The Body and Mind Link

THE BODY AND MIND LINK

As far back 4,000 years ago, Chinese medicines recognized that disease is due to both physical and mental aspects of oneself. In fact, it gave the mental state more emphasis than the physical symptoms.

Developments in western medical research have added to this history, calling it psychneoroimmunology. This branch in medicine deals with the study of the effects of emotions on disease. As shown by many studies, virtually every illness – from the common cold to cancer to arthritis to heart disease – can be influenced, positively or negatively, by the person’s mental state. The powerful role of the mind is now given due concern by many western doctors and mental health professionals.

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Much is already known about the body. Yet such knowledge about the physical aspect of a person does not make any doctors feel very comfortable. It seems the more probe into the human anatomy, the lesser they know about it. The human body does not function as a separate entity. The body is closely interwoven with the function of the mind. The body/mind relationship is a fascinating marriage between what a person says, thinks, and fells, and his psychological processes.

The mind modulates what goes on in the body has been scrutinized for many centuries now but the mind is like a great quagmire that gets murky as one goes deeper. The mind is so complex, it is staggering how little is known about it. Still, with such a meager amount of knowledge, the mind just cannot be ignored in the attempts to cure an illness.

Doctors who actually care for their patients know that the treatment doesn’t just end up with the prescription of the medicine. In fact, a good doctor listens to his patient and tries to address the patient’s feeling and what is in his patient’s mind to help and even hasten the healing process of the body.

How often do you hear doctors say, “Tell me more about what you feel or think.” More often than not, many doctors would hurriedly stick their stethoscope into our chest, quickly press here and there, ask us what we feel, reach for their prescription pad, and off we go to pay their professional fee.

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How many doctors bother to ask us what’s on our mind when our bell hurts? When one is depressed, the abdominal area will naturally show the symptoms. Actually, every doctor must be aware that the body and mind are inextricably linked. Studies even show that probably half the doctor’s visits are related to mind issues rather than the body issue.

A sincere doctor who would like to help his patients should like be a chameleon, adjusting his personality accordingly in order to extract from his patient’s mind what he needs to know to actually get to the root of the disease. Just examining for instance, the serum potassium level reveals very little of what makes a person tick.

Wouldn’t it be more advantageous for the doctor to know more about his patients especially in a life and death situation? This would make a difference in their health care and how the patients would feel afterwards. In a study conducted with patients who suffered cardiac arrest, it was discovered that after they were sent home, half of the patients were sat paralyzed by fear that it would happen again. It never entered the doctor’s mind to talk to the patients about the probabilities of having another cardiac arrest or what they could do to prevent it.

Fear has a creeping effect on the body’s well being. In this connection, let me tell you an interesting anecdote in the writings of Chuang Tzu about fear. Two friends of Chuang Tzu suddenly developed tumors on their elbows. When one asked the other if he disliked the tumor, he replied, “No. Why should I? Life itself is a loan. We borrow it and live. The body that a person has is dust and dirt. Death and life are comparable to day and night, while you and I were observing transformation, a transformation reached me. Why should I dislike it?

Here we can see how a person has conquered his fear. It is important for a patient to be unafraid, regardless of what his sickness is. A peaceful mind can help the body heal itself naturally. The best doctors seek to console their patients even if the sickness is very serious. There is no doubt that death is inevitable, but life is precious. To treasure the patient and encourage him not to worry and get better has a very great affect on the patient. To take care of the mental aspect of the person is often more potent than taking any form of medicine. Everyone knows about the placebo effect.

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Doctors should know what makes their patients tick. Some patients want to be told what is wrong with him. Some don’t want to know. Still, others would prefer that their families should know so they can also be involved in his health care. Some like to keep their family at a distance. Some patients don’t mind enduring the pain. The doctor may know a lot about the disease, but he needs to know how a patient experiences his illness. One’s attitude will make a real difference in how he does over time.

It seems that many doctors become so preoccupied with what test to schedule next or what consultant to get that they forget who they patients are and what they are experiencing. Some doctors admit that to some extent, technology has kept them from a distance from their patients. The simplest way to cultivate a better doctor-patient relationship is by communicating.

It is fascinating to note how the dictionary defines healers as “those who are trained in the medical arts.” A doctor, on the other hand, is defined as “someone who is a practitioner of the healing arts.” What a privilege if the doctors combine their training in the medical arts with the mysteries of being a healer.

©ronthoughts 1990s

Reference:

Ronthoughts Journal – Year 1990s to Year 2000 Series

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