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BS: Mind-Body health connection
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Subject: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: GUEST,SueB Date: 08 Dec 04 - 03:35 PM I think this is a discussion worth having, if we can find a way. People who believe themselves to be ill are often told "it's all in your head" in a dismissive sort of way, just as people who struggle with being overweight are often dismissed as lacking in self-control and will-power. The "it's all in your head" premise is a sort of fascinating one - the assumption is that you just *think* you're sick when you actually aren't - so either you're delusional (crazy) or you're faking it (which makes you a bad person.) But isn't there another possibility? Isn't it possible that 'mental'or 'spiritual' distress can manifest itself in genuine physical symptoms? For instance, cancer - by some accounts, there have been people who overcame cancer after they divorced and removed themselves from *toxic* relationships. I'm referring to accounts I've read by Caroline Myss, and in Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom by Dr. Christianne Northrup. I'm very much on the fence about all this, having grown up with a father who was constantly dosing himself with over the counter remedies, and a sister who's a hypochondriac - although she's in good company, along with Charles Darwin and Florence Nightingale, both hypochondriacs of the first degree. My sister early on discovered that being carsick got you moved up to the front seat - she never rode in the backseat again. I was also carsick occasionally, but the front seat was already occupied by my sister. Oh well. The same sister who suffered such horrible allergic reactions when around my dogs now has two dogs of her own, and a whole slew of "doggy friends" and is apparently able to participate in dogtraining classes without so much as the assistance of an antihistamine - how did that happen? The same sister is so incapacitated by the fear of flying that she can't even get on a plane - unless it's going to St. Kitt. I have listened for hour after expensive long-distance hour to countless stories of terrible suffering from her - chronic fatigue, incapacitating allergies, food intolerances, candida - you name it, she's suffered from it. She experiences apparently miraculous remissions, when it suits her, and devastating relapses, also when it suits her. On one hand, I'm fed up with it, on the other I know that she genuinely experiences the symptoms she has. The only way I ever know how my sister truly feels about anything is to take an inventory of her symptoms - if anything makes her unhappy on some level, she will probably come down with something in 12-24 hours, if not immediately. I don't mean this to be a rant about my sister, or a suggestion that when you're sick you should go to a shrink instead of a doctor (decades of psychotherapy have done nothing for my sister.) Andrew Weil says you should listen to your body and what it's trying to tell you. Easier said than done, I think. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: GUEST Date: 08 Dec 04 - 03:39 PM Its well demonstrated that stress has an effect of weakening the immune system, so you are more likely to be ill when stressed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Peace Date: 08 Dec 04 - 04:39 PM The process of thinking seems to be electro-chemical. If your physical system is 'outta kilt', how would you then expect to think well? I know if I don't eat for four or five days at a stretch, my thinking gets fuzzy, memory gets lost and sense of time doesn't work all that well. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Amos Date: 08 Dec 04 - 04:49 PM Brucie: I suggest that stating that thought is electrochemical is analagous to asserting that communication is made out of Bakelite and copper. The wetware is a medium, but it is not the impulse that activates the medium. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Peace Date: 08 Dec 04 - 04:55 PM Thinking doesn't happen without electrochemical activity. That is close enough for me. If you want the science, google electrochemical, thought, thinking. There's lots there. The world is round, by which I mean like a ball, by which I mean like a spheroid. However, round works for me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Wolfgang Date: 08 Dec 04 - 04:55 PM stress has an effect of weakening the immune system, so you are more likely to be ill when stressed (08 Dec 04 - 03:39 PM ) Stress in general? No. Short term stress improves the immune defense. Chronic, long-term stress (and the coping mechanisms we use with long-term stress) worsen the immune defense. Segerstrom & Miller, 2004. Psychological Stress and the Human Immune System: A Meta-Analytic Study of 30 Years of Inquiry, Psychological Bulletin, 130, 4. Wolfgang |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Liz the Squeak Date: 08 Dec 04 - 05:36 PM Well that explains a lot about me then... and it ISN'T all in my head as my previous manager thought! LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:07 PM Thanks for the info, Wolfgang. I found a link to the article at this site which in turn links to the complete article. It's rare for me to find such articles on the web - and when I find an article in a medical journal that I want to read, I have to resort to a bit of subterfuge to get access to it. (sneak into a medical school library and act like I know what I'm doing ;-)) On page 605 of this article it mentions MS and autoimmune diseases, an unbalanced immune system, and of course I'm interested in that. I'll have to spend more time with the reading, but it seems quite good at first glance. Also, I noticed that Segestrom is at the University of Kentucky. Just a few years ago my son assisted another researcher there in an MS study. I'm on the "leading edge," 10 years now, of the population receiving the Betaseron drug, and as far as I know, there is very little understanding of why it works - pretty much a shotgun approach. But my internist is now questioning whether I'm beginning to experience a weakened immune system - only time will tell. I'm not sure I understand your statement that "short term stress improves the immune system." (I'll read the article.) But there is anecdoctal evidence that MS attacks occur after a period of physical/psychological stress, which makes sense if we're talking about the same thing. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Ebbie Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:32 PM I can't overstate how glad I was that day to discover that my wrists were swollen after a couple of weeks trying to convince my doctor that I was exhausted and in pain. Ten years before this episode, I had developed the facial welt typical of lupus. Although that is a story in itself, I got along OK with the aid of pills and creams and staying out of the sun. I had no systemic symptoms, although every time I went to a doctor from whatever cause they asked me if I had any joint pain. The answer was always No. Then one day I woke up with the "flu". I was so exhausted I couldn't walk farther than 15 feet without resting - and this was in the house! My knees, my ankles, my wrists throbbed and ached. Three days later I finally went to my local doctor and they did blood tests. The tests showed nothing wrong, other than that my blood sedimentation rate was abnormally high. They almost convinced me that it waw all in my head, that I was reacting to stress. What stress? Other than what my symptoms were causing? Then one day I was in a dress shop and was going through some clothes, pushing them around on their hangers. Suddenly I realized that both wrists were swollen and hot to the touch. I marched back to my doctor's office and thrust out my arms. This, I said dramatically, this is what I'm talking about. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Peace Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:55 PM I had a similar experience in the early 1970s to do with migratory arthritis (which eventually they established that it was caused by rheumatic fever that I had when I wans in my early twenties. I could not walk--had to crawl to the washroom, and the pain was a new adventure in living. Trust me when I say I'd a paid for the bullet. I went to the hospital with the help of a friend, but because they didn't see any swelling at the joins, they wanted me to go home with the suggestion I take aspirin. Since I have five more days of good behaviour that I promised, I cannot tell you what I said to the doctor. I raised hell in the hospital, and eventually they found me a room at the Royal Vic in Montreal. It took the doc four days of tests to find the problem and a 45 minute session to locate the heart murmur. Eventually I was given about 3 million units of penicillin/day, IV, and I was released in another week or so. Sometimes ya just don't take no for an answer. It has not recurred, but I am fortunate. I really feel for people who have 'problems' that are hard to pin down or expensive to treat. People who think it's a scam just ain't been on the other end of it. I hope they never are, but maybe along the way they'll pick up a little compassion for folks who ain't as lucky as they are. BM |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: hesperis Date: 08 Dec 04 - 09:13 PM From the NAET website: Q. "Then my symptoms are real? I'm not just imagining them?" A. No. You are not imagining them. Allergies in their mildest forms are merely nuisances. But for some people, accidental contact with an allergen can produce terrifying toxins in the body that result in clearly diagnosed illness just as though that person had taken a poison. Diagnosis for either is not easy, but the milder the complaint, the harder it is for the patent to get good treatment. For instance, how do you treat a person for "feeling out of sorts, for a slight loss of memory, for a slight but persistent sore throat or cough, for a nagging, dull headache that does not respond to pain medications, for a persistent backache or a tingling feeling in the arms and hands that cannot be diagnosed by a neurologist?" Some of these unfortunate people have seen their physicians so many times that they cannot tell you how many times they have been ignored, diagnosed as suffering from a "nervous disorder" or been labeled a hypochondriac. Of course, that's not actual hypochondria, that's undiagnosed allergies looking like hypochondria. Maybe hypochondria is an allergy on the psychological level that results in a real symptom from an emotional situation? After all, even emotions are electrochemical reactions in the body. Who knows? *shrug* |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Ebbie Date: 08 Dec 04 - 10:01 PM Oh, dear, brucie. Five more days of holding back! When the time is up, go outside and for an hour, fulminate to the sky. That will reduce the color of your words to practically a baby blue. ?:~) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Peace Date: 08 Dec 04 - 10:59 PM Ebbie, I couldn't fulminate to the sky; well, not if fulminate means what I think it does. Is it a good thing? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: GUEST Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:06 PM brucie you need to connect (private mail) with katlaughing and all of her friends you share a lot in common and will have a very nice time exchanging they all are mudcat members.
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Amos Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:06 PM Dear Gawd, Lissen here, folks. You have been a-sold a bill of goods, convincing you that your ultimate nature is electrical wetware, like an old sea-sponge with a Duracell jammed into it. And it just ain't so. Who you are is so much more than that salty shock absorber that it bears no comparison. Thought is no more borne in the brain than a message is created by a telephone. You guys need to find your center and have a ciouple of good OOB experiences. Thought is a spiritual, creative byproduct,. It gets jammed in among the chemicals and electrons of brains and other body parts because of long habituation and addicition. But you could be suckered into believing that our dominant species here on Earth is automobiles, and that you are what you drive, too. Same kinda thing. Why tangle yourself up harder into a mortal shell than you need to, consideruing that your actual nature is muchly unlimited and unending? Well, that's my story, anyway, and Ah'm sticking to it. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Peace Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:16 PM I had an OOB in the 1960s. Lasted four years. So, you saying the car I drive ain't alive? WOW. Like, how cool is that? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Peace Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:17 PM Thanks for the advice, GUEST. I'll take care of that if it'll make YOU happy. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Peace Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:21 PM Oh, yeah: That limp you have is caused by your lower back. Fourth or fifth vertebrata up from the tailbone. When you slipped the disk it didn't get fully back into place. You have muscles 'frozen' over the area and some nerves are pinched. Have that seen to. Do your disposition a world of good. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Once Famous Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:29 PM Amos why don't you just shed your earthly body and become just a throbbing mass of energy and pure thought. You could connect this throbbing mass of pure energy and thought to your keyboard and just think your thoughts onto this forum and they would appear. But I guess you would probably miss your greatest pleasure in life if this happened, which would be pinching a loaf. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Bill D Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:54 PM "Thought is no more borne in the brain than a message is created by a telephone." cute metaphor, Amos..*grin*, but it just don't scan. One is a truth...though a trivial one, the other is a only a claim...though a non-trivial one. We are "sold a bill of goods" on many topics these days, and it gets harder to pin down the flaws in the bill of sale as the language of the claims gets more...ummmmm...'creative'. I may, or I may NOT be, "...electrical wetware, like an old sea-sponge with a Duracell jammed into it", but I am me no matter which way it is, and I am not diminished if I turn out to be just a half-watt of current with some convoluted pathways! They are nice pathways, and they are MY pathways, and if you have more interesting pathways, have a good time following them....I am in awe of the universe that is being discovered 'out there', but I have no evidence that I am more than a trivial speck in the scheme of things. I am, however, a BIG speck in my little corner...and that is sufficient. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: CarolC Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:35 AM On the other hand, for many years I believed I was well, while all the time I was actually ill. Because my illness was of a nature that was unrecognised by medical science until fairly recently, for many years, I just thought I was just basically inadequate. Or at least, I knew I didn't feel good, and I knew I wasn't peforming up to the level of other people, but it never occurred to me that it was because I was ill. I had been told so many times that there was nothing wrong with me. But that never helped me to fell well, nor did it help me to function better. So, how does one explain that? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: GUEST,John O'Lennaine Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:38 AM In some hospitals, to counter some illnesses, dogs are used to assist sufferers to fight the diseases. Dogs can calm an agitated mind and inspire a sense of well-being, which promotes the ability to fight disease. If mainstream medicine is using dogs as instruments of healing, I'd say it's pretty well established that there is a connnection between mind and body where health is concerned. A logical extrapolation would be that an extremely tranquil, well-ordered and disciplined mind might be able to purge its body of maladies, or might be less likely to have maladies. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Amos Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:39 AM Ingo Swann wrote a first-rate SciFi book about a guy who perfected that talent during the Cold War, and ran circles around the SOviets and the Yanks using their computer systems. Never mind. Bill, the Youness of You is perfect and cannot be beat. When your current Meat ID card is converted to ashes and you're wondering what the fuck to do with yourself, I hope you will remember this conversation!! MArtin, you are the only loaf around here worth pinching. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: GUEST,daylia Date: 09 Dec 04 - 10:19 AM More like the only oaf around here worth linching! (just kidding, MG ;-) Amos, I thought you might enjoy this -- Metaphysical Models of Consciousness A quote .... Objectives: The reader will be able to compare three different models or paradigms that integrate the relationship among science, metaphysics and Spirituality and see their relevance to OT/MP. I find Dr Hawkins' "Power vs Force" paradigm most intriguing! It does have health and healing applications. Dr Hawkins asserts that Unconditional Love (540 on his logarithmic scale of consciousness) is the level of healing and most self-help groups. In an energy field of 600 or more, he says almost anything will spontaneously heal. daylia |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Ebbie Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:49 PM (Note to brucie- yes, fulminating can be stress relieving and therefore therapeutic. Some people have a real talent for it. And that is a good thing.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Once Famous Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:56 PM Amos I am getting bored with this thread because it just seems like a bunch of self-serving hyperbole. Did you all see that the Cubs signed Nomar again? With him at shortstop, next season figures to be an exciting year on the North side of Chicago. amos, do you pick lint out of your naval while coming up with these silly posts? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Bill D Date: 09 Dec 04 - 01:19 PM remember, Amos...it ain't fair that if I am right, I don't get to say "I told you so.." if YOU are right, I'll |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Ebbie Date: 09 Dec 04 - 01:42 PM Bill D, may I watch? Awesome. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Peace Date: 09 Dec 04 - 02:15 PM I will fulminate when you do. But in polite words. (Ebbie: fulminate had better be someting ya can do in public without being arrested.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Peace Date: 09 Dec 04 - 02:15 PM Do people who fulminat wear long trenchcoats? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: GUEST,SueB Date: 09 Dec 04 - 02:45 PM I'm with Martin - this thread has become pure drivel. Not least of which is the "pockmarked genius" who allegedly taught courses at McGill, and was at one time, if not currently, headmaster and schoolteacher in the Canadian school system, (which rivals that of Finland in maths and reading,) pretending not to know - or possibly not knowing - the meaning of fulminate. No access to dictionaries up in the cold frozen north, apparently. Is it not possible to have a rational discussion about mind and body without it degenerating into mysticism and preciousness? Mind affecting matter is one thing, whatever the hell Amos is talking about is completely another. I am truly discouraged. Let's just have another thread about bodily functions - I know - what brand and method of deodorant do y'all prefer? Spray or roll-on or solid? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Ebbie Date: 09 Dec 04 - 03:10 PM Guest/SueB, what is stopping you from contributing to the mind-body connection discussion? If you do, I promise you that we will get back to it. As for my "awesome" comment, I can't imagine anything more awesome than the merging of two spirits. Has not a lot to do with corporal functions. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: GUEST Date: 09 Dec 04 - 03:59 PM Wolfgang, when doing a review of the literature on stress, you come across the old problem of the definition of stress. Eg did the authors use tasks that they thought would be stressful, but may actually have been viewed positively by some participants?, or were the participants views taken into consideration? In some stress literature, the term "positive stress" is actually used when they have tied themselves in knots in discovering that some participants thrived on their "stressors". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: GUEST,heric Date: 09 Dec 04 - 04:04 PM "mysticism and preciousness" good one Here's today's factlet, which fits the title, if not the intent: "the more violent a culture, the higher the relative proportion of left-handers." New Scientist |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Once Famous Date: 09 Dec 04 - 04:07 PM Thanks, SueB you and I are both right. these types of threads serve no purpose. they are for drug users who get "lilly high" and then go "gee man, far out, man." I mean, this type of stuff is not about a high train of thought. It is actually quite sophomoric and amos is the king of the naval gazing, lint picking pseudo-intellectuals taking up bandwith and making Mudcat look like it's got an open connection to some good crack. He must have the smelliest fingers on the forum. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Peace Date: 09 Dec 04 - 05:25 PM SueB: My but you're an angry, uptight person. Not a very nice one either. If it doesn't suit you, then it doesn't belong, is that it, Sue? Get a life and lighten up a bit. And don't be so insulting, OK? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Peace Date: 09 Dec 04 - 05:31 PM So, SueB: As I promised you in the message of a few moments ago--I am sorry for taking this thread off task. I realize it was not a good thing to do. I assume my serious contributions above are OK, so I won't apologize for them. Won't happen again in that I won't post to any thread that you start in future; nor will I post to this one again. Bruce M |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Ebbie Date: 09 Dec 04 - 05:45 PM In re-reading your post of 2:45, SueB, I regret the reasonableness of my last post. Your post was not only angry but insulting and crass. Is that the kind of person you want to come across as? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: GUEST,heric Date: 09 Dec 04 - 06:10 PM Well, yes it was, rather, but what a great idea for a thread: an Honor Roll of people who have never been angry or insulting in mudcat BS. I'll start: 1. Larry Otway. 2. Jerry Rasmussen. Two. I got two. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: GUEST Date: 09 Dec 04 - 06:14 PM SueB or not SueB that is the question.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Bill D Date: 09 Dec 04 - 07:03 PM aww..Ebbie...if I manage to do those metaphysical gymnastics, you may watch, take notes, and have the Galactic distribution rights! (brucie...'fulminating' is ok, even kibitzing...but I AM suspicious of 'gesticulating' in public!) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Once Famous Date: 09 Dec 04 - 09:43 PM SueB, Isn't it amazing how easily some get offended here? Thanks for telling it like it is. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: Ebbie Date: 09 Dec 04 - 09:51 PM Coming from the greatest offender that is rich, indeed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: CarolC Date: 09 Dec 04 - 11:41 PM So just what exactly is the point of this thread? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: GUEST,heric Date: 10 Dec 04 - 12:28 AM It's a thread in search of direction, Carol. Grab the wheel. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: CarolC Date: 10 Dec 04 - 12:55 AM LOL!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: CarolC Date: 10 Dec 04 - 12:56 AM ( ...can't I have to go to bed.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: GUEST,heric Date: 10 Dec 04 - 01:02 AM Well guess what. I gave Harold and the PC many months ago. I figured she may catch on it better than I. At first, she said she didn't like it. A few weeks ago, I noticed that she had been reading it frequently, without telling me or saying anything about it, which I thought was interesting. As we speak, she is writing a book report for presentation tomorrow. I'll let you know. . . |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: CarolC Date: 10 Dec 04 - 01:04 AM Looking forward to reading about it, heric. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mind-Body health connection From: GUEST,heric Date: 10 Dec 04 - 01:41 AM Harold brings his purple crayon with him everywhere. He can use it to solve problems. One day he drew a couple of things like a castle. He drew a lot of flowers (More than he could even count.) But the last one ended up being a fairy and Harold didn't have anything to wish for but he wanted to take a wish with him. He wished he would get a wish later and he did. Later he got a flying carpet. He didn't know how to land the carpet after he started flying. But finally he did it with his purple crayon. (Harold and the Fairy Tale -- I was wrong.) |
