You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter
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| The Legacy of Negative Emotions As we keep making stress hormones, we create a host of highly addictive negative emotions, including anger, hostility, aggression, competition, hatred, frustration, fear, anxiety, jealousy, insecurity, guilt, shame, sadness, depression, hopelessness, and powerlessness, just to name a few. When we focus on thoughts about bitter past memories or imagined dreadful futures to the exclusion of everything else, we prevent the body from regaining homeostasis. In truth, we’re capable of turning on the stress response by thought alone. If we turn it on and then can’t turn it owe re surely headed for some type of illness or disease—be it a cold or cancer—as more and more genes get downregulated in a domino effect, until we eventually arrive at our genetic destiny. For example, if we can anticipate a possible known future scenario and then focus on that thought to the exclusion of everything else even for just one moment, the body will physiologically begin to change in order to prepare itself for that future event. The body is now living in that known future in the present moment. As a consequence of this phenomenon, the conditioning process begins to activate the autonomic nervous system, and it creates the corresponding stress chemicals automatically. This is how the mind-body connection can work against us. When this happens, we are demonstrating the three elements of the placebo effect in perfect symmetry. First, we start to condition the body to the rush of adrenal chemistry in order to feel a boost of energy. If we can associate a person, thing, or experience at a particular time and place in our outer reality with that rush of chemistry within us, we’ll begin to condition the body to turn on the response just by thinking about that stimulus. In time, we’ll be able to simply condition the body to be put in mind of that emotionally aroused state by thought alone—the thought of a potential experience with someone and something at some time and some place. If we can expect the future outcome based on the past experience, then the expectation of the event, when we emotionally embrace it, will change the body’s physiology. And if we assign meaning to the behaviors and experiences, we’re putting our conscious intention behind the outcome so that our bodies will change or not change equal to what we think we know about our reality and ourselves. But whether or not you believe that the stress in your life is justified or 113 valid, thee ect of that stress on the body is never advantageous or health enhancing. Your body believes that it is being chased by a lion, is standing perched on a perilous cliff, or is fighting off a pack of angry cannibals. Here area few examples from scientific studies demonstrating thee ects of stress on the body. Researchers at the Ohio State University College of Medicine confirmed that stressful emotions trigger hormonal and genetic responses, by measuring how stress affects the speed of healing minor skin wounds—a significant marker of gene activation. 22 A group of 42 married couples were given small suction blisters, and then their level of three proteins commonly expressed in wound healing was monitored fora total of three weeks. The couples were asked to have a neutral discussion for half an hour as a baseline and then, later, to talk about a previous marital argument. The researchers found that after the couples discussed a previous disagreement, their level of healing-linked proteins was mildly suppressed (showing that the genes were downregulated). The suppression rose to an even greater degree—about 40 percent—in couples whose discussion ballooned into a significant conflict, peppered with sarcastic comments, criticism, and put-downs. Research also supports the reverse effect—that reducing stress with positive emotions triggers epigenetic changes that improve health. Two key studies by researchers at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston looked at thee ects of meditation, which is known for eliciting peaceful and even blissful states, on gene expression. In the first study, conducted in 2008, 20 volunteers received eight weeks of training in various mind-body practices (including several types of meditation, yoga, and repetitive prayer) known to induce the relaxation response, a physiological state of deep rest (discussed in Chapter The researchers also followed 19 long-term daily practitioners of the same techniques. At the end of the study period, the novices showed a change in genes (874 upregulated for health and 687 downregulated for stress, as well as reduced blood pressure and reduced heart and respiration rates, while the experienced practitioners expressed 2,209 new genes. Most of the genetic changes involved improving the body’s response to chronic psychological stress. The second study, conducted in 2013, found that eliciting the relaxation response produces changes in gene expression after just one session of meditation among both novices and experienced practitioners alike (with 114 the long-term practitioners, not surprisingly, deriving more benefit). 24 Genes that were upregulated included those involved in immune function, energy metabolism, and insulin secretion, while genes that were downregulated included those linked to inflammation and stress. Studies like these underscore just how quickly it’s possible to change your own genes. That’s why the placebo response can produce physical changes in a matter of moments. In my workshops around the world, my colleagues and I have witnessed significant and immediate changes in our participants health after only one session of meditation. They transformed themselves and activated new genes in new ways by thought alone. (You’ll be introduced to some of them soon.) When we’re living in survival mode, with our stress response turned on all the time, we can really focus on only three things our physical bodies (Am I okay?), the environment (Where is it safe?), and time (How long will Download 5.46 Mb. Share with your friends:
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