Mind over Medicine - 9781401939984

"Clinical trials show that up to 80 percent of patients given a placebo heal themselves with the power of the mind alone. But how? There is documented evidence that beliefs, thoughts, and feelings can cure the body. And this book not only reveals the data from mainstream medical journals; it tells you step-by-step how you can implement this knowledge to make your body ripe for spontaneous remission or disease prevention. For years, pioneers in the medical community have been extolling the virtues of the mind's power to heal the body. Yet their insights into the connection between our physiological states and our thoughts, beliefs, and emotions have long been dismissed by modern medicine as New-Age quackery and pseudoscience. Until now, few have made adefinitive, scientifically-documented case that the mind indeed has the power to prevent illness and even cure the body. Intrigued but skeptical that the mind could heal the body, Western-trained physician Lissa Rankin, M.D. pored over hundreds of objectively evaluated, peer-reviewed studies from medical journals to find proof not just that thoughts and feelings originating in the mind can heal the body, but also that there are clear physiological mechanisms explaining how this happens. In short, the body is equipped with natural self-repair mechanisms that the mind has the power to flip on or off. In Mind Over Medicine, she explains how this process works, proves with extraordinary case studies from the medical literature that it does, and teaches practical techniques you can use to activate the body's natural self-healing mechanisms, while shutting off the processes that predispose to illness. She also guides you through the process of uncovering where you might be making unhealthy choices, not justin your diet, exercise program, and sleep habits, but in your relationships, your professional life, your creative life, your spiritual life, and more- so that you can create a customized treatment plan "The Prescription" aimed at bolstering all of thesehealth-promoting aspects of your life. By expanding your definition of health and healing and implementing practices that turn off what Harvard researcher Walter Cannon termed "the stress response" and activating what Dr. Herbert Benson termed "the relaxation response," you can prevent or even reverse diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic pain, even cancer. "--