New Research goes ever Deeper into Spiritual Healing

Can the mind really control everything about what happens in your body? How does the placebo effect work? Is it possible to harness the power of the mind in healing the body?

Here is something that sounds really New Age-y, but really is hard-nosed science. Here goes - the thoughts you hold in your mind affect how easily you fall ill, and how quickly you get better. It does feel strange to even attempt to back up with science, a notion that's been with us for millennia - ever since man began to walk erect even. We've always believed that prayer and hope can actually heal. For the first time, they are beginning to see the reason for it - the actual ways in which the mind could actually influence the body.

The fact that the psycho can affect the soma was first revealed more than a half-century ago. Researchers first found out back then about how stress has the power to make the body vulnerable to disease. Those were the findings that set off the whole stress-relief revolution in healthcare. Ever since researchers made that connection for the first time, doctors have looked into meditation, guided imagery, biofeedback - any number of alternative healing methods, to find more promising leads. A new area of study that deals with this exists now - Psychoneuroimmunology. New methods of observation allow researchers to look at changes in the brain, and link those changes to effects on immune cells around the body. Studies look at how the state of your nervous system effects the way your immune system responds. And as a field of study, it is beginning to yield evidence that thoughts can actually heal.

Anything that the mind really feels, the body often responds to it as if it were real. Gazing upon a picture of a wonderful sunny beach, really does bring about changes in the way your heart reacts. Circulation slows down, blood vessels dilate, there is observable relaxation. Subjects in studies who are hypnotized and told that they've been burned (when they haven't), actually do break out in blisters. MRIs show that the parts of the brain that deal with real physical responses actually grow active upon merely hearing a description of activity. There have been studies of skiing athletes who have found that when the athletes mentally went through a full-fledged skiing jump, their brains acted as if they were really controlling a full-fledged real-world jump, not just imagining one. And the whole placebo effect is most remarkable example of the body-spirit connection. Patients who suffer from disease, if they are convincingly lied to that they are receiving great treatment, sometimes actually do recover - even from serious diseases. There is actual proof that half of all successful medical treatments turn out that way not from the treatments themselves, but from the simple belief those patients had in the treatment.

Have you heard of the study where they found that a dispute a husband and wife shared, if it got nasty, could actually slow down the body's immune response, slow down the healing of a wound? There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this however. When you're in a stressful situation, your body releases hormones - known as cytokines - that interfere with immune cells. The interfered-with immune cells go and inflame random parts of the body, and slow down the healing process.

Is there a way to use these principles in a kind of healing method? As you may well imagine, there is. There are some treatment facilities in place today for breast cancer, burns and headaches that make use of positive imagery as a treatment option. We need to learn to see that the body is not just an automaton and has to go ahead like clockwork. Your mind has unfathomable powers as the master of the body -powers that can heal or harm. You need to engage with your feelings over the long term, to best employ this principle to your advantage. Keep a diary, and write in it about every stressful event you ever go through. The act of writing your feelings out, often burdens your mind. Take breathing exercises. Take walks in the park, and breath in deeply when you do so. Place yourself in situations where you get to laugh, through natural reasons. Your body is listening.