© 2011 Marie-Agnès Lambert
© 2011 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Can the Mind Heal the Body?
More and more scientific studies tend to show that body and mind, thought and health are linked. How can we positively use the influence of one on the other? For ancient philosophies, man is a triple unit. Plato speaks of the spirit (nous), the soul (psyche) and the body (soma) while Ayurveda, this traditional Hindu medicine, refers to the causal body, subtle body and gross body. For a long time, traditions have spoken to us of an interaction between these three planes and more particularly, with regard to our health, between psyche and soma.
Psychosomatic illnesses
We now know that all emotions are accompanied by physiological changes. Fear results in palpitations, and anger in an accelerated heart rate, among other things. Long forgotten, psychosomatic medicine made a comeback in the 20th century: body ailments (soma) are said to result from a psychological conflict experienced by the patient.
The power of emotions
At the University of Wisconsin Neuroscience Laboratory, Richard Davidson and his team are experimenting with the power of emotions on the brain and body. The center of our emotions is located in the limbic brain. Each emotion experienced is communicated to the hypothalamus, which in turn acts on the pituitary gland, the true conductor of our hormonal system. The message is then transmitted to the adrenal glands, which release stress hormones into the blood. Negative emotions would cause the adrenal glands to be stimulated, leading to stress. The body mobilizes its energy and immune defenses to respond by flight or fight. If this state of stress lasts too long, the immune system goes out of whack, which can lead to inflammatory reactions that cause certain autoimmune diseases and weaken the body to disease. Positive emotions would activate the left prefrontal cortex, leading to stimulation of the parasympathetic system with the effect of releasing bodily tension and initiating the body’s recovery mechanisms and immune defenses.
The cognitive value of emotions
“Wounded victorious soldiers recover faster than the vanquished,” Ambroise Paré observed in the 16th century. Antonio R. Damasio, head of the Department of Neurology at the College of Medicine of the University of Iowa, demonstrates that the most complete emotions are those that are triggered after a phase of mental and voluntary evaluation in the associative prefrontal cortex (located between the sensory and motor areas of the brain), the seat of the various cognitive (memory, language) and executive (work planning, decision-making, organization of movements) functions. The appearance of an emotion is associated with a representation or a mental image that is expressed in the body. When the signals relating to the state of the body (somatic marks) are of a negative or unpleasant nature, the production of mental images is slowed down, their diversity is less, and reasoning is ineffective; when the signals emanating from the body are of a positive or pleasant nature, the production of mental images is lively, their diversity is great, and reasoning can be rapid. “To heal, you have to dream that you can heal,” says Édouard Zarifian (2). Thus, we fight more easily against illness when morale is good and the state of mind is positive.
Meditate to heal?
Forty-two medical studies conducted between 1977 and 1999 on one hundred and twenty-six thousand people, by professor of psychiatry David B. Larson at Duke University in South Carolina, show that those who believe in the existence of a divine entity increase their longevity by 29%. And prayer would have a beneficial effect in calming trauma and anxiety more easily than medication. When they pray, believers emit more theta waves (from 4 to 7 Hz, waves of deep relaxation and meditation), reflecting a calming of the central nervous system, while traces of stress diminish. Some even claim that the simple act of praying or meditating stimulates neurological, endocrine, immune and cardiovascular functions. What can we say about certain yogis who, after years of experienced meditation, manage to slow down their heartbeat!
The interior solution
In fact, the mind has a fabulous power over the body, provided that it is used wisely, in a positive way. This is what Thierry Janssen states in his book (3) where he explores alternative medicines and techniques to restore balance: relaxation, hypnosis, massages, acupuncture, Ayurvedic medicine, osteopathy, chiropractic, yoga, tai chi, qi gong … We all have within us the capacity for prevention and healing but also that of self-destruction (4). Deepak Chopra (5) goes even further by stating: "to learn to activate the healing process, we must go beyond the most basic levels of the organism - cells, tissues, organs and systems and arrive at the point of junction of mind and matter, the point where consciousness really begins to produce an effect. » Thus matter and spirit come together with a holistic approach where the individual is ONE, a Whole, a part in a Whole and the Whole in a part.
Happiness as a remedy
For Socrates, the only way to find harmony is to seek true happiness, the one that does not depend on others but on oneself, through the practice of philosophy. If philosophy can help to restore morale, to heal the body of the “poisons” that harm health, as the Buddhists say, it also helps us to ensure that the body is the purest vehicle for the soul to flourish.
Taken from the philosophy journal ACROPOLIS n°205
Marie-Agnes Lambert