MIND AND HEALTH (Part 1) by Dr D B Nugegoda

The interaction between the mind and the immune system provides the physiological basis that explains how emotions influence the health of a person. Positive emotions play a key role in the wellbeing of a person, which is often not given its due place in the domain of allopathic medicine as currently practiced.

Sternberg, Director of the Integrative Neural Immune Program at the National Institute of Mental Health, says that recent studies have “Given credibility to mind-body approaches, which had been rejected and ignored by the scientific and medical communities”.

Coleman asks why the medical profession ignores the healing powers of the human body and mind, and goes on to say that “The most efficient healing systems are found not in the doctor’s pharmacy or the herbalist’s garden, but inside the body itself”.

Chopra has referred to surveys conducted in England and America, where as much as 80 % of the patients surveyed felt that their underlying reason for going to the doctor was not resolved when they left the doctor’s office. As such treatment having positive effects on their medical conditions is rather slim, as their minds have not been satisfied.

Siegel (an American surgeon), having practiced as a surgeon for over a decade , decided to go beyond the pure mechanical way of helping his patients by deciding to help the so called “hopeless” cases through mind body interventions, by treating the minds of these patients.

It is said that one lives in a world created by one’s own mind. For example, one could be beautiful, but if he/she thinks he/she is ugly, that person lives in a world structured by his/her ugliness. The opposite is also true.

William James has said that almost all diseases are psychosomatic. Similar observations have been made in much earlier times as well. Sir William Osler (father of modern medicine), had stated “Outcome of tuberculosis had more to do with what went on in the patient’s mind than what went on in his lungs”.

The link between the mind and the body is so profound that even imaginary problems could lead to genuine illness. Coleman quotes the case of Daphne, who as a child was told that she would walk with a limp, as one of her legs was short. She did walk with a limp for twenty years, until a doctor found that both of her legs were of equal length, whereupon she lost her limp almost immediately. Coleman has said “The simple truth is that whether the information comes from a man dressed in feathers with a string of beads round his neck or from a man in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck, it is faith that does the damage. if the individual at the receiving end of the spell or bad news believes what he/she is told, his/her imagination will do the rest”.