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Health from Mind and Body medicine
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The Principles of Mind and Body medicine Over the past 30 years, scientists have begun to explore the complex interconnections between the health of mind and body. Psychological and sociological studies have confirmed what was clinically obvious – that people, who have problems like poverty, job dissatisfaction, prejudice, isolation and loneliness, or the loss of a loved one, are all far more vulnerable to illness and death than those who are fulfilled in their social and personal lives. Moods attitudes and beliefs can affect virtually every chronic illness. Fear, cynicism, as well as a sense of hopelessness and helplessness, can have a detrimental effect on health, whilst courage, good humour, a sense of being in control, and hopefulness can all be beneficial. It has been shown that optimistic people are less likely to become ill, but when they do, recover quicker than those who are pessimistic by nature. Studies carried out at Yale indicate that the opinion of how well one thinks he or she is, may be the best way of finding out about future well-being and health.
The scientific basis for these clinic studies may be found in the new and expanding field of psycho-neuroimmunology. The health benefits of this approach are being used in programs of mind and body medicine at such universities as Harvard, Massachusetts, Stanford, Miami and California.
People with illnesses as cancer, AIDS, heart disease, and chronic pain are learning to change their habits and attitudes, what they eat, when they exercise, and how they think. A number of landmark studies have shown that these men and women are functioning far more effectively, feeling better and in some instances, living longer.
The Principles of Mind and Body medicineMind and body medicine includes the fields of psychology and physics in a new “science of consciousness” – a view that sees energy as the underlying pattern of the universe. This view has a lot of similarities to many Asian health philosophies that see humans as part of an inter-connected, universal energy field. These Eastern traditions like Chinese medicine and Taoism have for centuries believed that consciousness plays an essential role in governing physical and psychological health. Mind and Body medicine encompasses the following basic principles which are often ignored or unrecognised by orthodox Western medicine:
Every person is unique
Chronic Stress and a lack of balance contributes to illness
If stress contributes to illness then stress reduction should lead to health
Taking Self – responsibility for healing
Taking action also decreases the fear and depression that so often accompanies life threatening illness. By becoming actively involved in self healing, one shifts from feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, which has been shown to increase depression and the risk of death to a sense of control.
A Systems ApproachMind and body medicine is based on a systems perspective that recognises that human lives are influenced by many inter-related factors, including genetics, family and socio-economic background, diet, exercise, social support, risk-taking behaviours, attitudes, and spiritual practices. An illness may be caused by an imbalance on the physical level, but the imbalance may also originate in other aspects of the self, such as mental and emotional state. Any movement towards health mobilises other healing potentials of the body. As a person makes a change in one area, other areas tend to change as well. For example if a person begins to exercise, they may feel more socially confident and might spontaneously change eating habits, so improving overall health. While any disease may be a problem in a small part of the total person, the factors that influence how the disease progresses and how it is healed can be very complex. Each of us has various fields of energy that can be measured with medical instruments such as an EKG (electrocardiograph). These energy fields are continuously affected by changes in physical or psychological health and can even be influenced by the energy fields of others.
Robert Becker, M.D, a pioneer in the study of electromagnetism on health, found that small electrical currents can stimulate cells to regenerate, fractures to heal faster, and tissue to repair itself.
The Human Energy FieldOrthodox medicine concentrates on relieving symptoms whereas with Mind and Body medicine, patients are advised to focus on their problems, dissatisfactions, and fears. The energy levels go down as patients focus on what is not right with their lives, so the focus in mind and body medicine must be to strengthen the conditioning of the mind to pick a “better” thought that feels good, rather than spend extensive time on childhood problems, for example. This is not to say that there are not appropriate times to address these problems, but in mind and body medicine, energy is the most important point to address. It takes energy for the body to heal. Excitement and passion produce high energy states, hopelessness and pain create low energy levels, and fear and anxiety produce chaotic energy patterns. In the conventional model of medicine, patients are referred to psychiatry if they display emotional distress. The psychological consultation is viewed as a separate issue and is not taken as an essential part of their diagnosis. In mind and body medicine, emotions are viewed as an indicator of the person’s state of consciousness, which has everything to do with the bio energy field. Therefore disturbances in the bio energy field reflect disturbances in one’s consciousness, and these can lead to the development of an illness.
We know that disturbances in the bio energy field happen weeks, months, and often years before disturbances happen in cells and tissues. In the same way, changes in consciousness shift the bio energy field, which then alters the course of disease. Spontaneous remission, for instance, has to do with disturbances in physical matter such as tumours disappearing, often quite quickly, when healthy shifts occur in the strength and flow of the bio energy field.
The New field of PNI – the study of how emotions affect the bodyIn the 1970s, great advances in the study of the immune system helped to shed light on the relationship between body and mind, which gave rise to a new field of medicine known as PNI. (Psychoneuroimmunology) Researchers found that naturally occurring substances in the body known as peptides or neuropeptides (messenger molecules made up of amino acids) could cause alterations in mood, pain and pleasure.
Among the first of these substances identified were endorphins, or the brain’s own morphine. When endorphins are released, they produce pleasurable responses similar to those associated with opiates. Our energy levels are affected by thoughts and emotions, and also have an impact on the energy field surrounding our bodies.
These chemical substances have been discovered in the immune system as well as throughout the body. Emotions, previously thought to be purely psychological, can now be linked to chemical processes going on in the brain. Likewise, these peptides were seen to affect the workings of all the systems of the body, including the immune system.
Viruses use the same receptors as a peptide to enter a cell, and depending on how much of the natural peptide for the receptor is around, the virus will have an easier or a harder time getting into the cell. So our emotional state will affect whether we will get sick from the same dose of a virus.
How emotions affect the immune system
Statistics have always borne out this relationship between illness and the emotional state of a person. We all know the data about more people having a heart attack on Monday mornings, and how death rates peak the day after Christmas and in Chinese people, the day after their New Year. Science has now been able to confirm that emotional fluctuations directly influence the probability that a person will get sick or be well.
Researchers have also discovered that the immune system has a memory and the capacity to learn. Therefore it could be said that intelligence is located in every cell of the body and the traditional separation of mind and body no longer applies. Many studies have shown that the immune system could be enhanced through conditioning – where people could learn to influence the balance that maintains health in relation to the outside world.
Conditioning is a powerful bridge between mind and body. The body cannot tell the difference between events that are actual threats to survival and events that are in thought alone. The extent by which consciousness can affect control over the body is remarkable.
The Effect of Consciousness on the bodyBiofeedback research has shown that individuals can learn to control brain wave activity, affect breathing, the heart function, reduce skin temperature and voluntarily modify many other automatic processes of the body. It has been demonstrated that people could learn to consciously control individual neurons and muscle cells. Numerous other studies have demonstrated that consciousness can be used to relieve tension headaches, high blood pressure, incontinence, muscle spasms and muscle paralysis caused by a stroke. This extension of conscious control over involuntary systems has far reaching implications for psychology and medicine for it suggests that humans are not biological robots controlled entirely by genes and the conditioning of life experiences. A good example of this in action is a man going to see a biofeedback therapist about high blood pressure. This person was talking rapidly, had too many things going on in his life at the same time, and never had enough time. Instead of prescribing drugs, the patient was given biofeedback exercises so he could learn to relax by consciously controlling the temperature of his hands and feet.
He learned to meditate and use other techniques in order to slow down his racing mind. Over time the person was able to sit quietly and had insights into his feelings and the way he managed his life. After around 3 months the man’s blood pressure returned to normal and he became much happier and at ease with himself.
The Body’s responses to StressVirtually everyone has experienced the “fight or flight” response to some degree. This response is the body’s natural unconscious reaction to threats, either real or imagined. It is often characterised by an adrenaline rush, dilated pupils, and a racing heart – all conditions that equip the body to deal with whatever danger is perceived. This threat could come from a number of sources – from an animal, another person, a vehicle or an imaginary threat like a bad dream. Whatever it is - the body’s processes adapt to the emotional reaction to danger. This response is healthy and normal in situations of extreme stress and danger. However, when it happens too often as a reaction to everyday stresses, the effect builds up and cause strain to various systems of the body, including the immune system. The body can become conditioned to react in this way, sometimes with little or no apparent reason, especially in people who tend to “bottle” up their feelings.
Another type of response to stress is often ignored – that of detaching oneself as a way of neutralising danger. This is the “pleasure-freeze” response. We naturally move towards pleasure and comfort emotionally and physically unless we have learned to “hold back” because of previous pain. Detachment is a defence response to neutralise emotional pain, anger, and fear so as not to feel discomfort. When we use detachment on a regular basis, we get good at numbing ourselves and, emotionally we lose our normal feedback mechanisms that would ordinarily signal us to change our behaviour.
Long term freezing of, or holding back from emotions stops them from being fluid. When any of our emotions become frozen, the energy they contain is not discharged from the body which can lead to serious health consequences.
The Body’s Healing AbilitiesThe body has a natural biological tendency to move toward health and balance, something that can be seen in the simple healing of a cut in which the body automatically closes the wound and repairs the damage. The well known “placebo effect” (in which a neutral substance is found to effectively cure an ailment) also demonstrates the body’s capacity to heal itself. The effectiveness of a placebo varies depending on how much the patient expects to benefit.. In other words, those who think they will get better have a significantly greater recovery rate than those who think they will not get better or think they will become worse.
The relationship between the client and the physician or therapist can also strongly influence the healing process. For example, when a physician is seen as powerful and trustworthy, the client gets better faster, and one study has even shown that reassurance and support raises the pain threshold of a patient.
Illness as a message – not an enemyIn many ways, conventional medicine conveys the idea of an all-out “war” against disease, in which illness is seen as an enemy and death as a failure. From a mind and body point of view, illness is seen as a communication from the body – a warning signal that something needs attention.People can use this “message” to review the entire mind/body system and see it as functioning as a whole. If a person experiences back pain, he or she may ask “Am I under too much stress? Am I using my body properly or exercising it well?”
One can then look beyond the immediate problem of the illness to include a larger dimension of their life. For example, a heart attack may be a signal for a person to become less defensive and hostile, less competitive at work, and to give more attention to relaxation, hobbies, family, and the enjoyment of life.
In this process a person’s heart will heal both literally and symbolically. Ultimately we don’t know how healing happens. The best we can do is support and encourage the body’s inner healing mechanisms. Mind and body medicine often begins by promoting physical and mental relaxation and developing better ways of coping with stress.
Various techniques and lifestyle changes may be part of this holistic approach to health, based on a person’s special needs. Grief, bereavement, depression, fear, and panic have been shown to lower the immune response, while laughter, play, love, faith, hope, and self-acceptance help to stimulate and balance immunity.
Part of healing, then, involves recognising negative emotions such as resentment, guilt, anger, and self-hatred and releasing them. Feelings of well-being, adequacy, and self control can be fostered and learned.
Sharing and SupportSatisfaction in relationships and working life are essential to happiness and health. Healthy relationships are characterised by a mutual flow of giving and receiving, mutual support and respect, and the ability to work out conflicts and difficulties.
To be able to share feelings and pain with one another is an essential component to healing, for it shows us that people are not alone and that they have something to offer. This sharing can be accomplished from therapy, social groups, from close friends or family members.
In one study, women with breast cancer who participated in a weekly support group lived twice as long as those who did not. Isolation and loneliness have been shown to result in immunity problems in people who are bereaved and who have recently lost loved ones.
The Future of mind and body medicineMind and body practitioners believe that the present Western medical model will become part of the holistic mind/body medicine of the future. As patients recover from surgery or illness, they will be taught skills to speed up the body’s healing processes, reduce pain and reflect upon the necessary changes to improve the quality of their lives. The goal will not be just to remove the symptom but to help the person reach a greater state of wholeness. It is a process that should continue throughout life. Since the new healing philosophy places so much power and responsibility in the hands of the patient, an educational approach is needed.
Relaxation, stress reduction, guided imagery and behavioural changes can and should be taught at all levels, from primary school to university. We need to ask what it is about these ancient traditions of medicine that tells us something valuable about healing and the mind.
Please follow the links below to find out more about some other alternative health therapies used to treat illnesses and ailments and promote health.
Learn the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
Nutritional and alternative therapy for cancer treatment
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