--> He has proven by scientific method in a laboratory setting that prearranged signals coming from someone who is dreaming can be measured using the mind-body connection. For example, a sleeping lucid dreamer can look left and then right on a previously arranged cue and those eye movements can be recorded by an observer.
To engage in lucid dreaming, you first need to notice you are dreaming. Occasionally, this realization is triggered by the dreamer recognizing something impossible in the dream, like flying or meeting someone who has died, but most often it is a learned skill. |  But we feel there is more than this mind-body connection that is being debated in science. We believe there is something called a mindbody, one whole organism, intimately integrated and coordinated, that cannot be separated into parts.
The boundaries we have created by saying that the mind somehow influences the body, or that the body influences the mind, distort our perception of how our bodies and minds actually function. Trying to divide mind and body is like trying to divide yin and yang. Neither can stand alone; together they make one totality. |  In the next chapter, I'll identify the top ten foods that increase oxidative stress levels, but first let's review why oxidative stress is such a cause for concern: þOxidative stress disrupts the mind-body connection þOxidative stress devitalizes the immune system þOxidative stress precipitates target organ failure þOxidative stress leads to metabolic friction and metabolic burnout
OXIDATIVE STRESS DISRUPTS THE MIND-BODY CONNECTION
A balanced mind-body chemistry is essential for wellness. | | The state of your mind-body connection can be determined from the co-functioning of your nervous system and glandular metabolism, as governed by the neuro-chemical transmitters that carry messages. By depleting these neuro-chemical transmitters, oxidative stress disrupts the mind-body connection. The self-regulating pharmacy is sabotaged, throwing mind and body out of whack. All sorts of exhaustion occur: fatigue, lethargy, drowsiness, inertia. It becomes difficult to focus. Resolve weakens and willpower plummets. |  Healing Back Pain: The mind-body connection. New York: Warner Books, 1991.
CANCER
Obtain the "Coping with Cancer" videotape, which reviews common questions about cancer, treatments, lifestyles, quality of life during therapy, and the role of the immune system. Send $19.95 to Northwest Oncology Foundation, P.O. Box 3726, Bellevue, WA 98009. Also obtain the videos "What Your Doctor Won't Tell You about Cancer," "Cancer and Vitamin C: An Interview with Linus Pauling, Ph.D.," and "Self-Healing: An Interview with Norman Cousins," from Malibu Video, 6955 Fernhill Dr. | | These common denominators are:
• Dietary Hazards
• Nutritional Deficiencies
• Poor Digestion and Assimilation
• Toxic Bowel
• Sluggish Liver
• Hypoglycemia (Low Blood Sugar)
• Adrenal Exhaustion
• Yeast Overgrowth
• Food Allergies/Intolerances
• Psychoneuroimmunology (The mind-body connection)
The recognition and treatment of these conditions in turn affect the competence of the immune system. This relationship is explored in Chapter Sixteen.
Many of these conditions go unrecognized by conventionally practicing doctors. |  Your Pet Is What You Are
In the last decade considerable research advances have been made in the mind-body connection relative to human health. Scientists worldwide now understand that the way we feel mentally and emotionally largely determines how we will be physically. Wherefore, more and more doctors are considering the thoughts of the mind and emotions of the heart as playing pivotal roles in the initiation, progression, and final outcome of many organic diseases.
Only recently, though, have a few practitioners of veterinary medicine begun applying the same logic toward sick animals. |  Visualization
Tapping into the power of the mind-body connection, visualization therapy teaches patients to actually visualize their immune systems attacking and destroying bad cells. Researchers have reported success in using visualization to fight cancer, alleviate some of the symptoms of AIDS, and even make warts drop off overnight.
Aromatherapy
If you've ever had your spirits lifted when you walked into a house where someone was baking bread, then you've experienced the power of aromatherapy. | | This is proof of the importance of the mind-body connection, an influence so powerful it can heal even when a patient is treated with a placebo — a "sugar pill" with no inherent medical value.
In Latin, the word "placebo" means "I will please," and in the medical world, studies have shown that inert placebos do work over 30 percent of the time. Psycho-immunology may hold the key to this phenomenon. Pyscho-immunologists, who study the way our brains affect our immune systems, have found that if you believe you will be healthy, chances are you will be healthy. | | Again, it's that mind-body connection. Signals from the olfactory nerve go straight to the part of the brain responsible for memory and emotion. As a result, smells can reduce stress, help relaxation, relieve anxiety, improve productivity and ease depression.
To practice aromatherapy at home, you should buy scents in the form of essential oils. Never apply these oils directly to your skin at full strength because they can trigger an allergic reaction. Instead, add some to your bathwater, perfume your home or office with bowls of water and scented oil, or burn scented candles. | | Both use light to moderate touch and emphasize relaxation, breathing, and the mind-body connection. It's a good way to become acquainted with your body's preferences.
The organizations in Resources can put you in touch with practitioners in your area, but as in all health-worker relationships, word-of-mouth recommendations are your best guide.
RESOURCES
The Alexander Technique, by Judith Stransky and Robert S. Stone, Ph.D. 1981, 308 pages, $14.95 from Beaufort Books, 9 East 40th Street, New York, ny 10016. A thorough introduction. |  There are many ways to get at the mind-body connection by using aromatherapy techniques.
ANXIETY
Feeling panicked about an approaching job interview or a speech? Then eat an apple, says University of Arizona researcher Gary Schwartz, M.D.—and be sure to sniff it. Dr. Schwartz, who says he was inspired by the old saying "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," believes that our sense of smell directly affects the part of our brain that controls fear and anxiety. |  This ancient Chinese martial art enhances mind-body connection, balance, and harmony, says Dr. Stark. Its slow, fluid, circular motions in graceful sequences strengthen muscles and improve coordination and balance. Think of it as a moving meditation, he adds. (For more, see "Tai Chi" on page 386.)
Count on These Moves to Lii
Our fingers are amazing tools. Some evolutionary biologists claim that fingers are what makes us human. To be sure, without them we never could have fashioned the first prehistoric tool, not to mention The Mall of America in Minneapolis.
Our fingers face several threats. |  The mind-body connection is critical in the development of the whole person. Children need to be off the couch and engaged in physical and mental play, and their play must not only be physical, but creative as well.
Today most play is team or league play, in which children participate in organized sports. On the surface this looks like a good idea, but upon close examination we find children are asked to play by adult rules and are closely supervised. They are asked to perform to adult expectations. | | The idea that there is such a strong mind-body connection in healing has produced an entirely new field of medical study, psychoneuroimmunology (PNI). The term psychoneuroim-munology connects the mind (psycho), the nervous system (neuro), and the body's natural defenses (immuno). We know that these three systems carry on a constant dialogue, particularly the brain and nervous system, and this is where neurofeedback plays a major role.
Inside-the-skin events have often been ignored because they are subtle and often difficult to detect. | | OXIDATIVE STRESS PRECIPITATES TARGET ORGAN FAILURE
"Psychosomatic" is just a more sophisticated way of referring to the mind-body connection: "psyche" refers to the mind, "somatic" to the body. Oxidative stress explains the psychosomatic origin of illness—the way we can literally worry ourselves sick.
Depending on such diverse factors as metabolism and genetic makeup, different people have different body targets that serve as the prime receptors of EMT. These targets are the organs most vulnerable to the displacement of emotional and nutritional distress. |  If you want to change your body in order to have a healthy mind-body connection, your focus is in the right place. If your reasons for losing weight are that you think if you do so you will get love, or so-and-so will want you or envy you, or you'll get that job, or someone will pay attention to you, then you are setting yourself up to fail. What if you lose the weight and it doesn't happen? Or what if you lose the weight and it does happen, but you still feel unfulfilled? |  Healing Back Pain: The mind-body connection, by John Sarno. New York: Warner Books, 1991.
The Arthritis Foods Discovery: A Thorough, Accurate, Easy-to-Understand Guide to Arthritis Pain-Prevention, Arthritis Help Centers, 394 Berkshire Valley Road. Wharton, NJ 07885. (973) 361-1867
Controlled studies have found that vitamins or minerals may be useful for chronic pain management, and the herb feverfew can help to prevent migraine headaches:
G. Schweiger, H. Karl, and E. | | By depleting these neuro-chemical transmitters, oxidative stress disrupts the mind-body connection. The self-regulating pharmacy is sabotaged, throwing mind and body out of whack. All sorts of exhaustion occur: fatigue, lethargy, drowsiness, inertia. It becomes difficult to focus. Resolve weakens and willpower plummets.
The ironic thing is, most of us excuse our bad health habits because they temporarily relieve tension, but, by failing to nourish our blood and brain chemistries, these negative behaviors, and the oxidative stress they cause, worsen the situation. |  The brilliance of Silver's methodology, says Chopra, is that it credits the mind-body connection with the ability to accomplish whatever it chooses, acknowledging a therapeutic carte blanche in which the brain is "the mind's infinitely resourceful servant, able to carry out what it was told to do. When Silvers offered these addicts a drugless fix, they discovered on the spot that addiction was not a prison but an illusion."
If we make our own reality, then we can make it better, says Chopra. |  As a result of this mind-body connection, there is an interplay between what we think and feel (consciously and subconsciously) and the condition of our bodies.
In our response to stress, free-radical production is increased dramatically; at the same time, our adrenal glands secrete Cortisol, adrenaline, and other hormones. This flood of stress hormones has a cascading adverse effect on other hormones related to longevity, such as DHEA, growth hormone, and insulin. This affects the body's ability to repair cells, tissues, and organs. |  This mind-body connection explains why vitiligo frequently begins after a period of emotional stress. Stress to the immune system also can precipitate vitiligo outbreaks; people can develop antibodies that destroy melanocytes (pigment-producing skin cells). Some people have reported that a single event, such as sunburn or an emotional shock, triggered the condition. Other possible causes include Addison's disease, pernicious anemia, alopecia areata, and autoimmune problems. Heredity also plays a role in this condition.
Treatment for vitiligo takes a long time—usually six to eighteen months. | | As a result of this mind-body connection, there is interplay between what we think and feel (consciously and subconsciously) and the condition of our bodies.
In our response to stress, free-radical production is increased dramatically; at the same time, our adrenal glands secrete Cortisol, adrenaline, and other hormones. This flood of stress hormones has a cascading adverse effect on other hormones related to longevity, such as DHEA, growth hormone, and insulin. This affects the body's ability to repair cells, tissues, and organs. |  What was first called the mind-body connection by questionable philosophers in the 1970s is now a respected science called psychoneuroimmunology, or the study of how the mind, hormones, and immune system communicate. In recent years more and more proof points to the fact that the brain is not separate but is intricately intertwined with the body. What you eat, how well you cope with stress, how clearly you think today and in the future, your moods, and your risk for most major degenerative diseases are all interconnected. |  While psychiatry has recognized this mind-body connection in general terms for the past three decades, it is only in the last 10 to 15 years that it has actually isolated some of the specific brain chemicals involved. Especially important among these chemicals are substances called neurotransmitters, which are released at the nerve endings in the brain and allow messages to be relayed throughout the rest of the brain and the body. Perhaps the most com-
208 Get nealthy Now! monly known neurotransmitter is endorphin. |  Hans Selye recognized the mind-body connection involved with stress, as all of his patients had similar physiological and psychological characteristics. Two of which were loss of appetite and increased blood pressure. Further studies with laboratory rats found that these same physical responses existed with animals when they were put under stress. He came to the conclusion that stress is "the non-specific response of the body to any demand placed upon it." However, according to Selye, it is not stress that harms us but distress. |  Traditional Chinese medicine is, like most ancient medical systems, truly holistic because it understands and addresses all aspects of the mind-body connection, something that contemporary Western medicine has only recently come to recognize. It also sees a close relationship between health and all external factors such as climate, season, diet, work, lifestyle, and relationships. |  There is also a mind-body connection to physical activity that can lift your mood. First, physical activity distracts you with an enjoyable activity that takes the immediate focus off your disease. Second, exercise increases the release of endorphins, according to a study at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. These naturally occurring brain chemicals affect how you feel. Exercise raises body temperature, which may result in brain chemical changes that help ease anxiety. | | It's what makes you tick: Attitude, appetite, energy level, willpower, concentration, strength, stamina, behavior, and emotions all depend on the mind-body connection.
Your body is ingeniously equipped with a largely self-regulating pharmacy of enzymes, hormones, and neurological impulses. Thought, action, and emotion are all generated in the brain, home of the central nervous system. Then, through an elaborate network of nerve endings, impulses carry messages from mind to muscles in order to cause action. Glands—pituitary, thyroid, adrenal, gonadal, etc. |  By contrast, Larry Dossey, author and lecturer on the mind-body connection and the power of prayer, has shown in our culture how doctors often use words that cause their patients distress. Citing examples in his books Meaning and Medicine and Be Careful What You Pray For, he has been very courageous in demonstrating how the use of words can be devastating to people and how words can hurt instead of heal.
He relates a story of a fifty-one-year-old schoolteacher who had undergone surgery for cancer. She responded well to the surgery and had plans for a bright future. | |
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