In western cultures we have been taught that the mind is somewhere in our head and that everything else is our body. This dualism can be traced back to Descartes and his writings. This dualism can even be seen in the way health insurance is treated in the United States. Most insurance policies provide much better coverage for "physical" disorders than they do for "mental" disorders. No such dualism ever existed in eastern cultures, and the mind and body are seen as intricately connected and unified.
Things may be changing in the western world. The decade of the nineties may be looked back upon as the age of holistic medicine or alternative medicine (if it is not seen as the age of managed care). Some have estimated that half of all patients in doctors' offices also seek alternative medical help. The National Institutes of Health has opened an Office of Alternative Medicine to study some of these non-mainstream approaches to healthcare.
Are the terms "holistic medicine", "alternative medicine", and mindbody medicine interchangeable? Not exactly. Alternative medicine is usually seen as healthcare which is outside the mainstream. Holistic medicine refers to treating the whole patient, rather than seeing him or her as simply a set of symptoms. Mindbody medicine is a smaller subset which overlaps both traditional medicine and alternative medicine.
We have cells in our gut that process information. Our brain produces makes messenger molecules and sends them to the immune system to tell certain genes whether to express themselves or not. Stress hormones such as cortisol help us handle a stressful situation, but cortisol also depresses the immune system. This is one reason that we sometimes get sick when we are under stress. There is no way to define where the mind ends and the body begins. Some even add the "spirit" into the picture, studying such things as intuition and the miniscule electrical fields which the body produces.
Recent studies have added even more evidence to this notion. Here is a small sampling of studies that have added to our knowledge in this area in recent years:
- Personal Control Can Prevent Premature Death
- Stress Levels Can Affect Pneumonia Vaccination
- Laughter is Good for Your Heart
- Pet Dog Reduces Stress of Caring for Brain-Injured
- Feeling Down Could Raise the Risk for Heart Disease
- Overdosing on News can be Bad for One's Mental Health
- Depression is Common but Often Unrecognized in Inner-City Asthma Patients
- Personality Influences Psychological Adjustment and Recovery from Stroke
- Leisure Activity Decreases Risk of Alzheimer's Disease
- Sports, Exercise a Mixed Bag for Psychological Well-Being of Young Women
