TruthBook Religious News Blog

August 9
Francine Adams

It is far easier to hold a grudge than to let go of something seemingly unforgiving, especially when one feels they are expressing righteous anger. It appears, however, that the grudger may, in the long run, wind up paying a much higher price than the grudgee. Dr. Piderman of the Mayo Clinic elaborates on this with quite interesting remarks on forgiveness. If one finds they are among those who are still hanging onto a grudge against someone long after the matter has been put to rest, consider the following:

"But when you don't practice forgiveness, you may be the one who pays most dearly. By embracing forgiveness, you embrace peace, hope, gratitude and joy. Here, Katherine M. Piderman, Ph.D., staff chaplain at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., discusses forgiveness and how it can lead you down the path of physical, emotional and spiritual well-being."

Are your grudges giving you headaches, backaches and sleepless nights. It is now common knowledge in modern medicine that there is a mind/body connection which means our emotions can affect our health. Stress and negative emotions have been associated with heart health. The American Academy of Family Physicians provides an extensive lists of disorders that can be signs one's emotional health is out of balance:

Please click on "external source" for the list, and the complete article.

Labels: emotion, Francine Adams. forgiveness, health, mind-body connection, well-being

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Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Hospitals offer alternative therapies for mind, body & spirit

Posted by Heather VanNest

St. Petersburg, Florida--When nurses tried to insert an IV into patient Linda Aron's hand, she was so anxious over the impending operation to fix her acid reflux that they simply had to stop.

Instead of continuing to poke and prod Aron, nurses at Grinnell (Iowa) Regional Medical Center called in a massage therapist to rub her shoulders and arms to help her relax. Within 10 minutes, Aron had an IV in place.

To meet patient demand and enhance the hospital experience, more hospitals like Grinnell offer patients complementary and alternative treatments. The American Hospital Association says today that 37% of hospitals around the USA make complementary and alternative treatments available — including acupuncture, touch therapy, and music and art therapy.

A similar survey by the hospital group in 2005 found that one in four hospitals offered such services.

Patients such as Aron, 56, of Grinnell (population: 9,100), say they are surprised at how some of these therapies make a difference in their hospital experience.alter

And, to help speed her recovery and relieve pain from the surgery, Aron currently receives weekly acupuncture from the hospital in Grinnell as an outpatient. She pays the $55 fee out of her own pocket.

"This is a movement toward 'patient-centered' care," says Sita Ananth, director of knowledge services for the Samueli Institute, an Alexandria, Va.-based non-profit that studies alternative therapies. "Many hospital mission statements are to serve the mind, body and spiritual needs of their patients."

Success measured in patient satisfaction

Ananth also points to the lucrative market potential of these types of therapies for hospitals, although most hospitals have yet to see a profit. According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, up to $19 billion a year is spent on alternative treatments. And the AHA's survey showed that much of that is paid out of pocket for patients — 71% of them pay cash.

While these types of therapies have a useful place in the hospital, more data are needed to understand how they work, says Andrew Schafer, chief physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. "Complementary and alternative therapies must be scrutinized in terms of their risk-to-benefit ratio and be subjected to placebo-controlled studies.

The majority of hospitals say that patient satisfaction is the No. 1 way they determine if an alternative treatment is beneficial, closely followed by clinical data on a treatment. Cleveland Clinic just completed a complementary and alternative therapy pilot program for patients undergoing heart surgery. Half of the patients — more than 1,700 — opted for spiritual care, counseling, art, music, touch therapy or guided imagery, and 93% of patients surveyed said the services were helpful.

Guidance from doctor groups for patients with chronic pain has helped bolster doctors' acceptance of complementary treatments, says Richard Nahin, senior adviser for scientific coordination and outreach at the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. He cites new guidelines for treating lower back pain issued jointly last year by the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society, which suggest many alternative therapies as potential treatments. "As doctors become more aware, hospitals will also follow," Nahin says.

Not all doctors are on board

Yet the picture is not so rosy at certain centers. According to the AHA, 44% of hospitals that offer such therapies say that their programs have a mediocre or poor relationship with staff physicians.

Labels: healing, health, Heather VanNest, medicine, mind-body connection

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Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Western medicine meets the meditative tradition

By Paul Scott
Wednesday, May 7, 2008

ROCHESTER, MINN. — The press that followed a recent visit by the Dalai Lama to the Mayo Clinic focused primarily on the spiritual leader's comments about the Chinese crackdown on protest in Tibet. It isn't hard to imagine why. The meeting's contentious international backdrop — a conflict underscored by the sidewalk appearance of a strangely polished crew of 50 or so pro-Chinese demonstrators mounting a lonely crusade to tarnish the cause of Tibetan autonomy — was an easier tale to tell than the less easily digested topic of the daylong event itself.

The oversight was unfortunate, because the case being made during the April 16 colloquium titled "Investigating the Mind-Body Connection: The Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation," seems far more destabilizing than the political movement in Tibet.

It's one thing to ponder the irony of a professional-seeming protest in defense of a government that does not allow protest. It's quite another thing to witness the brain trust behind the brand more associated with Western medicine than any other giving forum to the emerging science of mindfulness training, acceptance, positive thinking and compassion. The first cause is about political change. The second is cosmological.

The Buddhist meditative tradition

The Dalai Lama's prescription is that of the Buddhist meditative tradition: selecting and focusing on positive mental states such as compassion, gratitude and joy, while challenging negative mental states such as anger, jealousy, anxiety and a distracted state of being. In practice this means daily meditative practice intent on clearing mental clutter and developing more clarity of attention and moment-by-moment awareness.

The Dalai Lama has long believed that so-called mindfulness meditation has beneficial effects on human health and well-being, and thanks to research conducted by Davidson and others, we now know that the brain and body do indeed change for the better as a result of such practice, and through measurable physiological pathways more complex than had previously been imagined.

Researchers have known for years, for example, that a bilateral brain region known as the prefrontal cortex, or PFC, is involved in developing responses to emotionally laden thoughts, and that the way we respond to the events and thoughts in our lives is often determined by whether the brain draws on the rights side of our PFC or its left. Operating below the level of awareness, the right side of the prefrontal cortex responds to problems with an eye toward punishments and avenues of withdrawal, while the left side processes thoughts which are generally positive and tuned to rewards. Damage the left prefrontal cortex and depression increases; those who tend to preferentially use the left side of their prefrontal cortex tend to get over problems faster than do those who process emotion-laden thoughts from the right. Significant for the discussion of physical health, those who preferentially use the left prefrontal cortex show lower baseline levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

The dangers of chronic frustration

A separate area of research has linked chronic frustration with disruption of your heart-rate variability, which, sustained over time, the body begins to recognize as its baseline state, bringing about an inhibition of the vital bodily calming mechanism that is your parasympathetic nervous system. Feel frustrated long enough and your body ceases to calm itself.

By wiring EEG sensors to the heads of Buddhist monks and those attempting to meditate for the first time, then examining brain activity as expressed on functional MRI images, Davidson and Kabat-Zinn have learned that meditation employs the left prefrontal cortex — some monks he has studied have greater left prefrontal orientation than ever previously observed — and that over time, meditative practice can change the orientation from the right to the left of those who take up the activity. Brain circuitry is not fixed, in other words. To the contrary, said Davidson during a research-based session at Mayo, "the brain is the organ that is built to change in response to training. Happiness, compassion, and clarity of attention are the product of skills, and these skills can be enhanced through mental training."

After hearing the case that meditative mental training can help people stay healthier and recover more quickly from illness, the Mayo audience of 350 or so faculty and staff entered more culturally problematic territory — subject matter that seemed to be talked around as much as it was examined. In short, while medicine is beginning to take seriously the notion that the cultivation of compassion and mindfulness is beneficial for physical health, medicine as practiced today is often antithetical to the very mindfulness and spiritual "present-ness" sought after in meditative practice.

An East-West paradox?

The clinic may have established a "mind-body" Department of Integrative Medicine and gathered with earnest enthusiasm to hear from the top names in mind-body research, but Mayo is nothing if not the face of Western medicine in all its dichotomous cleaving of the spirit from the biology, both in culture and practice. The medical embrace of meditative compassion would seem to face a paradox: The grueling rise to the highest levels of medical specialization does not appear conducive to regular breaks for contemplative meditative practice, nor does the culture of omnipotence, authority and spirit of conquest within medical training seem a smooth fit for the sense of acceptance embodied in Buddhism.

The bad news came in large part from Roshi Joan Halifax, a Zen priest and medical anthropologist whose remarks suggested that embracing the Buddhist prescription will likely require more than stocking the patient information center with brochures on the value of meditation. For example, the Dalai Lama's thoughts on death are clear: "I think the most important thing," according to a Web collection of his sayings, "is to try and do our best to ensure that dying person may depart quietly, with serenity and in a peace." Caregivers of those at the end of life experience high rates of burnout, said Halifax, due to the "moral stress" brought on by the damage done to this peace by conflicting agendas of medicine in the face of death.

"A lot of clinicians feel reluctant to speak openly about the trajectory of an illness," she said, "with death being the end of the road." Halifax described the multipronged source of the physician's moral stress that leads him or her to avoid the dying: interventions which cause pain and suffering, lack of communication about the goals of care, and "the prolonging of dying through technology." While she acknowledged their role in transitory illness, flashing a picture of an iconic string of ICU life preserving tubes and machinery, she said simply, "This is our nightmare, to be put on a respirator."

Cultivating compassion, wisdom in the face of death

Halifax advocated helping physicians and caregivers in "cultivating compassion and wisdom in the presence of death." The ability to "presence pain and suffering without pitying, consoling or denying," said Halifax, requires "a quality of attention that is panoramic, perceptive and nonjudgmental." While meditative practice would seem to develop the skill in question, hanging over her argument was a question that went unasked: How likely are these skills to be developed in medical training, much less the culture and bureaucracy of large medical centers like Mayo? Research may support the benefits of meditative practice for patients, but if they are to care for the dying and gravely ill, physicians would appear to need an extra dose the same medicine. Is the Buddhist tradition even possible within the umbrella of Western medicine?

"Allow yourself to experience that futility," she said when a Mayo doctor from Brazil asked how he should handle his negative emotions that gave rise when watching patients in his homeland die unnecessarily due to a lack of resources. "To be with things as they are. There is still a resource that is there — your presence."

For the Mayo brothers, looking down from nearby oversize vintage photos upon the gathering, this could not have seemed a stranger request for the heirs to their legacy. Nor could the answer given to a similar question a few minutes later — and which had been put to Mattieu Ricard, a French-born monk from Katmandu and a subject of Davidson's EEG experiments on the brain activity of expert level meditation.

"Transform your attitude to the suffering person," said Ricard, who has spent more than 10,000 hours in contemplative meditation. "Let your heart become a mass of brilliant white light, and the suffering becomes dissolved in it."

The nature of compassion and suffering

After a lunch-hour break, the audience stood silently to greet the Dalai Lama, a sometimes impish figure who held forth bare-armed and robed from an armchair in the center of the stage. Answering questions put to him by Goleman and later the audience, the Dalai Lama alternated from English to long statements toward his interpreter, presumably in Tibetic, touching on the nature of compassion and suffering and its intersection with medical care. He rambled at times in a way that indicated no worries about social pressures like staying on message, making easily digestible bullet points, winning over his audience — and yet winning over his audience regardless.

He explained his position that the human dilemma is one whereby anger and attachment — while useful if a transitory emotion in species throughout the animal kingdom — are given undue extension by the human skill for imagination, with negative results.

"This is where the problems arise," he said. "Because of this, we need a special effort to increase our affection."

He called compassion "an immune system for the toxins of the mind." He also, early in his remarks, slipped in mention of the problem at hand, a statement that sparked no shortage of nervous laughter in the highly credentialed crowd.

"In Tibet we have a saying," he said. "The physician is a great scholar, but his medicine is not effective because his heart is not that good."

Paul Scott is a freelance writer based in Rochester.

Labels: Dalai Lama, Mayo Clinic, medicine, meditation, Mind and Life Institute, mind-body connection, Paul Scott, stress

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Sunday, March 30, 2008

Doctor is harbinger of healthy living

April 1, 2008,
Posted On: 3/28/2008

Singh’s new book details physical, mental balance

By Paul Imbesi

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Dr. Bindya Singh, 45, has been interested in living healthy – physically and mentally – since her teenage years, which gives her a lot of expertise on the subject. In her new book, “Nine Easy Steps to Complete Health and Well-Being,” Singh puts this expertise to work.

Singh became interested in spiritual health when she was about 15 years old when she accompanied both of her arthritis-stricken grandmothers to religious conferences, looking for help with their affliction. According to Singh, she enjoyed the religious trips with her grandmothers because she learned about the peace and calm that can come from spiritual conversations.

A healthy mind, body and spirit are the three cornerstones to Singh’s new book on health. “Unless you can control your mind, you really cannot address the needs of your body,” she said. Singh is the director of outreach and community education at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, specializing in neonatology and pediatrics, and a clinical faculty member at Stanford University. She went to medical school at Lady Hardinge Medical College in New Delhi, India. Singh is also the founder of the Healthy Center Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes healthy living.

In her book, Singh talks about the importance of a stress-free, positive attitude mindset. She said negative attitudes can have long-term effects on bodies, which can lead to harmful physical effects like hypertension, stress-induced heart attacks and depression.

She added that people can relieve their minds from stress through meditation, which she delves into by talking about simple steps to master the practice.

Singh’s book also covers topics like eating right, sleeping right and exercising. She said her book addresses the long-term needs of living well, which helps differerentiate it from many of the other diet and exercise books out there today.

“This book completes the picture because it gives you all the aspects of health that you need to get under your belt,” she said.

The roots of Singh’s book stem from a period in her life when she was reading and attending conferences and seminars on health-related subjects.

According to Singh, she took copious notes on these topics and began writing her book about nine years ago, after deliverying a baby. She admits she still cannot explain why she started writing, but said it consumed her.

She said she originally wrote for herself, her family and friends, but her parents told her to go further with her information since it presented such a full view of health, unlike today’s segmented books that only focus on eating well or the body, for instance.

Singh said her book is for anyone who cares about themselves, their families, and want to attain not just physical, but also long-lasting mental and spiritual health. She said it contains information to help anyone looking to control their life and be healthy and happy.

“Destiny is the choices you make with the chances that you’re given. So I hope that we all can make healthy and happy choices,” she said.

Labels: Bindya Singh, meditation, mind-body connection, Paul Imbesi, spirituality

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Friday, March 14, 2008

Bypassing 'Big Pharma' with Alternative Medical Treatment

Holistic, non-toxic therapies gain ground in wake of drug recalls

March 14, 2008 --

Pamela Hoeppner, author of The Breast Stays Put ($15.99, paperback, 978-1-60477-103-9), is living proof that alternative treatments can not only keep you healthy but win the battle against cancer. She, along with two other new authors from Xulon Press, is spreading the word that people must take charge of their own healthcare and now have choices other than conventional medicine. In the wake of the healthcare crisis and repeated drug recalls, Americans are discovering the body's miraculous ability to heal itself through non-toxic and alternative therapies, or what one physician has called "the medicine of the 21st century."

After running her own successful business in Wellness Alternatives, Hoeppner faced the unthinkable. She was diagnosed with a malignant, fast-growing breast cancer. She declined all conventional treatment and chose an alternative approach with an impressive track record-- Protocel®. In her inspiring book, she shares her courageous story of overcoming a deadly diagnosis and provides prevention and treatment information. "With the Internet, and the world of alternative medicine it opens up only a click away, people today are taking charge of their lives, especially their health, and they're searching for options. The Breast Stays Put was my way of telling the world, 'You do have options--I found my answer--and I'm living proof that bona fide options and choices exist!'"

Author Ricki Pepin's son suffered for more than a decade with an unexplained, disabling illness. Desperate for answers, Pepin embarked on an intensive search for answers amid confusing and often conflicting medical data. She discovered seven biblical principles that she believes is God's prescription for healthy living. God's Health Plan: The Audacious Journey to a Better Life ($17.99, paperback, 978-1-60266-698-6; $27.99, hardcover, 978-1-60266-699-3), is based on her effort to find help for her child. "It's about wholeness and restoration of mind, body and spirit," says Pepin. "It's about adding life to your years, not just years to your life."

The seven principles encompass food choices, medical care alternatives, and environmental stewardship practices that will create healthier lives and a replenished world. Pepin believes we stand on the brink of a medical paradigm shift from fighting disease to maintaining health, but individuals face enormous frustration as they begin to take charge of maintaining their own health. "There is so much information available in the health industry today, and it is often hard to decipher what is true and what is mere hype," Pepin says. "This book will help ordinary people to sift out the fads and fallacies and find God's principles on health, which can lead to their own physical and spiritual restoration."

In the midst of confusing modern-day diets, food restrictions, and unnecessary fear-inducing food warnings, What the Best Doctor Recommends (paperback, 978-1-60477-552-5) reaches out to the many disillusioned souls who struggle with unnecessary food-related battles. Written by "Ms. Abigail" (penname), the book presents time-tested biblical secrets to eating--secrets which have been programmed within us since creation. It offers a simple, realistic, and logical solution for today's broad spectrum of dieting debates and health issues. Those principles helped the author completely overcome all her food-related issues on a physical, mental, and emotional level. "My mission is to spread a message of hope, one that lifts the confusion and relieves the frustration that countless diets and food restrictions have created in the lives of many," says Ms. Abigail.

Xulon Press, a part of Salem Communications Corporation, is the world's largest Christian publisher, with more than 5,000 titles published to date. Retailers may order the books mentioned above through Ingram Book Company and/or Spring Arbor Book Distributors.

Labels: Bible, cancer, God's Health Plan, medicine, mind-body connection, Ms. Abigail, Pamela Hoeppner, Ricki Pepin, spirituality, The Breast Stays Put, What the Best Doctor Recommends, Xulon Press

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Friday, January 25, 2008

Mind-body connection

A study published in the January issue of Journal of General Internal Medicine explores the connection between the mind and body.

The study found that 45 percent of Chicago internists surveyed have prescribed a placebo at some time during their clinical practice. The authors surveyed 466 internists at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and University of Illinois-Chicago, 50 percent responded.

The authors also noted that a growing number of physicians believe in the mind-body connection, which means what a person thinks can impact the health and well-being of the body.

The survey also inquired about whether there might be psychological or physiological benefits to meditation, yoga or relaxation techniques, and prayer or spirituality among other questions.

The concept of prayer as part of the healing process for a physical illness is something that doctors in Tuscaloosa as well as elsewhere have been exploring for some time. In the Chicago survey, the authors reported that the majority of physicians believed in both psychological and physiological benefits.

Labels: health, mind-body connection, prayer, Sarah Jones, spirituality

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Sunday, January 13, 2008

Spiritual Reflections: Change perspective to hold yourself together

By Lynne Silva-Breen, Spiritual Reflections

Every January it’s the same thing. Magazine covers, newspaper articles, and radio shows devoted to keeping those health-focused New Year’s resolutions.

Whether its weight loss, smoking cessation, decreasing alcohol use, or improving your overall mood, there’s a program, a drug, a class you can join to fix it all in several easy steps.

So: How’s that going for you?

I believe that that pattern of idealism, attempt, failure and self reproach are harmful to our spiritual and emotional health. All this “self improvement” effort makes our bodies into a kind of lifelong construction project. Is there something else we can do instead?

I would like to suggest a different way of thinking and behaving around these efforts to improve our body’s health. Rather than looking at ourselves as if we were two separate beings, one being as the mind, the other as the body, we might attempt to live life as a whole self; a whole, complex, embodied self.

While Judaism and Christianity assume a person’s embodied self, religious views of human life have given way recently to more utilitarian and objective points of view.

We commonly do invasive things to our bodies unimaginable a couple of generations ago (deep brain surgery, in vitro fertilization, cancer treatments, to name a few) without attending to the emotional and spiritual aspects of these interventions. Our medical advances have outstripped our ethical and emotional reflection on our abilities.

It’s no wonder many of us don’t think of ourselves as the bodies we are. We have begun to treat our bodies like repair projects.

Our cultural mind/body split is at the heart of several rapidly increasing mental health disorders, including those around food and eating, body image, sexuality and gender, and mood disorders. I worry that we have trained ourselves to believe that all it takes is the right pharmaceutical product – the right prescription drug – to fix the body.

Though we know this is not true, both instinctively and factually, we have convinced ourselves of the superiority of technology over our most human of problems.

I invite you to take a step back from the cultural avalanche of body problem solutions this month, and attempt to view yourself as a whole being.

What would that understanding of yourself do when you imagine trying to lose weight, or manage your diabetes, or calm your sleeping problem? How would it shape your next visit to the doctor, or to the gym? We are not just a jumble of parts, but an amazing whole.

May that perspective find its way into your New Year, and help hold you graciously together.

(Rev. Lynne Silva-Breen, M.Div., M.A., has been a Lutheran pastor since 1984, is a family therapist/pastoral counselor and can be contacted at www.inspiringchange.us. She is one of several area pastors who write columns for "Spiritual Reflections.")

Labels: health, Lynne Silva-Breen, mind-body connection, religion, resolutions, spirituality, wholeness

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Friday, January 04, 2008

Book Review: The Cure Within - A History of Mind-Body Medicine

By Anne Harrington
Jan 2, 2008

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - Scientific studies, social trends, and pop culture show that we are endlessly fascinated by the magical notion of mind over matter. News headlines claim that reducing stress leads to a stronger immune system and a longer life expectancy. There are miraculous stories of tumors disappearing with the help of visualization techniques. Accordingly, many are embracing practices such as acupuncture, yoga, and transcendental meditation. Interest in alternative sources of health and wellness indicate that even with the advances of medicine, many recognize the mind’s role in healing the body.

In her new book, THE CURE WITHIN (W. W. Norton & Company; January 21, 2008; $25.95 cloth), Anne Harrington, historian and chair of Harvard’s Mind Brain and Behavior Initiative, unravels the mystery of “mind cures” – the mind’s role in healing the body and the notion that the mind exerts an influence on our well-being. Superbly researched, enlightening, and original, THE CURE WITHIN is the first cultural history of mind-body medicine. Beginning in the early days of Christianity, when notions of possession dominated the church and medicine, Harrington moves to the secularized mind cures of Freud’s psychoanalysis, explores the deep-seated Christian roots of our modern self-help vernacular, and probes today’s designer blending of Eastern and Western wellness medicines.

Harrington reveals the deep historical and cultural roots that underlie our notions of healing. She chronicles faith and religion’s historical role in curing illness from early Christian times, to the 17th and 18th century exorcisms sanctioned by the church as an effective treatment for what was deemed “demonic possession,” to the persistence of religion today in more modern examples of faith-healing, including pilgrimages to sites such as Lourdes and the laying in of hands. She traces the origin of the power of positive thinking to Mary Baker Eddy, the 1879 founder of The Church of Christ, Scientist, whose advocacy of spiritual healing above medicinal treatment remains the accepted doctrine of today’s Christian Scientists. Harrington also explores secular influences on mind-body healing—from Freud’s techniques for curing illness and hysteria to today’s stress management and visualization techniques popularized by figures likes Dr. Herb Benson, whose ground-breaking study of Transcendental Medicine sparked a tremendous interest in spiritual and holistic health practices.

Both religion and science have something to say about the seemingly real effects of the mind’s role in shaping, harnessing, and controlling disease. Harrington expertly navigates historical cases that demonstrate these influences, punctuating her story of psychosomatic medicine with an examination of neuroscience’s role in confirming the influence of mind over body. THE CURE WITHIN is an absorbing, enlightening investigation of our cultural notions of mind cure from ancient times to the present.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Anne Harrington is Harvard College Professor for the History of Science, specializing in the history of psychiatry, neuroscience, and the other mind sciences. Also a visiting professor for Medical History at the London School of Economics, she is the author of Reenchanted Science and the editor of The Placebo Effect and the The Dalai Lama at MIT. Currently she serves on the Board of the Mind and Life Institute, an organization dedicated to cross-cultural dialogue between Buddhism and the sciences. She lives in Watertown, Massachusetts.

TITLE: THE CURE WITHIN: A History of Mind-Body Medicine
AUTHORS: Anne Harrington
PUBLICATION DATE: January 21, 2008
PRICE: $25.95 cloth
PAGES: 354
ISBN: 978-0-393-06563-3

www.HealthNewsDigest.com

Labels: Anne Harrington, health, mind-body connection, religion, science

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Friday, August 24, 2007

Why Being Out Of The Body Is All In The Mind

August 24, 2007
Mark Henderson, Science Editor

To many people who have had an out-of-body experience, they are profoundly spiritual events that reveal how the mind extends beyond the material confines of the body and strengthen beliefs in religion or the paranormal.

The sensation of watching your own body from a distance, however, need owe nothing to the supernatural, research has proved.

With a combination of virtual-reality goggles and tactile stimulation, researchers in Britain and Switzerland induced volunteers to feel that they have left their bodies to view themselves from a few metres away. The illusion is said to feel as if the subject’s consciousness has been “teleported” elsewhere.

The results could eventually have commercial, medical, scientific and military applications. Similar virtual-reality technology could help surgeons to operate on patients in distant hospitals, and scientists to control humanoid robots on the Moon or Mars. Though scientists behind the experiments said they had no ties to military research, the work could be used to improve remote-controlled weaponry.

Henrik Ehrsson, of University College London, who performed one of the two studies published in the journal Science, said they shed important light on the nature of consciousness.

“Out-of-body experiences have fascinated mankind for millennia,” he said. They raised fundamental questions about the relationship between human consciousness and the body, and had been much discussed in theology, philosophy and psychology. “Although out-of-body experiences have been reported in clinical conditions, the neuro-scientific basis of this phenomenon remains unclear.

“The invention of this illusion is important because it reveals the basic mechanism that produces the feeling of being inside the physical body. This represents a significant advance . . . the experience of one’s own body as the centre of awareness is a fundamental aspect of self-consciousness,” Dr Ehrsson said. “If we can project people so they feel and respond as if they were really in a virtual version of themselves, just imagine the implications.”

In his study, volunteers wore goggles, and cameras were placed 2m (6ft) behind the subject, with the feeds connected to the subject’s eyes. The participant thus saw an image of his or her back. Dr Ehrsson stood behind the subject and held two rods. He used one to prod the subject and the other to jab underneath the camera. The participants said they felt they were sitting where the cameras were placed, and that the figure they were watching was another person or a dummy.

“This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants - it felt absolutely real for them and was not scary. Many giggled and said, ‘Wow, this is so weird’.” He said that when he took part, he felt himself move suddenly out of his body. “I see the object coming towards me, feel the touch, then ‘boof!’, I feel a striking sensation that I’m over there looking at myself.”

Out-of-body experiences are often associated with neurological conditions such as migraines and epilepsy, as well as with drug abuse and serious injuries, particularly to the head. They probably come about because the brain is misled by circuits that are not working properly.

In the second experiment, a team at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne fitted volunteers with similar goggles, then trained the cameras on a mannequin. The backs of the subject and the mannequin were stroked - though the subject could see only the mannequin. They were blindfolded and moved away, then asked to walk to return to their position. They tended to move towards where they had seen their “virtual bodies”.

Susan Blackmore, of the University of the West of England, said: “Out-of-body experiences should be understood not as evidence for the supernatural, but as a fascinating experience that potentially we can all have.”

Labels: consciousness, Mark Henderson, mind-body connection, science

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Friday, August 10, 2007

Line between religion and medicine blurring

Melissa McEver
August 7, 2007 - 7:10PM

Dr. Bruce Leibert makes no apologies for who he is: a devout, outspoken, Christian doctor who asks to pray with patients and asks them about their spiritual beliefs.

Leibert, program director of Valley Baptist Family Residency in Harlingen, openly incorporates spirituality into his practice because he believes it makes a difference in patients’ physical and mental health.

“Health must address not only body, not only the mind, but the undying soul. … If I can’t minister to the soul, then I can’t do medicine.”

In the past, a clear boundary has existed between religion and medicine: chaplains and pastors visited hospitals to tend to patients’ spiritual needs, while doctors and other healthcare providers were expected to solely treat the physical.

But that line between faith and science is starting to blur, as more healthcare providers and hospitals incorporate spirituality into patient care.

From Bible studies for healthcare workers to prayer time with patients and meditation classes at hospitals, faith is playing a more prominent role in the healthcare setting — and for a good reason, experts say.

“Science is telling us clearly that when you activate your spirituality, various things happen in the body that help you heal better in times of disease and distress,” said Dr. R. Murali Krishna, president of the James L. Hall Center for Mind, Body and Spirit in Oklahoma City. Krishna and others founded the center 10 years ago, hoping to increase patient awareness about the mind-body connection, he said.

The center offers seminars on meditation, guided imagery and relaxation, in part to help people achieve that connection, he said.

“It helps you access the healing power within yourself,” Krishna said.

Connecting mind, body and spirit

Researchers have actively studied the mind-body connection since the 1960s, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Studies have suggested that mind-calming practices like meditation, yoga and visualization can help reduce chronic pain, improve immunity, speed wound healing and reduce stress, which in turn improves health.

More researchers are now looking into whether similar results come from prayer, church attendance or strong belief in a religion. Some studies have indicated that spiritual beliefs and practices can improve the mental and physical health of the chronically ill and the sick elderly, improve patients’ ability to cope with pain and distress and protect against depression.

Patients seem to want to talk about spirituality and faith with their doctors, according to a 2004 survey that appeared in the Annals of Family Medicine. The survey found that 83 percent of respondents wanted their doctors to ask about their spiritual beliefs, and a majority wanted those beliefs to be considered when planning treatment.

Some local doctors routinely take a “spiritual history” of their patients.
Leibert, for example, often asks questions like “Do you go to church regularly?” and “Do you pray?”

A spiritual history can help doctors tailor treatment to the individual patient, said Dr. Linda Villarreal, an Edinburg internist.

If a patient is suffering from symptoms related to stress, for example, she’ll suggest prayer or meditation depending on what the patient believes, she said.

Faith is important to many of her patients, Villarreal said.

“In our Hispanic culture, there’s a strong faith component,” she said. “Talking about that with my patients … there’s a sense of comfort in it.”

Leibert said his patients rarely turn down the chance to pray with him when asked. He has prayed with people of all faiths and doesn’t try to change their beliefs, he said.

Separation of church and medicine?

Some experts, however, are concerned about doctors bringing religion into office visits and the possible ethical implications.

When questions about religion turn into evangelism, or when a patient feels pressured to pray or conform to the doctor’s beliefs, that’s when the inquiries cross the line, said Richard P. Sloan, psychiatry professor at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. Sloan is the author of Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine.

“That’s capitalizing on the vulnerable status of patients,” Sloan said. “We want patients to do what physicians say when it comes to medical matters. … When (doctors) pursue a different agenda, a religious agenda, it’s a real danger.”

Questions about religion can invade patients’ privacy and also cause feelings of guilt and remorse — hardly a burden a sick person needs, Sloan said.

“There are substantial ethical concerns in trying to link religion to medicine,” he said.

Krishna said he thinks prayer in the doctor’s office is a good idea only if the patient’s beliefs are consistent with that practice.

“If we’re imposing our belief system on them, then it’s crossing the boundary,” he said. “We live in a world where people believe different things, and boundaries are important.”

Doctors should inquire about patients’ spiritual beliefs, whatever they are, Krishna said.

Having that information can help doctors offer better advice and help establish a connection with the patient, he said.

Properly used, spirituality is a valuable tool in health care that could improve outcomes for many people, Krishna said.

“It has enormous healing potential,” he said. “It’s a complement for modern medicine, not a replacement.”
____
Melissa McEver covers health and environment issues for Valley Freedom Newspapers. .

Labels: Dr. Bruce Leibert, medicine, Melissa McEver, mind-body connection, religion, spirituality

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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Faith and Health

Doctors incorporating spirituality into their medical practice

By MELISSA McEVER
The Brownsville Herald
July 15, 2007

Dr. Bruce Leibert makes no apologies for who he is: a devout, outspoken Christian doctor who asks to pray with patients and asks them about their spiritual beliefs. And many of his patients like him that way.

Leibert, program director of Valley Baptist Family Residency in Harlingen, openly incorporates spirituality into his practice because he believes it makes a difference in patients’ physical and mental health, he said.

“A lot of studies talk about this … how important this part of health is to people, and how often doctors ignore it,” Leibert said. “Health must address not only body, not only the mind, but the undying soul … If I can’t minister to the soul, then I can’t do medicine.”

In the past, a clear boundary has existed between religion and medicine: chaplains and pastors visited hospitals to attend to patients’ spiritual needs, while doctors and providers were expected to solely treat the physical. That line between faith and science is starting to blur, though, as more health providers and hospitals are incorporating spirituality into patient care. From Bible studies for health-care workers to prayer time with patients to meditation classes at hospitals, faith is playing a more prominent role in the health-care setting, and for a good reason, experts say.

“Science is telling us clearly that when you activate your spirituality, various things happen in the body that help you heal better in times of disease and distress,” said Dr. R. Murali Krishna, president of the James L. Hall Center for Mind, Body and Spirit in Oklahoma City. Krishna and others founded the center 10 years ago, hoping to increase patient awareness about the mind-body connection, he said.

“We don’t really talk about one particular religion or dogma — what we talk about is spirituality, connecting with a higher power,” Krishna said of the center’s focus. The center offers seminars on meditation, guided imagery and relaxation, in part to help people achieve that connection, he said.

“It helps you access the healing power within yourself,” Krishna said.

Connecting mind, body and spirit.

Researchers have actively studied the mind-body connection since the 1960s, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health. Studies have suggested that mind-calming practices like meditation, yoga and visualization can help reduce chronic pain, improve immunity, speed wound healing and reduce stress, which in turn improves health.

More researchers are now looking into whether similar results come from prayer, church attendance or strong belief in a religion. Some studies have indicated that spiritual beliefs and practices can improve the mental and physical health of the chronically ill and sick elderly, improve patients’ ability to cope with pain and distress and protect against depression.

Patients seem to want to talk about spirituality and faith with their doctors, according to a 2004 survey that appeared in the Annals of Family Medicine. The survey found that 83 percent of respondents wanted their doctors to ask about their spiritual beliefs, and a majority wanted those beliefs to be considered when planning treatment.

Some local doctors routinely take a “spiritual history” of their patients. Leibert, of Family Practice Residency, often asks questions like “Do you go to church regularly?” and “Do you pray?”

A spiritual history can help doctors tailor treatment to the individual patient, said Dr. Linda Villarreal, an Edinburg internist. If a patient is suffering from symptoms related to stress, for example, she’ll suggest prayer or meditation depending on what the patient believes, she said.

Leibert said his patients rarely turn down the chance to pray with him, when asked. He’s prayed with people of all faiths and doesn’t try to change their beliefs, he said.

“I don’t go into the office to change them — I just go to love and care for patients,” Leibert said.

Separation of church and medicine?

Some experts, however, are concerned about doctors bringing religion into office visits and the possible ethical implications.

When questions about religion turn into evangelism, or when a patient feels pressured to pray or conform to the doctor’s beliefs, that’s when the inquiries cross the line, said Richard P. Sloan, psychiatry professor at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. Sloan is the author of “Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine.”

Sloan said that questions about religion can invade patients’ privacy and also cause feelings of guilt and remorse — hardly a burden a sick person needs, he said.

“There are substantial ethical concerns in trying to link religion to medicine,” Sloan said. “Nobody, least of all I, want to dispute that religion brings comfort in times of difficulty. But that doesn’t justify bringing religious practices into medicine. The best solution is for (doctors) to allow people to express their religion without interference.”

Krishna, of the Hall Center for Mind, Body and Spirit, said he thinks prayer in the doctor’s office is a good idea only if the patient’s beliefs are consistent with that practice.

Doctors should inquire about patients’ spiritual beliefs, whatever they are, Krishna said. Having that information can help doctors offer better advice and help establish a connection with the patient, he said.

Sloan agreed that there is a place for faith in the health-care setting — but it isn’t the doctor’s office, he said. Chaplains should be the ones to discuss spiritual issues with patients, he said.

Villarreal, the Edinburg doctor, agreed that when doctors bring religion into their office, “there’s a line you could potentially cross.” That’s why she makes a point of asking patients about their beliefs, and not discussing religion or spirituality with them unless they’re comfortable with that terminology.

Properly used, spirituality is a valuable tool in health care that could improve outcomes for many people, Krishna said.

“It has enormous healing potential,” he said. “It’s a complement for modern medicine, not a replacement.”

Labels: Christian, Dr. Bruce Leibert, Dr. Linda Villarreal, Dr. R. Murali Krishna, ethics, medicine, Melissa McEver, mind-body connection, religion, Richard P. Sloan, spirituality