I’ll have mine with self-improvement on the side
A cholesterol-lowering drug—one of the "statins"—was removed from the market in August of 2001 because it causes a side effect that can lead to death. All of the statins cause this side effect, but the public was urged not to panic. Perhaps what the public ought to be urged to do is practice health interventions that don’t have harmful side effects—like mind-body therapies.
Science sees the body as a machine made of separate parts that malfunction and can be tinkered with to make them work better. Because the body is a marvel of complex interrelationships that interact in an intricate dance of checks and balances, scientific tinkering is always done at some cost. Using drugs to jack up (or tone down) functioning in specific areas tends to knock other bodily systems out of true. The drug that does the least damage—has the fewest side effects, as they say—gets FDA approval. Until people die from it. Then it gets yanked.
Mind-body therapies also have side effects—positive ones. The mind-body approach is the opposite of treating the body as a machine with malfunctioning pieces. Instead, the body—and your life—is regarded as an interconnected whole, where the proper functioning of each part contributes to the balance of all parts. Therefore, many areas of your life tend to smooth out when you cultivate the positive mental habits of mind-body health, such as adaptability, flexibility, resilience, self-confidence, a sense of control, and optimism.
For example, if you practice the relaxation response 10 to 20 minutes twice a day, it will not only lower your blood pressure, it also positively impacts any other stress-related symptoms you might have—from improving fertility to reducing tension headaches—plus it leaves you feeling better in other, less tangible ways.
If you use cognitive therapy to change your "thinking style," learning to become an "adaptive coper" instead of an maladaptive over-reactor, the ripple effect will improve every area of your life. You’ll become a more centered, solid, functional, and happy person.
If you use hypnosis or self-hypnosis to treat bothersome physical symptoms, you usually find that you’ve become calmer, less reactive, and more confident in other areas of your life, as well as in your body.
The downside? Reaping the benefits of mind-body therapies requires more participation and commitment from you than just saying ‘yes’ to drugs. You'll need commit to whatever it takes for you to develop of new ways of looking at life that promote relaxation and well being. But even though you have to make more effort when you use mind-body therapies, you're almost guaranteed to experience greater rewards as a result.
Isn't that the kind of side effect you prefer?
Resources
The Feeling Good Handbook, by David D. Burns, M.D.
How
to practice the relaxation response instructions on the web