I definitely do believe in a mind-body connection, though I'd have to be incredibly drunk to go for The Secret -- for everyone except Severine and me, it's basically the idea that whatever your mind fixates on, you get. You want wealth, health, happiness? Just fix your mind on it and it will come to you. Honestly, seventeen months ago, my mind was not fixed on pancreatic cancer. I'd barely heard of it.
However, without going that far and without laying a guilt trip on us all for the bad things that happen, it seems obvious that mind and body don't have a wall between them. On the simplest level, the evenings when I do yoga before I go to bed, I sleep better, wake up refreshed, and look forward to the next day with enthusiasm, which probably leads me to make healthier choices of food and drink, which are also good for my body (and mind).
But it's more complex than that. Today, for example, was the first day this week that was warm enough for me to walk in the morning (I draw the line at 5 degrees F). The early morning sun hit the hoarfrost on the bushes, and the sparkle raised my spirits. Don't know if it did anything for my body, but who cares?
Research at the U of Utah says that women in stressed relationships show more evidence of heart disease, diabetes, stroke: social and psychological stresses can lead to physical problems. This doesn't mean that every woman with diabetes can blame her husband, or herself for not shooting him when she had the chance. It doesn't even mean that if they get counseling her sugar levels will stabilize.
It just means that we don't live in test tubes. Some of what our minds/bodies go through we can do something about, either mentally or behaviorally, and some of it we can't.
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