The Mind Body Effect

Herbert Benson

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781982138820
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Alternative & Complementary Medicine

From the author of #1 bestseller The Relaxation Response comes a practical guide to how behavioral medicine can counteract the harmful effects of stress and help you regain control of your health. "In The Mind/Body Effect, Herbert Benson, MD, redefines medical care as a process in which the mind and body are tended as components of a single vital organism, and calls upon individual patients to share with physicians the responsibility for their own medical well-being. Writing with brilliant clarity, he exposes hypes and commercialism within a society obsessed with health and terrified of pain. The Mind/Body Effect may be the most important medical book for laymen since Dr. Benson's The Relaxation Response."—Noah Gordon, publisher, Journal of Human Stress "In their avid pursuit of better health, millions of Americans are making themselves less healthy. Ironically, their doctors often make things worse instead of better. In this fascinating book, Dr. Benson tells us—patients and doctors alike —how to break the vicious cycle."—David W. Ewing, executive editor, Harvard Business Review "The next great advance in the health of the American people will come not from hospitals or laboratories but from what they learn to do for themselves. The Mind/Body Effect represents a major step in that direction."—C. Norman Shealy, MD, PhD, codirector, The Pain and Health Rehabilitation Center

CHAPTER

1

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EVERY AGE seems to look back fondly at previous generations. More than 4600 years ago, the legendary Yellow Emperor of China asked his divinely inspired teacher, Ch’i Po:

I have heard that in ancient times the people lived [through the years] to be over a hundred years, and yet they remained active and did not become decrepit in their activities. But nowadays people reach only half of that age and yet become decrepit and failing. Is it because the world changes from generation to generation? Or is it because mankind is becoming negligent [of the laws of nature]?

His teacher answered:

In ancient times those people who understood [the way of self-cultivation]… lived in harmony with the arts of divination.

There was temperance in eating and drinking. Their hours of rising and retiring were regular and not disorderly and wild. By these means the ancients kept their bodies united with their souls, so as to fulfill their allotted span completely, measuring unto a hundred years before they passed away.

Our current and more accurate data argue against the concept that previous generations lived longer. We now not only live longer than ever before, but also, through the benefits of modern medicine, enjoy healthier lives. Yet many are still not satisfied with their state of health. Disenchanted with the medical profession, people seek help from various organizations and cults which promise relief from their problems. People also seek health advice from a myriad of books which instruct them what to eat and not to eat, how to exercise, how to relax and how to behave. Why is it that people do not have more faith in the present medical system and turn to it for advice, since medicine has achieved many, truly remarkable advances?

The scientific and medical advances themselves are causing medicine to move away from some of your most basic needs. As our modern technological society developed, time-tested approaches were considered to be unscientific and “old fashioned.” By adopting an historical perspective, I will show that medicine has made use of worthwhile principles that sustained it for centuries. Since these principles are poorly understood within the framework of modern medicine, they have been largely discarded. However, older practices are compatible with our current scientifically based approaches and should be reincorporated into medicine. We should not replace our recent successful approaches. Rather, the older techniques and approaches should be synthesized with our present practices. With such a synthesis, better health should ensue. Without such a synthesis, medicine will become further removed from what you need. Medicine, as it is now evolving, is increasing its potential to do harm. I am concerned that commercial interests, motivated by financial gain, will increasingly exploit your unmet needs for financial gain and that further ill health and dissatisfaction will result.

In the past, when people were considered as integrated, whole individuals, a dimension of good health was afforded. As these traditional approaches were replaced by the “new, scientific” therapies, health care frequently suffered.

You should not be compartmentalized into organ systems, scientific disciplines or medical specialties. Such compartmentalization and specialization have been convenient both for the acquisition of knowledge and for an efficient approach to illness. However, the fact that you are an integrated individual has too often been overlooked. Your mind and body should not be viewed as dissociated. Although this separation is compatible with current medical or scientific thinking, the mind and the body are inseparable.

There is much to be gained by combining the old with the new. This integrated approach to health care is simply the practice of good medicine. However, since the introduction of any concept requires identification, the term “Behavioral Medicine” will be used to designate what I shall present. These tenets can be taught to doctors and medical students without a radical departure from existing medical standards. Since good health is both the responsibility of the physician and of the patient working together, you must also be made aware of these concepts.

The vicious cycle of the pursuit of health leading to ill health can be broken through the adoption of the principles of Behavioral Medicine. Realistic expectations about your health can be gained. Moreover, recognition of the commercial exploitation of health needs should enhance a sense of reliance upon your own innate resources and decrease dependence upon medications. By weighing the potential risks of health practices against their potential benefits, you will be better able to approach health problems. Your understanding of the principles of Behavioral Medicine will lead to a new perspective of the practice of medicine. Through use of this perspective, you may achieve a better understanding of what constitutes good health and a way to attain it.

CHAPTER

2

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YOUR MIND AND BODY

IF YOU WERE TOLD that your mind and body did not interact, you might hesitate to accept such a statement. You might remember episodes of fear or anxiety which were accompanied by bodily symptoms of nausea, sweating, weakness or palpitations. Unfortunately, we have come to believe that the mind and the body should be approached separately. Illnesses of the mind are the concern of psychiatrists and psychologists who frequently employ therapeutic verbal techniques, as well as medications. Illnesses of the body are treated by physicians who employ drugs and operative techniques which are directed toward alleviation or cure. Since our bodies are composed of various organ systems, medical and surgical specialists treat our bodily diseases accordingly. “Mind doctors” and “body doctors” regrettably do not always consider us as whole beings. An attempt is now being made to bridge the traditionally separated disciplines of psychiatry and medicine. Behavioral Medicine represents an interdisciplinary approach to health care which incorporates the principles of medicine, physiology, psychiatry and psychology. It enables you as a patient to be viewed as an entire individual. Behavioral Medicine recognizes that your behavior is related to your health and to your illnesses.

Your body is a highly complex entity composed of a number of different, yet coordinated, biological systems. These systems permit effective interaction between our internal and external surroundings. The digestive system functions to process necessary foodstuffs for the body and to eliminate wastes. The acquisition of oxygen, necessary to convert the foodstuffs into energy, is performed by the respiratory system. This system also helps to eliminate carbon dioxide and water, the unused products of energy conversion. The renal, or kidney, system participates in the removal of waste products. The circulatory system distributes blood continuously through approximately 50,000 miles of arteries, capillaries and veins to supply each of our trillions of cells with sufficient fuel to carry out its functions. This system then carries modified and unused fuel to other sites for utilization or elimination. The blood itself, containing red and white cells, constitutes a separate system. The red blood cells bind, transport and release oxygen and carbon dioxide; the white blood cells combat infections and are an integral part of the immunological system of the body. Movement and locomotion are produced by the muscular-skeletal system. The endocrine system regulates the internal environment of our bodies through the secretion of hormones such as insulin, thyroxin and epinephrine (adrenaline). The reproductive system enables the perpetuation of other human beings through elaborate biological and behavioral processes.

These highly differentiated systems are integrated by the nervous system. It is divided anatomically into the central and peripheral nervous systems. The central nervous system is composed of the brain and spinal cord [see Figure 1]. The peripheral nervous system consists of a network of nerves connecting the various internal organs and systems of the body to the central nervous system [see Figure 2]. The central nervous system enables thought and memory to occur. The entire nervous system permits our bodies to interpret consciously and unconsciously our external and internal environments. Nerve endings which are specialized for sight, smell, hearing, taste and the sensations of touch, temperature, pressure and pain supply information. The entire nervous system regulates bodily events such as the circulation of blood, the digestion of food and breathing. The nervous system coordinates bodily responses to the environment. These responses are usually combinations of reactions, some of which reach consciousness and others which do not. When we interpret a situation as dangerous enough to necessitate bodily escape, we are aware of fright and of our running, but we are unaware of the physiological responses of increased metabolism, elevated blood pressure, greater blood flow to the muscles and decreased blood flow to the digestive organs. All our bodily systems are intricately interwoven for optimal function. So how can there be a workable separation of mind and body and how did such an artificial separation come about?

FIGURE 1 THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM.

The central nervous system is composed of the brain and the spinal cord.

FIGURE 2 THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM AND THE PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM.

The peripheral nervous system is composed of a network of nerves which connects the various organs and other systems of the body to the central nervous system.

Since the time of Plato, most scholars have believed that the mind and the body were of a different nature. The mind could influence the body and was dominant over the body. The seventeenth-century mathematician and philosopher, René Descartes, assigned a much more important role to the body than did others before him. The mind was no longer the master of the two. In giving the body equal influence, the mind and the body were more easily conceived of as being separate. The modern separation of the mind and the body is clearly traced to Descartes. He emphasized that the body was a machine “so built up and composed of nerves, muscles, veins, blood and skin, that though there were no mind in it at all, it would not cease to have the same [functions]…” Interaction between the mind and the body occurred during such actions as bodily muscular movements “which are due to the direction of the will…” However, what had previously been considered functions of the mind—locomotion and reproduction, for example—were now functions of the body. The mind could will the body to move, to flee from that which is harmful and seek that which is wanted, but action was carried out by the mechanistic muscles and nerves of the body. The mind was responsible for thought and consciousness, which included will, conception of ideas, feelings, understanding, and what Descartes referred to as “the passions” (desire, love, hatred, hope). Descartes considered the mind to be indivisible and nonmaterial and the body to be divisible and material. The mind was subject to reason and God; the body to mechanical laws. The two were separate, each responsible for its own functions, yet interacting in a purely machine-like fashion. Although Descartes’s arguments for separation of the mind from the body appear somewhat dated, no one since has completely succeeded in rejecting the concept that the mind and the body are quite distinct.

Attempts have been made to eliminate this distinction by the formation of disciplines such as Psychosomatic Medicine. The concepts of Psychosomatic Medicine provide a theoretical framework which relate mind and body. One of the major teachings is that certain patterns of thought may lead to specific illnesses. For example, repeatedly unexpressed feelings of anger and hostility may be translated into disorders such as high blood pressure or irregular heartbeats. However, because Psychosomatic Medicine has not yet offered definitive therapies for such disorders, it has not substantially altered the belief that the mind and the body are separate.

However, the close interrelation between your mind and body cannot be ignored when modern scientific knowledge is considered. The potential exists for thought processes to lead both to disease and to good health. For instance, can psychological events, events of your mind, lead to death? The concept of “voodoo death” is the extreme example of the potential negative effects of the mind on the body.

VOODOO

Voodoo is a set of religious practices thought to have originated in Africa as a form of ancestor worship. It has often been referred to as black magic or sorcery and is characterized by appeasing rites to the gods. Persons practicing voodoo frequently rely upon trances as a way of communicating with the gods. These deities generally are thought of as individual disembodied spirits which exercise either helpful or harmful influences. Voodoo is practiced chiefly among the native populations of Africa, Haiti, South America and the West Indies, while a similar set of beliefs is found in Australia, New Zealand and various Pacific islands.

Among Australian aboriginal tribes, witch doctors practiced the custom of “pointing the bone,” whereby a magic spell was cast into the spirit of the victim. The purpose of such spells was to disturb the spirit of the victim to the extent that disease and death would ensue. Many accounts of death attributed to voodoo have been documented. In 1925 Dr. Herbert Basedow described one such occurrence:

The man who discovers that he is being boned by an enemy is, indeed, a pitiable sight. He stands aghast, with his eyes staring at the treacherous pointer, and with his hands lifted as though to ward off the lethal medium, which he imagines is pouring into his body. His cheeks blanch and his eyes become glassy, and the expression of his face becomes horribly distorted… He attempts to shriek but usually the sound chokes in his throat, and all that one might see is froth at his mouth. His body begins to tremble and the muscles twist involuntarily. He sways backwards and falls to the ground, and after a short time appears to be in a swoon; but soon after he writhes as if in mortal agony, and, covering his face with his hands, begins to moan… His death is only a matter of a comparatively short time.

Many instances of such death, characterized by specific physiological changes, resulted from bone pointing and similar practices. The success of such practices is dependent upon both the victim’s awareness of the spell cast and the victim’s strong adherence to his society’s belief systems. These factors lead to the conviction that any hope of escape is impossible. Dr. Walter B. Cannon, a famous Harvard Medical School physiologist who lived at the turn of the twentieth century, discussed this power of the tapu (taboo) among the Maori aborigines of New Zealand. The superstitious beliefs associated with their sacred chiefs constituted a powerful, although purely imaginary, barrier. Further, “transgression of that barrier entails the death of the transgressor whenever he becomes aware of what he has done. It is a fatal power of the imagination working through unmitigated terror.” Cannon related the incident of a young aborigine who, during a journey, slept at an older friend’s home. For breakfast, the friend had prepared a meal consisting of wild hen, a food which the immature were strictly prohibited from eating. The young man demanded to know whether the meal consisted of wild hen and the host responded “No.” The young man then ate the meal and departed. Several years later, when the two friends met again, the older man asked his friend whether he would now eat a wild hen. The young man said he would not since he had been solemnly ordered not to do so. The older man laughed and told him how he had been previously tricked into eating this forbidden food. The young man became extremely frightened and started to tremble. Within twenty-four hours, he had died.

Cannon asserted that voodoo death is a very real phenomenon, which can...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Sources
• Index
• Copyright