Mind Healing -
The impact on our health of thoughts, feelings, expectations and behaviours

I am using the phrase mind healing in this article to talk about how our thoughts, feelings, expectations and behaviours can have a significant impact on our health - both negative and positive. 

Our thoughts and expectations may be seen as being influenced by the mind.

Our feelings and behaviours are in turn affected by our thoughts and expectations.

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Mind healing is currently considered to be an alternative healing method since it considers the possibility of natural healing without the use of drugs.
And yet, convential medicine acknowledges the power of mind healing in its recognition of the placebo effect.

This effect is allowed for in every single drug trial.

The placebo effect shows that the body has an amazing capacity for self healing. Sometimes even immediate healing can be experienced.

Many people who live with illness, especially chronic illness - I live with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - become interested in the possibility that by changing our thoughts we too can experience healing.

How can we use the mind to heal the body?
katherinetowen

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Research Into How Thoughts And Feelings Affect Health - Questions And Answers

The following questions feature in the book: NLP and Health by Ian McDermott and Joseph O’Connor.

In the paragraphs below, please select between a response of true or false. The answers can be found lower down the page.

theory of the cause of pain

  1. The single factor most likely to lead to a heart attack in American adults is the feelings and actions of chronic hostility in relationships.

    2. True or False?


  2. People can have asthma attacks from being near artificial flowers.

    3. True or False?


  3. Keeping a diary of your feelings about important life events gives a measurable positive effect on your immune system.

    4. True or False?


  4. Those men who do volunteer work at least once a week have a death rate of half those who do not.

    5. True or False?


  5. The pain relievers that we produce in our bodies – the endorphins and enkephalins – are 10 times as powerful as morphine.

    6. True or False?


  6. Watching tropical fish swimming in an aquarium lowers blood pressure and heart rate.

    7. True or False?


  7. People have been known to adjust their eyesight to nearsighted, farsighted or normal, changing the eye’s curvature very quickly so that an optician would write a different lens prescription.

    8. True or False?


  8. During a doctors strike in Israel, admittances to hospitals fell by 70% and death rates fell by 50%.

    9. True or False?

Answers to the questions above relating to mind healing:

  1. True.
    Chronic hostility is a more significant contributing factor to heart attacks than smoking or obesity.
    Williams, R, “Curing Type A: the trusting heart.” Psychology Today, Jan to Feb 1989, 36-42
  2. True.
    Yes, people can have asthma attacks from being near artificial flowers.
    Mackenzie, J, The production of the so-called “rose-cold”...American Journal of Medicine Science 9 (1886), 45-57
  3. True.
    Keeping a diary of your feelings about important life events does have a positive effect on your immune system.
    Psychologist James Pennebaker (compares the noting of important versus trivial events over 4 days).
    Pennebaker, J, Hughes, C, and O’Hearon, R, The psychophysiology of Confession....1987
  4. True.
    A study of men volunteering showed their death rate was half that of those who were not.
    House, J., Robbins, C.,and Metzner, H, “The association of social relationships and activities with mortality, American Journal of Epidemiology 116 (1982) , 123-140?.
  5. False.
    The pain relievers that we produce in our bodies are 100 times stronger than morphine.
    Ornstein, R, and Sobel, D, The Healing Brain, Simon and Schuster, 1987
  6. True.
    You can lower your blood pressure and heart rate by watching tropical fish swimming in an aquarium.
    Katcher, A, et al., The physiological consequences of interaction with the living environment in Katcher, A., and Beck, A. (eds), New Perspectives on our lives with Animal Companions, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.
  7. True
    People with MPD have had different prescriptions for their eyes depending on the personality they occupied at the time of the test.
    Goleman. D., “Probing the enigma of Multiple personality”, The New York Times, 28 June 1988
  8. True.
    During a doctors strike in Israel, admittances to hospitals fell by 70% and death rates fell by 50%.

These examples provide clear examples of how our feelings, thoughts and expectations have an impact on our health. These results open the door to the possibility of mind healing - using techniques to deliberately change your mind to change your health.

Articles relevant to Mind Healing

My own articles

Articles by others relevant to mind healing

Click through for research to show that belief changes our perception.

The mind healing application might be to motivate us to shift focus away from symptoms or pain and thereby experience greater ease.

This research if from May 2023. But I’m not sure that this is anything new. A programme on the BBC many years ago showed a fascinating experiment in a fairground. People were invited to identify with a false hand. The hand was on a surface, their real hand was underneath the surface. Each time someone tickled the false hand with a feather they also tickled the real hand with a feather. They then brought a hammer down on the false hand, and the person would sharply pull away their real hand even though it was in no danger. It was fascinating to watch. Perhaps there are many others studies that show the same thing.

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Disclaimer: I am not a medical practitioner. The articles on this website are not to be taken as medical advice. Please consult a medical practitioner as necessary.

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