Be Careful What You Think: The Power of Mind Over Body

Image by Milad Fakurian

I recently listened to a radio programme about the effectiveness of smart watches – the hi-tech gadgets many of us strap to our wrists to measure heart rate, step count, sleep quality and much more. According to the presenter, they vary wildly in accuracy, especially in measuring the depth, quality and stages of your sleep.

He also cited a study that intrigued me. In this research, participants had exactly the same amount of sleep, measured by highly accurate kit in a specialist sleep lap. But one group was shown the accurate data about their slumber, while the other was given deliberately false data, showing they had a terrible night’s sleep.

What was so fascinating was that these poor souls then felt exhausted, had poor cognitive functioning and reported feeling unpleasantly sleepy all day. Purely because they believed they had had a bad night’s sleep, so their body reacted accordingly.

Studies like this are intriguing, I think, because they illustrate the power of ‘mind-body symptoms’. These are powerful physical symptoms with no biological cause – they are created solely by our thoughts. And this may be hard to believe, but these symptoms can include full-body paralysis, blindness and seizures (known as ‘functional symptoms’, or ‘medically unexplained symptoms’).

It’s important to note a couple of things here: first, people with these conditions experience the exact same physical problems as those with biologically driven illnesses. They are really ill and need compassionate help, treatment and support. Second, no doctor thinks people with functional symptoms are making their illness up, faking it or that it’s all in their mind. This is to misunderstood the nature of our mind-body connection – and the power of your mind to influence your body.

What are Mind-body symptoms?

Let’s take a better-known case – the placebo effect. Study after study finds that patients taking sugar pills – with no medicinal content at all – experience significant benefits, including pain reduction for conditions like migraines. The exact amount is hotly debated, but most experts agree that placebo plays some part in the effectiveness of any medical treatment, including surgery!

That’s because if we receive medical treatment from someone in a white coat, who seems like an expert in their field, also caring and trustworthy, we believe that they will help us. And this makes the treatment more likely to succeed than not. The opposite of this, by the way, is called the ‘nocebo effect’ – we think something will make us ill and it does, which is also very powerful.

An example of mind-body symptoms from the realm of psychology is the research into mindfulness for management of chronic pain. Vidyamala Burch is a brilliant meditation teacher, long-term Buddhist and truly inspiring person, who sustained spinal injuries at 17 that required multiple surgeries and left her with a complex back condition, chronic pain and partial paralysis. She is now a wheelchair user.

Vidyamala is so inspiring because she learned to manage her pain through daily meditation – having experienced the power of mindfulness to help with chronic pain and illness, she developed the world’s first Mindfulness-Based Pain & Illness Management (MBPM) programme, which has helped over 100,000 people around the world. She is also one of the most positive, upbeat teachers I know! Here’s her story, if you’re interested – it really is heartwarming and inspiring.

Vidyamala (her given Buddhist name) explains that we experience primary and secondary pain. So if you cut your finger with a knife, the primary pain comes from damaged tissue, and these signals are sent to your brain via your nervous system. Your brain then interprets this data, taking into account your thoughts about it – so if you think, ‘Help! I’m a concert pianist and this could finish my career!’ your brain turns up the pain dial, making the symptoms more severe so you take action about this career-threatening problem. This is secondary pain – and it is largely due to your interpretation of the injury, not the physical damage.

The takeaway here is that your thoughts have a tremendous impact – on your emotions, your internal system of parts and the many biological systems in your body, such as your nervous system, hormonal system and musculoskeletal system. This is more proof that learning to think in a kind, helpful, compassionate way really can change your life. Just ask Vidyamala…

If you would like help in developing more positive thoughts and beliefs, try my Insight Timer practice – Taking in the Good: IFS Meditation, by clicking on the button below.

I hope you find it helpful – and if you are struggling with your health right now, for any reason, sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

The Link Between Trauma, Stress and Physical Illness

I have long been convinced of the link between traumatic experiences, especially in childhood, and physical ailments such as arthritis, eczema, digestive problems like irritable bowel syndrome and a whole host of other illnesses. So I found Dr Gabor Maté’s book, When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress, to be intriguing.

Dr Maté (a physician working in palliative care and later with addiction in Canada) makes a strong, evidence-based case for the ways in which traumatic or stressful experiences in childhood and throughout our lives repeatedly trigger the stress response in our brain, which causes a cascade of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, as well as many other changes in the brain and body.

This is meant to be an urgent, life-saving response to threats such as predatory animals or aggressive tribes, which were the life-or-death threats humans faced for much of our evolutionary history (which is when our brains were, to a large extent, formed).

But when, say, you have a highly critical parent, putting you down every day throughout your childhood; you suffer abuse or neglect; or are unlucky enough to be raised in a high-conflict family, where the parents are always at each other’s throats, your stress response is being triggered, repeatedly, which the body is not designed to cope with.

Sadly, when combined with your particular genetic makeup, this can make you more vulnerable to a whole host of physical illnesses, including the big, scary ones like cancer, dementia or heart disease; and autoimmune conditions like multiple sclerosis (MS) or rheumatoid arthritis.

None of this is your fault

Of course, it’s really important to emphasise that this is not your fault in any way, or that – if you are ill now – you somehow brought this illness upon yourself. Dr Maté goes to great pains to explain that it’s the result of these repeated stressors impacting your growing brain and body, which may cause problems in later life. Nobody chooses to have a harsh, critical parent, or to suffer emotional neglect.

But what it does make crystal-clear to me is that, if you have had a highly stressful childhood, it is so important to get psychological help from someone like me (or any other well-trained therapist practising an effective, evidence-based form of therapy). Because none of this is fixed or irreversible – healing those wounds from childhood, learning to feel and healthily release your emotions, becoming less self-critical, more assertive and kinder/more compassionate to yourself… these are all the magic ingredients which form the medicine that combats the effects of your long-term stress.

Warm wishes,

Dan