Mind and Body: Staying Healthy Involves Both
By Paula Jewett, MD
It's not difficult to convince skeptics of the mind-body connection. Two simple but unscientific examples usually do the trick:
Consider the sweaty palms that result when a plane flight becomes turbulent. Or the increase in your heart rate, breathing pattern, blood pressure and muscle tension when you awaken and realize that your teenage driver is out past curfew. Beyond these examples, we also have three decades of scientific research and evidence that inexorably link our mental and physical states.
Studies have shown some astonishing mind-body connections. Here are just a few examples:
The bottom line to the vast body of research seems to be this: A healthy mind promotes a healthy body. People who have difficulty managing stress are not only at risk of low self-esteem, helplessness, anxiety and depression, they may also have a tougher time fighting illness and disease.
Reducing stress requires changing certain behaviors and practicing techniques that promote relaxation. Here are tips for changing stress-producing behavior:
When you stop trying to spend, save, and invest time, you'll feel less stressed out. By looking at it from such a harried perspective, you may miss out on the activities and people that make life worth living.
Here are some essential techniques to reduce stress and foster a healthy mind-body connection:
Further reading on the mind-body connection:
Healing Mind, Healthy Woman: Using the Mind-Body Connection to Manage Stress and Take Control of Your Life , Alice Domar, PhD, and Henry Dreher
Self Nurture: Learning to Care For Yourself as Effectively as You Care for Everyone Else, Alice Domar, PhD, and Henry Dreher
Perfect Health: The Complete Mind Body Guide, Deepak Chopra, MD
It's not difficult to convince skeptics of the mind-body connection. Two simple but unscientific examples usually do the trick:
Consider the sweaty palms that result when a plane flight becomes turbulent. Or the increase in your heart rate, breathing pattern, blood pressure and muscle tension when you awaken and realize that your teenage driver is out past curfew. Beyond these examples, we also have three decades of scientific research and evidence that inexorably link our mental and physical states.
Studies have shown some astonishing mind-body connections. Here are just a few examples:
- Cancer patients who express their emotions related to their illness in professionally facilitated support or therapy groups may survive twice as long as patients without group support or therapy.
- People who learn to maintain an optimistic attitude may not only avoid depression, they may actually improve their physical health.
- When taking stressful exams, medical students show a decline in the activity of cells that fight off tumors and viral infections.
The bottom line to the vast body of research seems to be this: A healthy mind promotes a healthy body. People who have difficulty managing stress are not only at risk of low self-esteem, helplessness, anxiety and depression, they may also have a tougher time fighting illness and disease.
Reducing stress requires changing certain behaviors and practicing techniques that promote relaxation. Here are tips for changing stress-producing behavior:
- Locate the source of your stress. Analyze your day’s load of stress to see if you can pinpoint a particular problem to deal with the stress more effectively.
- Make leisure time a priority. Leisure is a necessity, not a reward for finishing your to-do list. Personal time for recharging and staying healthy will never be available unless you plan for it purposefully.
- Set realistic goals. This may mean reordering daily priorities.
- Insist on help with regular chores. Learn to delegate without guilt. Basic changes aimed at lightening your load can ease your stress immensely. And don’t be a perfectionist!
- Reduce multi-tasking. Many women are stressed because they feel fragmented, worn down, and weary from responding to too many people and situations. Occasionally slowing down to focus on one thing is essential to keeping your emotions balanced.
- Take advantage of your natural body rhythms. There may be 24 hours in a day, but your mood and energy level can't keep up with the clock all day. The sooner you figure out when your prime time is, the less overwhelmed you'll feel.
- Stop running to answer every request. Make a conscious effort to separate what's important from whats merely "urgent" at the time.
- Learn to say no . Turning down someone who asks for a chunk of time isn't easy. Be polite, but say no fast. Waffling with "Let me think about it" just prolongs stress because you'll have to call back and beg off later.
- Look at time as your life.
When you stop trying to spend, save, and invest time, you'll feel less stressed out. By looking at it from such a harried perspective, you may miss out on the activities and people that make life worth living.
Here are some essential techniques to reduce stress and foster a healthy mind-body connection:
- Nurture your primary relationships. Lack of social relationships results in greater rates of illness and shorter life expectancies.
- Exercise regularly. Exercise fuels the brain’s stress buffers.
- Eat well-balanced meals. Poor nutrition before and during periods of high stress reduces the ability to cope.
- Get plenty of sleep. Most people require about eight hours. Alcohol interferes with REM sleep.
- Learn and practice yoga. It reduces stress and anxiety and promotes physical and mental well-being. Take a class or rent/buy a yoga video.
- Practice meditation. It eases many stress-related health problems by lowering the body’s responsiveness to the stress hormone norepinephrine.
- Listen to music. Studies show it reduces anxiety.
- Enjoy a good laugh. Humor helps fend off disease. Browse the comedy aisle at your favorite video rental store.
- Practice relaxation techniques.
Further reading on the mind-body connection:
Healing Mind, Healthy Woman: Using the Mind-Body Connection to Manage Stress and Take Control of Your Life , Alice Domar, PhD, and Henry Dreher
Self Nurture: Learning to Care For Yourself as Effectively as You Care for Everyone Else, Alice Domar, PhD, and Henry Dreher
Perfect Health: The Complete Mind Body Guide, Deepak Chopra, MD
