How Your Thinking Affects Your Health Part 2 of 3
Theoretical physicist David Bohm explained how virtually all thought has physiological correlates, and that the meaning we assign to material events serves as the link between energy and matter. He refers to thought as energy, and he refers…
Chronic Illness Q&A with Dr. B.
This question & answer column is for people living with chronic health challenges and their family caregivers, who want to learn to increase the odds of improving their health by learning to live with mastery & wellbeing.
I invite you…
Skills Not Pills Part 2
Simple Behavioral Changes and Physiological Functioning
Even the simplest of behavioral changes such as varying our posture serve to alter cognition, emotion, and physiological functioning. For example, when we stand tall, we feel better…
Awareness of Choice Improves Health and Wellbeing
Awareness of Behavior Leads to Awareness of Choice.
The goal is to increase awareness of our behavior in order to assess, throughout the day, whether our behavior is the most effective behavior to help us meet our needs and goals.
Also,…
What Causes Disease, Part 2
The Physiological Effects of Persistent Emotional Distress
It is normal to experience emotional distress brought on by the events and circumstances of everyday life. When this happens sporadically, it is not a problem—the body is resilient…
Authentic Self-Expression and Health Part 3
Expressive Writing and Immune Function Research psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky found in her psychotherapy practice that those who write are happier. Adopting the creative writing exercises of psychoneuroimmunology researcher James Pennebaker,…
Authentic Self-Expression and Health Part 2
During the 1950s, psychologist Lawrence LeShan discovered that one way he could know his psychotherapy sessions with hospitalized patients were working was that the nursing staff would begin to complain about those patients—once deemed compliant,…
Authentic Self-Expression and Health Part 1
In the book, Cancer as a Turning Point, research psychologist Lawrence LeShan describes how he pioneered the application of psychotherapy to working with advanced metastatic cancer patients, with the goal of improving longevity. In his lengthy…
Who Gets Well?
What science studies the effects of mind on immune function?
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) researchers explore the relationship of cognition and emotion to nervous, endocrine, and immune system functioning. This field was born in the early…