What works?
The
varieties of mind-body experience
When I ask Suzanne why she’s considering an experimental surgery that purports to cure migraines by severing a nerve in the forehead, she frowns at me irritably and says she has tried everything to deal with her headaches, but nothing has worked.
"How about hypnosis?" I ask.
"I tried that and it didn’t work," she says crankily, her forehead corrugating into an intense frown. "Some things helped a little, but nothing has worked. I have the headaches less often, maybe, but they’re not gone. This surgery sounds like it will work."
When people complain that the mind-body approach "doesn’t work," it is usually because they are using it like conventional medicine. Applying it as mindlessly as they would take a prescription, they go through the motions of treatment, expecting changes to occur with no participation but their presence. Deep relaxation is the key to the success of most mind-body treatments, but learning to release inner tension usually requires ongoing practice and commitment, not just a few experimental sessions, monitored tensely for signs of success.
We're so familiar with the conventional medical model of treating illness from the outside in, we assume mind-body practices can be used the same way: just take as directed and, Voila! You are cured. If you're deeply convinced that a mind-body therapy will work like a magically powerful medicine, it may. Studies of the placebo response show clearly that what you believe about your treatment influences the results you get. But most people approach mind-body practices with less than placebo-response-inducng conviction. We're still new to the idea that something that seems as simple as relaxation can produce such powerful health results.
Relaxation practices
Scientific research has shown relaxation to be a panacea of sorts, benefiting all kinds of physical and emotional conditions. Dr. Herbert Benson developed a method for evoking what he called the "Relaxation Response," which is the psychological and physiological response inherent in calming, quieting, centering practices like meditation and prayer. In his book, Timeless Healing: The Power of Biology and Belief, Dr. Benson cites studies that show some of the benefits that come from making a routine of practicing the relaxation response for 15 to 20 minutes twice a day:
- Lowers high blood pressure to reduce or eliminate medication
- Chronic pain patients experience 36% reduction in care needed
- Insomnia cured for 75% in study
- 36% of women with unexplained infertility became pregnant within 6 months
- Patients with stress-related complaints who were frequent users of HMOs reduced their number of visits by 50%
- 57% reduction in severity of symptoms of premenstrual syndrome
- Decreased symptoms and better control of nausea from chemotherapy in cancer and AIDS patients
- Reduction in cardiac arrhythmias
- Reduction in anxiety, hostility, depression
- Reduction in migraine and cluster headaches
Prescribing relaxation
Because scientific research has confirmed the power of relaxation to promote health, relaxation therapies have become somewhat mainstream. There are now classes at hospitals teaching stress reduction, relaxation therapy or meditation, yoga, massage, and Tai Chi. There is ample data to substantiate the benefits you can expect from using these practices in a routine, but ongoing way, just as you would take prescription medication. But if you do these practices and don't relax, they don't "work."
Other fairly mainstream mind-body approaches are based on the idea that the underlying cause of tension needs to be addressed. These practices train you to change your thinking style or attitudes so that you don’t get so tense in the first place. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), for example, helps you practice strategies for noticing and putting a stop to the kinds of thinking that lead to a buildup of tension in the body and mind. You learn to develop the optimistic outlook and mental resilience that studies have shown to be health-promoting.
Although the idea that we can change our bodies by using our minds seems the stuff of magic, mind-body practices are not magic wands. They are practical tools we can use for releasing dis-ease and allowing the return of a natural, healthy flow of well being. At the most fundamental level, what makes them work, even if you are not completely convinced that they will work, is that they encourage you to relax. Relaxing shifts your attention away from a fixation on your symptoms, enables you to release the tension that leads to your symptoms, and allows your body to restore itself to normal functioning.
What works? Any treatment you believe in, conventional or alternative, can help you relax back into health. But if the intervention or treatment you choose doesn't "work" the way you hoped, you might want to take up a mind-body practice with the understanding that relaxation is what works, not the practice itself.