Western medicine reveals new evidence of the power of connection between mind and body. Some surprising recent studies have empirically provided that the union is not only quantifiable, but is a powerful tool in the healing process and is your best ally in fighting the debilitating effects of stress and illness.
A recent article in the Chicago Tribune states that hospitals, including the Northwest Memorial in the Chicago area, attract the help of "psychologists-psychologists" to find unconventional treatments for patients with common disorders such as cancer, heart disease and gastrointestinal Problems. And - not surprisingly - conscious breathing is paramount among them.
“At the same time,” writes Ronald Kotulak from the Tribune, “the doctors had to cope with something that many had to admit: that the patient’s beliefs can affect the healing process, and that the so-called placebo effect is not an exercise in self-deception, but genuine biological response, organized by the brain. "
Psychotherapist psychologists are not like psychiatrists, Kotulak explains, who are trying to cover children's roots of emotional problems. Rather, their practice, called behavioral medicine, is based on studies showing that stress, anxiety, and depression, which manifest as physical symptoms, and are the main reason why 60 percent of patients visit doctors, can harm the body just like microbes , arteries - a diet for logging, lack of exercise, obesity, and abnormal behavior of genes. They are at the junction of psychology and biology, where what people think and their beliefs can either increase the risk of illness, on the one hand, or restore calm, on the other.
Patricia Mambi, assistant professor of behavioral neuroscience at the Loyola University Medical Center, is part of this new breed. Being a newly registered nurse, she is unhappy with the medical half of medical care and returned to school to study psychology. She felt that this was an untrained healing reservoir.
“Patients recognize the connection (mind-body), and they need more control over their health and their own well-being.
The healing power of the tools used by health psychologists - relaxation techniques, self-hypnosis, biofeedback, yoga, acupuncture, exercise, coping skills - are based on two revolutionary findings of researchers about how the brain works. One of them is that a vast network of nerves paves the brain to all organs of the body in different ways than previously thought. Secondly, the brain constantly sends hormone fluxes to regulate the digestive, cardiac and immune systems, and then reacts to the chemical messages sent.
This area of research with the formidable name of psychoneuroimmunology studies how stressors and generated negative emotions transform into physical changes. For example, the brain conducts a two-way conversation with the immune system, and stress can gain hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, increasing the risk of infection and delaying healing. On the other hand, laughter and exercise can release hormones that undermine the infection and raise the natural killer cells, which can provide enhanced protection against cancer.
A good example is Delores Rogalsky, a 57-year-old from St. Petersburg. Joseph, Michigan, who underwent a heart transplant in the Northwest Memorial, faced with a “plate” of stress in a turbulent four-month period, including a divorce, a lung operation, her daughter’s hospitalization, the death of a close friend and mother-in-law and her transfer.
Rogalsky’s treatment included sessions with the director of behavioral medicine at the Northwest Memorial to cancel her downward spiral of stress. People are said to be trying to predict or control their environment, says director Kim Lebowitz, and when problems accumulate, the results of anxiety: they tend to concentrate on all things that are beyond their control.
Before the transplant, Lebowitz taught Rogalsky's mental and behavioral exercises to relax her mind and body. She began with slow, deep breathing, and then proceeded to gradually relax each muscular system from head to toe. Learning how to imagine pleasant things turned her mind into a safe place to heal. She thought she was on the beach or in the countryside, remembering all the delicious smells, colors and perspectives.
“I don’t look like the man who walked here,” Rogalski tells Tribune. "I accepted my divorce." I accepted what I could do nothing about.
After Rogalsky received his transplantation, “I made her imagine this strong heart, very healthy, very pink, rhythmically beating,” says Lebowitz. "For her, it was a very deep image, which gave her a lot of comfort and strength."
It is clear that mastering some simple breathing techniques to help control the mind and its ability to regulate the mechanism of your body is an essential tool for maintaining good health.
