Years ago when I was young(er) and dumb(er) I went to a Deepak Chopra seminar.
Someone had dragged me along to hear this bloke who, apparently, was some kind of doctor, philosopher, teacher, mystic and guru.
I'd never heard of him.
Ignorant Aussie.
It was a Saturday and I was missing the game on TV to listen to a weirdo.
That's all I cared about.
"He better be amazing", I told my friend.
He was.
He blew me away with his insight into the incredible relationship between our psychology and our physiology; the ability we have to influence our own physical health and wellness through our thinking and our emotions.
He was teaching me stuff that I'd never heard before but deep down, I somehow knew to be true.
On some level his message resonated within me; it made sense.
"Of course my thoughts and feelings will have a 'real' effect on my physical body", why didn't I think of that before?
We can simply think about something (something that scares us perhaps) and it will have an immediate effect on our physiology; our heart rate increases, our mouth becomes dry, we begin to perspire, our respiration changes, hormones are released, blood pressure increases and our pupils dilate.
Amazing, when we consider that nothing has actually happened, we've only thought about it... but the truth is, our mind often doesn't know the difference between a thought and an experience; imagination and reality.
Both of my parents suffer from hypertension (high blood pressure) and being the healthy little camper that I try to be, I have always done my best to live a lifestyle which would not lead to hypertension (and yes, I acknowledge there is a genetic role). Periodically I have worried about ending up with high blood pressure but generally, it's not something I have thought about too much.
A couple of years ago I went to the doctor (a bold step for the alpha-male, I know) because I wasn't feeling well. Anyway, she informed me that she was going to take my blood pressure. No sooner had those words left her lips than I could literally feel my blood pressure rising, my breathing get faster, my heart rate increasing and anxiety invading every cell of my being.
Clearly, I'm a big baby.
I didn't realise it, but on some level, I was so worried about having high blood pressure, that I was creating it.
I made my self anxious.
Sure enough, she took it and it was high.
"But I don't drink, smoke, eat bad food (okay cheesecake... but that's therapeutic) and I exercise every day of my life!"
"Well, Mr non-drinking, non-smoking, exercise-aholic... you've got high blood pressure."
She prescribed me some drug and I walked out of there feeling very sorry for myself.
I got in the car, headed back to work and considered what had just happened.
I arrived at the gym and went to our fitness assessment room (where I can test my own blood pressure). Deciding that I didn't really have high blood pressure, I figured would check myself just to be certain.
I sat down, put the cuff on my arm and instantly I felt my heart begin to pound in my chest; I was scared about the result.
What an amazing thing the mind is.
I merely thought about having my blood pressure read... and I became anxious.
How ridiculous is that?
I measured it; it was high.
I felt sick.
'Oh well', I thought.
'That's it; I'm resigned to a life of taking medication.'
I sat there for a few minutes wallowing in my own self-pity.
After a little while the anxiety was replaced by sadness and a level of reluctant acceptance.
I was just about to leave the room when, for some unknown, reason I decided to check it for one last time.
I was relaxed and didn't worry about the reading because I knew it would be high.
It was low.
What?!
I instantly felt happy and relaxed.
I tested it again.
It was low again.
I went and did some research and learned of a condition known as white-coat hypertension; the doctor simply mentions taking my blood pressure and up it goes!
I make it high.
Plenty of people suffer from the same condition.
One of the responses to stress and anxiety is an increase in blood pressure and if having your blood pressure measured stresses you, then there's every chance you can be mis-diagnosed.
Hey, that makes sense.
Okay, so back to my Deepak story.
You know when someone articulates something that you instinctively knew but could put into words or explain properly; that's what he did.
He talked about the undeniable relationship between mental and emotional stress and physical illness. For the first time I began to really understand that we have the ability to make ourselves sick.
Or well.
He told a story of two friends who went on a roller coaster ride together:
Sally loves scary rides.
Tom hates them.
Sally can't wait for the ride to begin.
Tom is petrified.
Sally has dragged Tom along and he is reluctantly strapped into the seat next to her.
The ride starts.
Sally is laughing and smiling; having a blast.
Tom is quiet, distressed, anxious and feeling nauseous.
His mouth is dry and his hands are sweating profusely.
The really interesting thing is what's happening on physiological level inside their respective bodies (as they both go through the same experience).
Both Sally and Tom experience chemical changes in their bodies.
Both of them are producing a whole bunch of hormones in response to their perception of what they are experiencing; their reality.
Sally, who's having the best time ever, is producing a truck load of endorphins (feel-good hormones) and life's good, while her off-sider in the seat next to her is stressed, anxious and petrified and releasing gallons (almost) of cortisol (a destructive hormone) around his body.
Isn't that amazing; they're both going through the same experience at the same time (riding a roller-coaster) and yet one of them (Sally) has got some great (health-promoting) hormones being pumped around her system while Tom's body is producing the 'Mr-make-you-sick-in-no-time' hormone; cortisol.
It's not about the situation, circumstance or event... it's about what it represents to us; it's about how we process it, rationalise it and deal with it.
How we let it affect us, physically.
Deepak also told us about a chemical that our body produces when we're having lots of fun.
It's called interleukin 2.
He then told us that interleukin 2 was being produced synthetically to treat some cancers.
Can you believe that.. when we're happy our body produces a chemical used to fight cancer!
Get happy I say.
I remember reading a book years ago by Andrew Weil (MD) who discussed at length the ability our body has to heal itself of many conditions. He explored the relationship between beliefs and reality (how we create our own reality) and the fascinating (but not fully understood) relationship between our mind and our body.
He spoke about a man who had suffered from cutaneous warts over most of his body for years.
No treatment had worked.
He visited a doctor who informed him that there was a new form of experimental radiation treatment available which was somewhat risky but was so powerful that it had a very high success rate.
The man who had been embarrassed by his warts for years jumped at the chance to have this 'revolutionary' treatment.
The doctor and a radiologist friend took the patient into a darkened X-ray room, had him remove his clothes and stand still for a couple of minutes while he had the 'treatment'. The 'treatment' had been to make an X-ray machine hum loudly without actually doing anything!
The next day all the warts were gone and never returned.
There was no treatment; his belief and expectation healed him.
He created a cure.
http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/The-Incredible-Relationship-between-our-Mind-and-our-Body-/155800
