This week Dr Lauren MacDonald investigates how the mind can help aid in the healing process of the body...
I’ve always been fascinated by the mind, it’s what led me to
study Psychology before eventually going on to study Medicine. However, during
neither of my degrees did I really consider the enormity of the overlap in the
two subjects – namely, that the mind has the power to help heal the body, but
also make it physically diseased in the first place. I guess this is because
western medicine was traditionally shaped by systems of thought that emphasised
the opposite – that the mind and body are separate entities. Yet it now seems
so blindingly obvious that they are in fact deeply entwined. The emerging field
of psychoneuroimmunology (“psycho”
for psychology; “neuro” for neurology, or nervous system; and “immunology” for
immunity) is finally providing scientific support for this idea. On a personal
level, I also feel as though I’ve had first-hand experience of
psychoneuroimmunology via my own cancer journey.
Introducing The Mind-Body
Connection
A growing body of
scientific research suggests that our mind can play an important role in
healing our body, as well as help us to stay healthy in the first place. Recent
research has examined how emotions impact our physiology and, as you might
expect, emotions such as chronic stress, loneliness, and sadness have been
found to cause inflammation, hormone imbalances, impaired immunity, high blood
pressure, and illnesses ranging from heart disease and cancer, to anxiety and
depression. Conversely, states of calmness, mindfulness and happiness have
profound positive benefits, from improved sleep and energy, to better cancer
survival rates, and longer telomeres (the end pieces of DNA that shorten as we
age).
Although I don’t
buy into the idea that the mind can cure the body of cancer simply with
positive thinking (this is something I’ve seen peddled on various cancer forums
and which actually makes me really angry because it suggests the countless
number of people who’ve died from this disease somehow failed to think
positively enough), I do now recognise there is a significant role for thoughts
and emotions in recovering from illness and preventing disease.
Stress And Cancer
I’ve always felt
that I developed cancer at such a young age (and with no family history) due to
experiencing two years of chronic stress prior to my diagnosis. I went through
two messy relationship break-ups during that time, had to move out of my house,
sofa-surfed with friends whilst revising for my medical school finals, moved
into a new house with a bunch of strangers from Gumtree, and started work as a
junior doctor on a busy ward. After years of flooding my body with the stress
hormones cortisol and adrenaline, I was permanently exhausted, and likely
put my body at risk of developing cancer. Of course, this can be debated
and I’ll never know whether the chronic stress I experienced did contribute to
my disease, but there is increasing scientific evidence supporting this idea.
When a person is
exposed to a stressful event, their sympathetic nervous system – the system
responsible for the ‘fight-or-flight’ response – is triggered, in turn
increasing production of a molecule called nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB) which
regulates how our genes are expressed. NF-kB translates stress by activating
genes to produce proteins called cytokines that cause inflammation at cellular
level – a reaction that is useful as a short-lived fight-or-flight reaction,
but if persistent leads to a higher risk of cancer, accelerated aging and
disorders like depression.
The Placebo Effect: An Example
Of The Mind-Body Connection
When it comes to
learning about the mind-body connection and its relationship to
our health, it can be difficult to choose a starting place amongst
the vast and growing body of research. However, one of the best
places to start is probably with the placebo effect. The placebo effect is
fascinating because it unlocks the power of the mind; the biological
changes observed in the body after administration of a placebo (for example a
pill containing no active drug) are not triggered by the placebo
itself, but rather by our mind, and our psychological response to
these “fake” treatments.
The power of the
placebo can be traced back to a landmark study by the late psychologist Robert
Ader in the 1970’s. Ader was trying to condition taste-aversion in
rats. He’d give them a saccharine drink and, at the same time, inject them
with Cytoxan, a drug that suppresses the immune system, but also makes you feel
sick. And it worked. The rats learned to hate the sweet drink, which they
linked with nausea. Yet, when Ader kept forcing the rats to drink it, they
experienced something worse than a mere distaste for saccharine. They
started dropping dead, one by one. The reason? Their immune system had “learned”
to fail by repeated pairing of the drink with the cytotoxic drug. Incredibly,
the drink alone turned off their immunity and they succumbed to infection.
It also turns out
that the placebo effect is more powerful than was once thought. In June 2017
a review of five studies, involving 260 patients, found that “open-label”
placebos – those that patients know contain no active medication – can improve
symptoms in a wide range of conditions.
Healing The Body By Utilising
The Mind
It makes sense
that if the mind can contribute to making the body sick, it can likely also
support its healing. This idea is perhaps best illustrated by the emerging
scientific evidence which has examined the impact mind-body activities like
yoga and meditation have on human physiology. Eastern traditions of healing
(Traditional Chinese Medicine originating in China, and Ayurvedic Medicine from
India) have been focussed on this idea for more than 3,000 years.
Interestingly,
research has revealed that people who practice activities which originated from
these eastern healing systems often show a decrease in production of NF-kB and
cytokines, leading to a reversal of the pro-inflammatory gene expression
pattern and a reduction in the risk of inflammation-related diseases and
conditions.
More needs to be
done to understand these effects in greater depth, for example how they compare
with other healthy interventions like exercise or nutrition. But this research
provides an important foundation to build on to help future researchers explore
the benefits of mind-body activities.
Self-Healing
Leading on from this idea, I just want to take a moment to
reiterate that I am in no way suggesting that it is possible to heal yourself
from cancer by channelling some kind of cosmic energy through the mind!
Self-healing with regards to cancer in particular, is an incredibly
controversial idea and one that as doctor I don’t believe is plausible. Many
people with cancer or incurable diseases are made to feel like failures because
they eat well, meditate, believe in God or divine energy, but yet can’t heal
themselves. Ultimately some diseases are terminal, no matter what you think or
feel. In these cases, traditional medicine (surgery, drugs or radiotherapy)
provide the only potential chance of recovery, or at least a prolonged
survival.
The Future Of Mind-Body Medicine
Aside from cancer,
there are plenty of conditions which I believe can be healed, or even cured, by
utilising the power of the mind. Non-traditional healing methods are slowly
gaining acceptance within the medical world and there is finally more research
being done in this area. Whereas meditation was once considered by doctors to
be “mumbo jumbo”, opinion has shifted and people now understand its benefits,
the science, and how it can empower patients to be active participants in their
healing.
Ultimately the
emerging field of Mind-Body Medicine emphasises an individuals whole being,
acknowledging that emotional, mental, social, and spiritual dimensions are all
important factors in wellbeing, health and healing. However, more research
needs to be carried out in this area to enable medical professionals to guide
patients towards potentially helpful adjunct healing modalities – rather than
leaving patients to be drawn towards expensive, alternative “cures”.
In the meantime I
highly recommend any activities which calm the mind, lower cortisol levels, and
(hopefully) enable the body to do what its equipped to do; heal. Check out
these posts for some ideas:
