Wagga holistic healer Indea Smith shares how alternative medicine improved her mental health and ignited her career

Having grown up around her mother's business, Wagga's Natural Health and Healing Centre, she was always exposed to alternative medicines but instead followed a path towards beauty therapy.

Grappling to accept certain parts of herself, she began to revisit holistic practices such as meditation in order to heal.

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"I was actually born with a lung disease so, growing up, I had always rejected that part of myself, and sought love externally which was never fulfilling," she said.

After focusing on her own wellbeing, she returned to the health centre as a qualified practitioner to help others find empowerment and peace of mind through holistic remedies.

"Mindfulness has become a huge tool for people to use because it works, and it doesn't take long to see how it lowers their stress and anxiety," she said. "If I can just guide at least one person to some tools that can help them cope ... it fills up my heart knowing that I can help somebody."

Wagga's Natural Health and Healing Centre is one of the numerous facilities in the region catering to a variety of holistic needs, including Chinese cupping therapy, remedial massage and empowerment classes.

Georgie Kendall, who works as a receptionist at the centre but has no holistic training, said the prominence of such facilities in Wagga was not promoted to the broader community enough.

"I think the people within the holistic community all know each other, they refer you to each other," she said.

"But unless you're in that group ... I think that it's probably not as well known and not as well looked into as what it should be."

She recommended more people add holistic medicine to their health plans.

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