Complementary Approaches,” to find out what the science says about complementary health approaches that have been studied for these problems—such as mindfulness, relaxation techniques, melatonin, and herbal supplements. See which approaches are useful and safe, and find out how long-term stress, anxiety, or sleep problems can affect your mental and physical health.

This 42-page eBook discusses complementary health approaches that have been studied for stress, anxiety, or sleep disorders, including relaxation techniques, meditation and mindfulness, music-based interventions, yoga, melatonin, herbal supplements, and more.

05/12/2025

Did you know that pain is the most common reason for seeking medical care? We have an eBook that provides an overview of complementary health approaches for pain including acupuncture, massage therapy, meditation, yoga, and more. Check it out here:

We have collected our information on pain into an eBook you can download to your computer or mobile device.

05/09/2025

Why is whole person health so important? Whole person health involves looking at the whole person, not just separate organs or body systems, and considers multiple factors when it comes to our health and well-being. This is important for healthcare because whole person health focuses on restoring health, promoting resilience, and preventing diseases across a lifespan, instead of just treating a specific disease. Read more here:

Whole person health involves looking at the whole person—not just separate organs or body systems—and considering multiple factors that promote either health or disease.

05/08/2025

The Pain Management Collaboratory, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and led by NCCIH, is conducting large-scale real-world studies on improving pain management with nonpharmacologic treatments.

The goal of this innovative interagency collaboration is to address key gaps between scientific knowledge and clinical practice to ensure high-quality pain care for the Nation’s military personnel and veterans.

Pain Management Collaboratory: Updates, Lessons Learned, and Future DirectionsThis supplement shares new knowledge from the Pain Management Collaboratory. Link to supplementAccessing Therapies and Developing Healthy Coping SkillsA PMC Patient Resource Group FilmWatch the FilmRaise Your Hand: Overcom...

05/07/2025

The NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory, led by NCCIH and National Institute on Aging - NIH, has pioneered approaches for conducting large-scale, cost-effective research in the settings where patients normally receive their care.

Learn more from this video featuring NCCIH Deputy Director Dr. David Shurtleff.

This is "NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory Program Overview" by NIH Collaboratory on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

05/06/2025

NCCIH’s Know the Science health literacy toolkit aims to help consumers better understand complex scientific topics related to health research.

Check it out to learn how to make sense of scientific journal articles, determine whether health websites are trustworthy, avoid interactions between medicines and dietary supplements, and much more!

Find tools to help you better understand complex scientific topics that relate to health research so that you can be discerning about what you hear and read and make well-informed decisions about your health.

04/24/2025

A study by investigators from NCCIH and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, published in Nature, provides new insights into how the nervous system detects heat and touch and how inflammation modifies these processes to trigger pain.

The findings of this study may be helpful in developing effective treatments for different types of pain.

Mechanisms of sensing touch, heat, and pain explored in new NIH study.

04/23/2025

Looking for reliable health resources online? Check out our Know the Science health literacy toolkit. We have a new set of tools to help identify websites, social media sites, and apps that are trustworthy and also help to distinguish news from advertising. https://go.nih.gov/yLHT0Nj

04/21/2025

The new Whole Person Health Index developed by NCCIH and the National Center for Health Statistics will enable researchers to gain insight into how an individual’s overall health is changing over time. Learn more here:

The WPHI is a free tool that includes a set of nine validated, self-reported questions covering major domains of health.

04/16/2025

In health care and research there’s often a gap in capturing the full picture of an individual’s overall health. This blog post by NCCIH Director Dr. Helene M. Langevin highlights an exciting new survey tool—the Whole Person Health Index (WPHI). This tool integrates individual-level biological and behavioral factors for use in research, public health, and patient care. Read the full blog post here: https://go.nih.gov/swoyyTi

04/14/2025

Different types of magnets may be used for pain management, including electromagnets and static or permanent magnets. Here’s what we know about these magnets and the pain conditions they are used for:

Magnets for pain, including scientific research, safety, and sources for additional information.

04/11/2025

When you’re under stress, your body reacts by releasing hormones that produce the “fight-or-flight” response. Check out these 5 things to know about relaxation techniques that may counteract the negative effects of stress.

When you’re under stress, your body reacts by releasing hormones that produce the “fight-or-flight” response.