Healing & the Mind-Body Connection
The way we perceive daily events, the way we view the world around us, the manner in which we respond to stress and interact with others all affect the way in which our body maintains homeostasis. The reason it’s called the mind-body connection and not vice versa is because the mind is what’s doing the controlling. We think and then we respond. And how we respond is basically a matter of mind over body. Simply put, life events are viewed as either good or bad depending on how we look at them. I knew a student who actually enjoyed getting into traffic jams because it gave him an opportunity to think and reflect on things in his life. While many of us would be ready to explode into a rage at being stuck on a highway and going nowhere, he would use the time to do something constructive like catching up on current news events or reviewing for an upcoming exam. It’s attitude more than anything else. And attitudes, just like habits, are conditioned responses that can be changed, sometimes with a little effort but often quite easily, for the better. Easier said than done, you’re probably thinking. But when you consider how easily we form habits or condition ourselves to behave in certain ways, we can just as easily condition ourselves to develop attitudes that bring out the best in us.
Okay, so you have a bad attitude; and you’d really like to feel and think differently. But exactly how do you change attitudes in order to prevent illness and disease? The answer is not to try and alter personality but to make small adjustments in those behaviors that, over time, will automatically change the attitudes that are affecting health. Sometimes the best and most effective preventive medicine is conditioning the brain to perceive life events in a new way. Here are eleven suggestions I that I have offered in my seminars that people found help them the most.
View change as rewarding and challenging. In most cases, change is not something we view positively. Many of us are not very good at it; and the older we get the harder it becomes. Sometimes it’s simply a fear of the unknown or the fear of failure. So, rather than viewing change as something negative that happens to us, we need to look for the positives. The more consistently we do that, the less negatively we’ll feel about change in general.
Visualize positive results. One of the most common behaviors that cause stress, anxiety, and illness is “spectatoring.” As if we’re looking through someone else’s eyes, we visualize what’s happening to us or what will happen to us, and we don’t like what we see. Performance anxiety is common when we’re about to give a speech or have sex or perform some other function. To rid ourselves of this negative habit, we need to imagine success instead of failure. Once we condition the brain to see positive outcomes, we’ll quickly overcome that initial urge to think the worst.
Take control over situations. Having a feeling of control is one of the most important and fundamental attitudes we can have to combat stress and prevent illness. Studies have shown that we get sick, not as a result of stressful situations, long hours, job pressures, or low pay but rather from feelings that what we do is beyond our control. The best way to reverse that is to get involved rather than to sit passively by and have others take charge. Join, participate, volunteer, and become active. Doing whatever you can to lead instead of follow will make you feel more in control, even if you’re not.
Don’t be a perfectionist. Since perfection does not exist, trying to be perfect can lead to burnout, isolation, depression, and eventually disease. It’s okay to try and be the best we can be. But what we need to comes to grips with is the fact that there will be always be things we can’t do as well as we’d like. We have to accept that and move on.
Discover your peak energy levels. Each of us has a unique internal biological clock. Some of us are morning people; others have more energy during the afternoon or evening. By discovering what type of person we are, we can avoid stressful or strenuous situations that sap our energy levels and make us feel as if we’re not accomplishing what we should. On the other hand, scheduling the most difficult tasks around peak energy times makes us more efficient. Recognizing when we’re at our best is a good first step in eliminating burnout, limiting wear and tear on the body, and keeping our immune system healthy and functioning well.
Take time out. Everyone, no matter how much they love what they’re doing or how stress tolerant they think they may be, needs time to help their homeostatic mechanisms recover from the work they’ve done. At work, we need to take a few minutes every two hours or so to relax and get ourselves back into a good frame of mind. We should never skip lunch if we don’t have to, and we should try and do something special on occasion to make ourselves feel important.
Stress proof your surroundings. Our environment and the things that surround us can have a profound impact on how we feel and how energized we are. If we listen to music, we need to listen only to the type of music that makes us feel most relaxed, not the music that’s currently popular or that we think we should be listening to. Surround yourself and decorate your office with pictures you enjoy looking at and with color schemes that are soothing rather than stimulating.
Don’t dwell on the past. It’s important not to get caught up in past events. Dwelling too much on previous failures, on what we should have done or on what we should have said, conditions the brain to intensify those negative thoughts the next time. The past is over, and the only thing we can do is work on the present and prepare for the future. Instead of worrying about what should have been, our past experiences can be used as a tool for focusing on future accomplishments. The most accomplished people in life, the most successful entrepreneurs, the greatest scientists and achievers all have one thing in common: they all learn from past mistakes and they all use failure as an incentive to accomplish what they set out to do.
Begin an exercise program. There’s more to exercise than simply getting fit. Regular exercise boosts our immune system and makes us fight disease more effectively. It energizes us, helps us relax, improves sex life, increases resistance, and gives us an overall feeling of health and well-being. Stimulating the body refreshes the mind. Our brain requires activity by the rest of the body in order to revitalize the senses and keep us in a constant state of balance. Individuals who exercise at least 3 times a week are significantly more likely to trigger the strong immune responses needed to combat disease.
Express feelings and emotions. The simple act of expressing ourselves has a dramatic effect on how we feel and cope with life events. Psychologists working with people who have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) find that their patients recover more quickly and are sick less often the more they repeat the event that caused the trauma. Studies done since the 1980s have shown that writing about an experience dulls its emotional impact, leads to successful recovery, and actually produces stronger immune responses. This new “journal therapy” technique can have a profound effect on our health by interfering with disease processes.
Learn to say no. If you are a yes person, you’re less likely to feel in control and more likely to get sick. The reason is simple. Those who can’t say no usually feel like they’re being taken advantage of and are angered at their helplessness and passive behavior. As a result, they get overextended, stressed out, and never seem to find time for what they want to do for themselves. Delaying a decision is a good technique to use because it allows us to remove ourselves from the situation and gives us time to find an excuse. We can simply respond with, “Let me check my schedule and get back with you.” Then we can decide if we want to get involved or we can come up with some legitimate excuse we were unable to think of on the spur of the moment.
A few simple changes in how we live our day-to-day lives can have a significantly effect on our ability to prevent illness and disease. Using even some of these suggestions will go a long way to conditioning our brain to elicit strong and healthy immune responses.
From: Stress, Disease & the Mind-Body Connection: Using the Power of the Brain for Health and Self-Healing by Dr. Andrew Goliszek