Mental illness always has a physical component. It’s also true that physical disease always has a mental component. A growing awareness of the mind/body connection has spawned reams of scientific research showing the tenacious relationship between physical and mental health. But many still remain skeptical, preferring to believe that the physical body is an entity entirely separate from the feelings and thoughts that drive our emotional and mental health.
I have seen psychological problems such as depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, and manic-depression disappear when psychological therapy was combined with a living-foods diet. Certainly, seeing is believing for me, but for you this may seem far-fetched. Yet, it should not be so hard to imagine that what we put into our body affects the way our mind works. Surely we see the connection between mental functioning and a popular drug called Prozac. Every day millions of people around the world contribute to a multimillion dollar industry by “eating” pills to treat their psychological disorders. It’s only a small step further to recognize that other chemicals we ingest through food (pesticides, hormones, and additives) can cause the brain to react. On the positive side, nutrients, oxygen, and enzymes in living foods can nourish the brain and help treat malfunction.
Consider aberrant sexual behavior. Convicted sex offenders are sentenced to attend counseling programs that dig for the psychological root of the urges that lead to rape, pedophilia, and molestation. Ignored is the fact that these crimes often have a physical basis rather than, or along with, a psychological one. The problem can be hormonal and hormones can be affected by diet. Meat-eaters consume animal flesh that has been pumped full of hormones. Growth hormones are routinely used to fatten cattle. This meat also can be full of the hormone adrenaline that rushes through the animals in their last frantic moments before slaughter. When meat is eaten, these animal hormones create a hormonal imbalance in the human body, causing the body and mind to be overwhelmed with tension, confusion, violence, and aggression. Those with a certain amount of self-discipline and control are able—with a great deal of stress—to regulate these feelings. Those who lack self-control may constitute the sex offenders. Eliminate the cause, and the effects will be dramatically reduced. British prisons offer whole grains and vegetables to their inmates because they have found that this plant-based diet reduces the violence within the institutions. As an added benefit, it also helps reset the body’s natural hormonal balance.
The physical effects of increased hormone consumption are easier to see and document—a number of studies have found that there has been a change in the average age of menstrual onset from age 12½ twenty years ago to about 9½ today. Many agree that this physical change may be the result of ingesting hormone-filled foods. It is my firm belief that a lot of sexual perversions, and many other forms of mental illness are also caused by an increase in the use of growth hormones in cattle, passed on via the high meat consumption in our society.
Although an extreme case, sexual deviates’ consumption patterns do highlight the dramatic impact of diet on mental health.
Over the years, we have found that without exception the emotional obstructions of mental illness can be greatly exacerbated by 1) hormonal imbalances caused by eating meat products pumped full of hormones, 2) pesticide poisoning caused by ingesting pesticide residues on produce, and/or 3) a high body acidity level caused by eating animal and processed products. Living-foods vegetarians avoid the buildup of all these pollutants and increase the odds of mental health and activity throughout long lives.
A common mind/body relationship is seen in cases of depression. Depression results from three primary sources: poor self-image, lack of certain minerals needed by the nervous system, and a hormonal imbalance that weakens the immune system. Although conventional medicine categorizes depression by the degree of emotional turmoil, the other two sources also play crucial roles. Depression is rare in individuals who have strong immune and nervous systems.
George Sweeten, age forty-five, came to the institute diagnosed with manic-depression. He had been on medication for this condition for many years but still suffered occasional bouts of mental instability Our initial analysis of George’s blood and urine found excess uric acid and an overall mineral imbalance in his body. We felt that the cause of the mental instability probably lay in George’s monolithic diet—eating the same few foods every day and a reliance on animal products.
After two weeks on a living-foods diet, George noticed significant, positive changes in his personality. After one month, he chose to take himself off his medication. For the last ten years, George has been a living-foods vegetarian. He has been fully functioning without his medication or bouts of manic-depression.
George is just one of the hundreds of living testimonials to the effect of diet on depression.
Alcoholism is a perfect example of the interconnection between mental and physical needs. Hundreds of thousands of alcoholics around the world attend weekly counseling sessions trying to find the cause of their addiction. Because a shallow ego and low self-esteem are often characteristics of an alcoholic, psychological therapy and group support sessions are indeed helpful. However, ignoring the physical factors makes it very difficult to resist the craving for alcohol.
All alcoholics have either low or high blood-sugar levels, causing them to crave sugar. If you analyze plain white sugar and the sugar in alcohol, you’ll find they are the same. When blood sugar drops, the alcohol pacifies the need. If you saturate the body with enough alcohol sugar, you effectively cross-circuit the brain—causing the equivalent of a psychological disorder. But the physical need for alcohol is at least as powerful as the psychological.
When alcoholics swear off the booze, they find they crave sweets and carbohydrates. They eat donuts, raisins, and chocolate bars. The sugar and the grain ferment in the digestive tract becoming alcohol within thirty to sixty minutes after eating and the craving is satisfied.
The alcoholic needs to be weaned off sugar with a living-foods diet. Once this is accomplished, the craving for alcohol is drastically diminished.
We do not advise anyone to give up prescribed medication; that is a personal decision one makes after a careful look at long-term physical and emotional needs. However, I can tell you that those who come to the institute and choose to stay on their medication almost always report that their physicians were subsequently happy to reduce the dosage based on their improved state. Those who choose to give up their medication completely often find that their diet and attitude changes expedite their recovery with greater comfort and speed than their medication was able to do.
Not only can medication sometimes slow recovery, it can actually cause the problem. I have even seen individuals diagnosed with physical and/or mental ailments that were later found to be caused by a mixture of prescribed medications. One case I remember in particular was that of a fellow named John Kavinn who was on daily medication for arthritis and heart disease. He took his medication faithfully for several years. Eventually, his mental faculties began to fail: his memory was weak and he had difficulty keeping his balance. Soon he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. John came to the institute in hopes of improving his rapidly deteriorating physical and mental health.
John’s physical health did dramatically improve on the Hippocrates Program, so he asked his physician to gradually reduce the dosage of his pills. As a result, the amount of medication coursing through the blood to his brain was reduced; at the same time, John’s “mental infirmity” disappeared! Just as some drugs are “believed” to have a positive influence on mental illness, (valium and lithium, for example), it makes sense that others, or a combination of others, may have a negative effect.
In the same way that the physical condition of the nervous and immune systems can influence the quality of mental health, the state of your mental health can directly affect you physical well-being. Many dispute this, believing that the body functions independently of the mind. But to the contrary, the human mind exerts a powerful influence on even the most minute of cells. Today, stress-related illnesses such as hypertension, heart disease, and ulcers, will kill many more people than cancer. Others such as asthma, obesity, bad posture, tension, and dietary problems will cause chronic debilitating illnesses.
Taken together, these facts present us with the disturbing premise that even though we may observe every detail of the perfect diet, our mind can block good results. It is becoming more and more evident that our thinking must be positively channeled to get the full benefit of a sound, nutritional diet.
While a certain level of stress can be positive, prolonged and excessive levels are dangerous. Consistently high levels of stress have been directly linked to digestive disorders, chronic fatigue, anxiety, migraine headaches, and emotional disorders such as bulimia and anorexia. Test results indisputably have shown that the more major life changes you experience—for example, the death of a family member, divorce, changing jobs, or moving—the higher the risk of illness. It’s also noteworthy that other factors such as coping style, social support system, and perception of the stress can strengthen or weaken a physical state.
In the classic research in this area, O. Carl Simonton found that cancer patients give up when faced with stress. Therefore, he concluded, cancer patients need to learn tenacity in fighting the disease and to be hopeful about the future. This, he felt, is facilitated by teaching cancer patients to deal with their social and emotional problems. Additional research has shown that coping therapies can increase the disease-fighting cells called lymphocytes. We have recently discovered that happy thoughts increase the immune builders interferon, interluken, and Imipramin, whereas unhappy thoughts produce the immune destroyers cortisol and adrenalin.
Other studies have found similar results. Researchers know that the ability to express anger appropriately is associated with increased survival and ability to cope with cancer. The following common themes are frequently found in the background history of cancer patients: loss of significant relationships prior to onset of tumor, inability to express hostile feelings, unresolved tension concerning parent figure, and feelings of hopelessness and helplessness.
Researchers have also found that not only can mental health trigger the onset of disease, it can affect the body’s recuperative powers as well. Emotional turmoil, depression, grief, remorse, resentment, and other similar negative mental conditions have been found to severely restrict the regenerative capacity of the body.
We are only beginning to understand how and why mental outlook and physical health are connected. A theory proposed in 1995 suggests that tension triggers high levels of a hormone that helps germs and possibly even cancer cells to flourish. “If confirmed, this hypothesis would provide a direct link between the stress-related hormone and disease outcome,” concluded Dr. Julio Licinio, one of the authors at the National Institute of Mental Health.
Researchers are also beginning to examine the way optimistic and positive thoughts strengthen the immune system. Since the thirteenth century, the sick and infirm have made pilgrimages to France hoping for a “miracle” at the fountain of Our Lady Of Lourdes. More than six thousand persons have claimed cures since 1858. Is it divine intervention or spontaneous remission generated by high hopes that returns physical health to these people?
Doctors use the terms spontaneous regression or spontaneous remission to describe an unexpected reversal of disease. Although not a common occurrence, cases of “miraculous” healing for which there is no medical explanation have been recorded all over the globe. Researchers continue to gather evidence that the mind plays an essential role in the physical processes that accompany remission. Recently the Institute of Noetic Sciences collected more than 3,500 accounts of spontaneous remission from 830 medical journals in more than twenty languages. Excerpts from these reports were published in 1993 by the Institute in Spontaneous Remission—An Annotated Bibliography. The stories are astounding, but true. They beg the question: “How can we doubt that one’s attitude influences the outcome of disease?”
Western medicine calls substances that have suggestive effects, placebos, from the Latin word placere, “to please.” Research on placebos has shown that the effectiveness of even the most proven methodologies may be increased by what has been called the placebo halo—the expectation that the drugs will help. A case in the mid-1950s, in particular, illustrates the power of the placebo effect.
A Mr. Wright (a pseudonym) was a patient of Dr. Philip West and Dr. Bruno Klopfer. Wright was near death when he heard that a new cancer drug, Krebiozen, would soon be available for trial. Tumors the size of oranges were in Wright’s neck, under his arms, and in his groin, chest, and abdomen. He burned with fever and required oxygen. His physicians believed he was “in a terminal state, unbeatable, other than to give him sedatives to ease him on his way.”
Wright received his first dose of Krebiozen on a Friday and became so sick that Dr. West believed that this first dose might be the last. But on Monday morning, West found the patient “walking around the ward, chatting happily with the nurses, and spreading his message of good cheer to anyone who would listen … The tumor masses had melted away like snowballs on a hot stove, and in only these few days, they were half their original size.” When Wright’s doctors discharged him from the hospital ten days later, the disease had all but vanished. Wright’s story, however, was far from over.
Soon there was troubling news about Krebiozen. Very few patients improved, and newspapers were announcing that the “wonder drug” might be a failure. Wright followed this publicity grimly, and after two months of good health, gradually relapsed.
Dr. West decided to experiment. He reassured Wright that the newspapers were wrong, that Krebiozen was as promising as ever, and that the relapse was due only to a decline in the drug’s potency Deliberately playing on his patient’s optimism, West promised that a shipment of “super-refined, double-strength” Krebiozen was on the way. “By delaying a couple of days before the ‘shipment’ arrived,” West wrote, “his anticipation of salvation had reached a tremendous pitch. When I announced that the new series of injections were about to begin, he was almost ecstatic and his faith was very strong.”
Wright’s second recovery was even more dramatic than the first—although this time he was injected with nothing more than sterile water. Once again the tumors diminished, and soon the patient was “the picture of health.” And so he remained, until the American Medical Association came forward with a formal announcement: “Nationwide tests show Krebiozen to be a worthless drug for the treatment of cancer.” Within days, a dejected Wright checked into a hospital and quickly died.
This case illustrates why the placebo response is a two-edged sword: it not only heals but kills.
The new science of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is zeroing in on the relationship between thoughts and feelings (which are expressed through our neurological anatomy—the brain and nervous system) and our immune system (which determines the state of our overall health). Let’s take a look at the link-up points between our brain, nervous system, and immune system.
New research shows that every thought and feeling we have generates measurable chemical and electrical changes in our brain and throughout the body. Emotional response, which is present to some degree with every experience, tends to be concentrated within the limbic system in the central area of the brain, where the hypothalamus resides. This emotional information is actually transferred from the limbic system to receptor sites that act like satellite dishes in our endocrine glands (pituitary, thalamus, pancreas, adrenals) receiving signals from biologically encoded neuropeptides, or chains of complex amino acids.
Interestingly enough, key components of the immune system called monocytes have receptor sites for these same neuropeptides! There is important research indicating that nerve tissue running through every major organ of the body links the immune system to the central nervous system via these monocytes. It seems that monocytes link the emotional responses in the brain directly to the immune system.
In test-tube experiments over the years, scientists had watched immune cells attack foreign bacteria without help from either body or mind. The immune system seemed completely autonomous, able to fight disease on its own. But now we understand that the immune system is not an independent defender against disease; it is a team player. What we had thought of as our primary defense system is in fact only one part of a complex, interactive, mind/body network. The new science of psychoneuroimmunology (which has been used at the institute successfully for many years) shows that the brain, nervous system, and immune system are cooperative parts of a larger system that reacts to stress.
Herpes viruses offer a helpful model for studying the effects of stress on immunity: the viruses are very common, and unlike other viruses, herpes viruses are never completely wiped out by the immune system but simply are held in check by immune response. Diseases caused by herpes viruses often come and go as the virus advances and retreats. Specific herpes viruses are responsible for recurring oral cold sores and genital ulcers, as well as for chicken pox and for its recurring form, known as shingles.
The activity of herpes viruses in the body provides a rough measure of the effectiveness of the immune system in holding them back. Researchers can judge this reaction by measuring antibodies to the virus in a person’s blood. Having more herpes antibodies, or lower immunity, has been associated with many kinds of stress. Students showed more herpes antibodies while undergoing exams than they did after summer vacation, and divorced and separated men and women showed more antibodies than a matched group of married persons.
The same association between stress and herpes holds true for the actual occurrence of disease. In one study, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Veterans Administration Hospital in Philadelphia found that typically unhappy people experienced more cold sores than happier subjects. In another study, psychologist Margaret Kemeny found that among a group of thirty-six people suffering from the genital form of herpes, depressed individuals experienced more frequent recurrence of the disease.
This research provides strong evidence once more that microorganisms alone do not cause infectious disease—that the emotional condition of the person exposed to the microorganism also matters. In the more than forty years since the earliest experiments on stress and immune function, we have moved from the belief that the immune system acts independently of the brain, to the belief that the immune system may be influenced by the brain, to a new idea entirely: that the brain and the immune system may be part of an integrated system, working together for the body’s health.
Just as we are what we eat, we are what we think and feel. Just as we must assimilate our food and keep our physical bodies clean, we equally must integrate feelings and unfetter our emotional expression if we are to attain total health. As part of the Hippocrates Health Program, we encourage all our guests to develop the habit of building strong mental health through relaxation therapies. These include laughter, guided visual imagery, deep breathing, meditation, prayer, and biofeedback.
Relaxation doesn’t mean bed rest. Relaxation techniques involve various self-help strategies to control the involuntary workings of the nervous system such as blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, and metabolism. In addition to their effect on these bodily functions, relaxation techniques can decrease muscle tension, relieve anxiety, and encourage restful sleep.
The roots of our physical response to stress go back to primitive days. In those times, the difference between fighting off an animal and being eaten by the animal lay in a person’s ability to react quickly to danger. The human body had to be able to prepare for fight or flight at a moment’s notice. To do this, breathing became faster and shallower to bring more oxygen into the body quickly. The heartbeat increased to push that oxygen through the bloodstream rapidly. And the blood flow was redirected from the internal organs and surface of the body to the deep muscles, which needed more energy to prepare for a fight or flight. The people who had quick stress-response systems survived.
The problem is that this stress response, which was designed for life-or-death combat and escape, is no longer appropriate for us. Today, we typically don’t need extra oxygen directed to our deep muscles when we feel stress or pain, yet it still happens. Our body prepares us to fight or flee, but most often we have no visible foe. So what happens? Our heart beats rapidly, our blood pressure becomes elevated, our muscles tighten—all with no release. After a while, our body begins to wear down. We develop physical problems such as ulcers, headaches, heart palpitations, backaches, rashes, colitis, allergies, asthma, heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain syndromes, and even cancer.
Stress contributes to the intensity, frequency, and duration of disease and pain. But we also know that stress is a treatable condition that can be controlled with relaxation therapies. These techniques influence general health, disease, pain, and chronic illnesses in several ways:
Most relaxation techniques can be practiced anywhere at your convenience without special apparatus or devices. But to learn the strategies, it’s best to practice them in a comfortable, quiet spot, free of distractions. Once certain techniques are learned, they can be pulled out whenever you feel stressed. They are available not only in times of emergency but to maintain a healthy and calm state of being. Of course, no one can completely eliminate the stress of daily living or the stress of pain and illness, but you can learn to manage it.
You’ll need to experiment a bit to find out which of the following relaxation techniques work best for you. Some take effort and practice, so don’t give up too soon on any one. Try them all; give each one a chance to prove its worth. Then choose a few that you feel comfortable doing. Relaxation therapy is a lifelong skill that will improve the quality of your life, health, and well-being.
Ever since Norman Cousins wrote his best-selling book, Anatomy of an Illness, in which he described how he conquered a degenerative illness through a steady diet of laughter, there has been a growing interest in laughter therapy as a curative. Even staunch doubters are gradually accepting this idea in light of the growing store of research evidence.
At the DeKalb General Hospital in Decatur, Georgia, a “humor room” was established that contains no medical equipment at all. Doctors order their discouraged and listless patients to visit this room regularly as an important adjunct to other treatment.
The cheerful, brightly-lit room contains a large video library of old television comedy shows and old movies featuring Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, W. C. Fields, Red Skelton, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, and other comics.
Some results have been truly remarkable—most have been encouraging. Nurses have noticed that after spending only a couple of hours a day in this room, patients usually perk up and have a rekindled desire to become well and return home.
Patients in other hospitals in Orlando, Schenectady, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Stockholm, and London are also being offered laughter therapy. Some hospitals have found that group humor sessions comprising joke telling, humorous anecdotes, recitation of comic plays, and skit presentations are enhanced by the positive energy of a social dynamic.
Besides these social and psychological benefits, research reveals that there are many physiological benefits that are derived from laughter sessions. Blood pressure is reduced and the cardiovascular system is stimulated. Also, muscular tension is reduced, and the respiratory system receives a beneficial increase of oxygen.
Laughter also affects the production of endorphins, which are the body’s natural pain killers. It seems that the eighty facial muscles involved in laughing affect the cranial blood flow and alter brain temperature which, in turn, influences the synthesis of endorphins. Also, there are indications that laughter may stimulate the thymus gland, which helps the body to withstand disease.
Family members who care for sick relatives are also very good candidates for this therapy. These caregivers are particularly vulnerable to fatigue and anxiety, which may result in unacceptable stress levels. Both the patient and the caregiver can benefit from daily humor sessions. Norman Cousins reported that five minutes of intense positive thinking, such as laughter, can cause a 53 percent increase in the disease-fighting ability of blood. Even a few minutes of laughter has been found to result in hours of relaxation. Starting today, find something to laugh about.
Because we all daydream and nightdream, we know we have an internal world that we can experience in both positive and negative ways. Guided imagery requires you to go to that inner world and construct a place where you’ll feel safe and relaxed whenever you imagine yourself being there. The core of the guided imagery approach to stress reduction lies in imagining a positive experience in order to stop, interrupt, or prevent a physical stress reaction.
To do this, create a positive image in your mind that represents a safe and relaxing environment. Practice visiting this imaginary place over and over again. Then, when you’re stressed, you can go there just briefly and benefit from the relaxed feeling it gives you. For example, you may find this image soothing:
I am stretched out on an ocean beach. The sun is warm on my body. When it gets too strong, I have an umbrella for protection. I feel the warmth of the sand on my fingertips. I see the calm ocean touching the shore. I can smell the salt of the ocean, and I can taste the sea air. On my beach, are just the right number of people—I’m not crowded or lonely. No sand crabs crawl, no flies swarm. I feel just wonderful. It’s an ideal place that I can visit with all my senses anytime I want. Even when I’m in the middle of a crowd with my eyes wide open, I can go to my beach.
This safe place happens to be a beach—yours can be anywhere. It can be in your family room by the fireplace, the woods by a stream, the park down the street. But keep these points in mind:
Another kind of guided imagery is sometimes used to battle chronic disease and pain under the guidance of a trained therapist. Introduced in the 1970s to help athletes and musicians perform better, the method has won increasing acceptance as a medical tool. Patients are taught how their immune system is affected by their disease, pain, and stress. Then with cues from the therapist or a tape recording, they learn to visualize their condition and “see” the body fighting against the disease and restoring comfort and health. A person suffering from the pain of arthritis in the hands, for example, might mentally see her inflamed and stiff joints regain flexible, fluid movement. This mental picture temporarily can dissuade the brain from transmitting pain.
Because the body needs oxygen to fuel its stress response, you can reduce or short-circuit the stress you feel by regaining control of your breathing. Athletes often do this just before a race begins or as they are about to get up to bat.
Follow these instructions to stop the shallow, rapid breathing that accompanies a stress response:
It’s recommended that you smile when you exhale because smiling is a natural mood elevator. While you’re smiling, it’s difficult to be stressed. Try this experiment: Think nasty thoughts while you’re smiling. Isn’t it hard?
Deep breathing is a relaxation technique you can use anywhere. No one around needs to know you’re practicing stress-reduction. Use it whenever you feel your body tensing from stress.
Meditation can be used to enhance the effectiveness of deep breathing. Deep breathing can arrest a stress response, but too often the effort is sabotaged by the appearance of negative thoughts. Meditation can counter the intrusion of this renewed stress.
Meditation helps you focus on in the present moment in a state called mindfulness. The process heals not only physically, but emotionally as well. The physical benefits come from the relaxation response, the tuning down of the body’s stress. Emotionally, meditation decreases anxiety and calms the mind.
In the early 1970s, the proponents of transcendental meditation, or TM, wanted to scientifically measure their practice. They asked Harvard cardiologist Herbert Benson and another researcher, R. Keith Wallace, to monitor meditators for physiological change. The scientists wired the subjects with electrodes and drew blood samples before and after meditation. What they discovered confirmed that the calm felt by TM practitioners was definitely not “all in their minds” but a unique physiological state distinct from either simple rest or sleep. It was as if the fight-or-flight response shifted into reverse. Heart and breathing rates and blood pressure went down, and so did the rate at which meditators consumed oxygen. Moreover, this physiological calm occurred within minutes. TM seemed like an ever-ready antidote to the health-eroding stress of modern life.
Dr. Benson went on to strip meditation of its spiritual trappings. What was important, he suggested, was the act of quiet concentration. Benson termed the resulting physiological reaction “the relaxation response.” This was also the title of his 1976 book, which became a best seller and a major influence on a generation of health practitioners.
Whether pursued simply for relaxation or for spiritual enlightenment or healing, meditation requires a quiet, comfortable setting as well as a conscious effort to relax the muscles, regulate the breathing, and calm the mind. A point of focus is needed: You can use a special word, called a mantra or focal point; this can be the word “calm” or “peace” or even a meaningless sound. Or you can direct your mind toward a calming mental image, or to the simple rhythm of your own breathing.
Many programs of meditation are available, but for a sample of a basic meditative style, follow these instructions:
Sit comfortably in a quiet place, free of distractions. Close your eyes and breathe freely for a few seconds to focus your mind on relaxation. Then to begin your meditation, exhale a deep breath, and focus on your mantra; say this word silently to yourself. As you breathe in, your mind may still have a stressful thought, but as you breathe out, switch your attention back to your mantra. Do this for about fifteen to thirty minutes. With practice, you’ll be able to breathe and meditate without stressful thoughts bothering you. This stress-free, relaxed time will give your body opportunity to rejuvenate and calm itself.
The healing power of prayer has been claimed by every religion in recorded history. To this day, millions of people find religious prayer to be comforting, relaxing, and a source of inner strength. But the mind/body connections between prayer and healing are now being scientifically studied. Dr. Larry Dossey, author of Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine, has researched the healing effect of praying: both by praying oneself and being prayed for by others. Time and time again, he has shown that the immune system strengthens after prayer. It has also been found that the effect even can be transmitted from one to another over thousands of miles. As of 1996, at least ten different universities in North America were studying the power of prayer.
Like meditation, prayer is a time for tuning out the outer world and focusing on an internal life that can dictate the course of health.
Biofeedback gives you concrete evidence of the mind’s influence on the body’s functions. In a healthy person, physiological functions are performed and regulated by the brain and central nervous system. The mind, however, often interferes when under stress, which produces tension in the body. Biofeedback can teach you to intervene to restore balanced functioning in the body.
Conscious control of your stress level can affect many body functions that can be accurately and continuously measured, such as heart rate, skin temperature, blood pressure, muscle tension, and brain waves. The biofeedback equipment that measures these functions includes the electroencephalograph (EEG), which records nerve and brain waves; the electromyograph (EMG), which registers muscle tension; and the galvanic skin resistance instrument (GSR), which detects the electrical conductivity of the skin to record states of arousal, excitement, or nervousness.
When they are hooked up to subjects, these machines convey information through signals that can be easily interpreted. For instance, when the instrument detects muscle tension, a red light might go on or a certain sound might be emitted to signal what is happening to you internally. You would then begin certain relaxation techniques to control muscle tension. The techniques that are used in combination with the biofeedback equipment include relaxation and autosuggestion exercises, visual imagery, and meditation and prayer. For example, if the equipment signals that your heart rate is increasing, you can slow the heart beat by imagining a calm, peaceful place where you feel relaxed and safe.
Biofeedback has many applications. It is used as an effective treatment for emotional or behavioral problems, such as anxiety, depression, phobias, insomnia, and tension headaches. It also can be used to treat illnesses considered by some professionals to be psychosomatic, such as asthma, ulcers, colitis, diarrhea, cardiac arrhythmia, hypertension, Raynaud’s syndrome, and migraines. Biofeedback can help people with neuromuscular problems caused by stroke or cerebral palsy. Because biofeedback increases your understanding of your total mind/body functioning, it also can be beneficial in enhancing personal growth and awareness.
It is best to undergo biofeedback treatments under the supervision of a psychologist trained in biofeedback.
Skepticism of the mind/body connection is gradually eroding in the face of scientific evidence. Research is showing, for example, that breast cancer patients who receive group support may live, on average, twice as long as those who do not. Other experiments have revealed that hypnosis can hasten the healing of burns, that laughter can increase immune function, and that diabetics can lower their need for insulin with relaxation techniques. Psychologists have sketched out personality types associated with heart disease, and studies linking psychological factors to illness and immune function now number in the thousands. This does not, of course, prove that humans can heal themselves of cancer or other diseases. Nor does it prove that illness is “all in the head” or that we cause our own sickness. What the studies do suggest, however, is that feelings and emotions influence health, and that the body’s healing system may be far more powerful and complex than we have dared imagine. An ever-growing body of evidence shows that thoughts, feelings, and attitudes can push us toward illness or toward health.