What's on Your Mind?

What your mind thinks, your body does Unknown

Last week I talked about the book, Mind Over Medicine, and I challenged you to pay more attention to the words you, and others around you, speak about your health?  Have you been thinking about the connection between our thoughts and our physical wellness?  I know I have.

While reading Mind Over Medicine, I find myself wanting to take the journey with Dr. Lissa Rankin, as she travels through the tunnel of practicing traditional medicine, and comes out transformed.  She brings with her a new outlook and passion for holistic health care, and a unique understanding of the amazing power of the body to heal itself.

 As Rankin was steeped in research enabling her to learn more about the power of the mind over the body, she came across an area of scientific research that she hadn’t given much prior thought to:  The placebo effect.  That little talked about area of modern clinical trials when fake treatments, such as sugar pills, saline injections, acupuncture and even sham surgeries are routinely used to prove a product or procedure’s effectiveness, or lack thereof.  Until beginning this research, Dr. Rankin admits that she had never really stopped to think much about the relationship of the placebo effect to healing. She writes, “We all know people in clinical trials get better when you treat them with nothing but a sugar pill.  But why?  That’s when I realized I had hit the mother lode in my quest for proof that the mind can affect the body. If a percentage of people in the clinical trials get better simply because they believe they’re getting a real drug or surgery; the response they are getting is triggered solely by the mind.  This realization threw me into a bit of a tailspin.”

Rankin’s found evidence that nearly half of asthma patients get symptoms relief from a fake inhaler.  About 40 percent of people with headaches get relief when given a placebo.  Half of people with colitis feel better after placebo treatment.  As many as 40 percent of infertility patients get pregnant while taking placebo ‘fertility drug’.    She goes on to ponder her discovery, “As my research continued, I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around what I was learning.  Clearly …when patients believe they’ll get well, a hearty percentage of them experience clinical Improvement.”

Whoa!  So then that means that when our mind thinks it’s getting something good for the body…we respond to that physically, even when the good thing is just a sugar pill?  Yes. Rankin also found that when given placebos, bald men grow hair, blood pressure drops, warts disappear, ulcers heal, stomach acid levels decrease, colon inflammation decreases, cholesterol levels drop, swelling goes down, and even white blood cell activity increases!  These findings; plus many more convinced Dr. Rankin that placebos don’t just change how you feel, they change your biochemistry.

Is there anyone in the audience that is having an ‘aha’ moment here?  I know I’m going to lay in my bed tonight and visualize a rested, healthy, energized body. 

Next time I’ll talk about the next phase of Lissa Rankin’s research, which led her in search of even more proof that the mind’s belief can alter the body’s physiology.

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And as often happens when I start researching a topic; the universe quickly supplies me with more current information. I found a headline this week that caused me to quickly open up the document and read it.  Are you taking Tylenol for that aching back? Check out this recent study that backs up this placebo idea.

https://www.yahoo.com/health/the-limits-of-tylenol-for-pain-relief-its-a-115298927642.html