H e a l t h T h o u g h t s

How our thinking affects our health

Genetic choice – our thinking can change our genes?

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@Glowimages 02A14S9A.I write about how our thinking affects our health.  A previous post, Expectation: the ultimate placebo effect shows how thinking can be effective medicine – even when patients are told beforehand about a placebo, yet still expect and experience good results.

But what if a problem is genetic?  Is that conclusion that last word?  NO.

Can our thinking still have an effect?  YES.

A book that has something relevant to offer here is the Bible.  It gives examples of people who were “born” with certain conditions and then cured through an entirely new spiritual perspective of their well being.

A newer book, written over a hundred years ago, (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy), states:  “Heredity is not a law.”  It explains how changing our mental response to that subject – changing how we think about theories associated with our genetic inheritance – can help heal and even prevent disease.Continue Reading

To be healthy – focus on HEALTH, not disease

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If your test comes back negative, you’re glad because “They found nothing.”

Is that really true?  Was nothing found?

Yes, the diseased condition or problem they were looking for isn’t there.  Then what is there?  Health.  And health is not nothing, it’s something.  Something was found.

It’s popular to think of health just as the absence of disease.  I remember being struck by this years ago while in a “health” food store.  Every product was geared not on wellness, but on treating or warding off sickness.

Most agree that our health care system is primarily designed for the treatment, management and sometimes prevention of disease rather than establishing and maintaining health.

Recent efforts to promote healthy lifestyles as a path to wellness mostly emphasize nutrition and exercise.  There’s been little shift in how we think of health.  People still see these lifestyle changes as strategies to evade disease.

Accepted logic says that disease is inevitable and you deal with it either through mainstream or alternative treatment, management and prevention.  But that’s upside down.  What about gaining a better understanding of health itself?

Health and wellness are our normal state of being.  Shouldn’t we begin with health as inevitable, lasting and powerful and disease as a detour?  Or at least with health as the rule and sickness as the exception?

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Are withdrawal symptoms or even recuperation absolutely unavoidable?

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My mom smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for almost 30 years.  Then one day she quit – cold turkey – and never had a single symptom of withdrawal.  No cravings, no anxiety, irritability or depression.  No weight gain, headaches, insomnia – nothing.

After struggling to breathe all weekend with a cold, she decided on Monday, “That’s it.  I’m quitting now.”  When amazed people would ask how she did it, she’d always respond, “I just decided.”

Her story is uncommon but not unique.  My dad’s more common smoking saga involved a struggle with cravings that lasted several years before he could kick the habit.

So, what was the difference?  Why was she able to quit quickly, without withdrawal, while he wasn’t?  Could it have been that her decision – that firm, mental resolve – actually affected her physical responses?

And why is this such an important health question?Continue Reading

A healthier view of a negative test result

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If your test comes back negative, you’re glad because as we commonly say, “They found nothing.”

Is that really true?  Was nothing found?

Yes, the diseased condition or the problem they were looking for isn’t there.  So then what is?  Health.  And health is not nothing, it’s something.  Something was found.

It’s popular to think of health just as the absence of disease.  I remember being struck by this phenomenon years ago while in a “health” food store.  As I looked around, I realized that every product was geared toward treating, preventing or warding off sickness.  There was barely anything about wellness.

Our health-care system is primarily a disease-care system.  The focus and the incentives are not on establishing and maintaining health but on paying for the treatment, management and occasionally the prevention of disease.

In recent years there have been efforts to promote healthy lifestyles as a path to wellness. Mostly the emphasis is on nutrition and exercise.  But there’s been very little shift in how we think of health.

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Expectation — the ultimate placebo effect

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Everyone knows that the placebo effect depends on not knowing that it’s a placebo, right?  Wrong!!

Here’s the link to a 1/10/12 piece from, The Wall Street Journal, called “Why Placebos Work Wonders:  from weight loss to fertility, new legitimacy for ‘fake’ treatments”.

The author, Shirley S. Wang, gives several impressive examples of effective placebo treatments but also reports this:  “It doesn’t seem to matter whether people know they are getting a placebo and not a ‘real’ treatment.”  What?!

She mentions a study done by Dr. Ted Kaptchuk, director of Harvard’s Program in Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Encounter.   Patients were informed that what they were taking was made with inert ingredients and yet they still had beneficial results.

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