I read an article in the Guardian today about people suffering from illnesses for no apparent reason, and it got me thinking...
'Yvonne went blind overnight, Matthew couldn’t walk, Shahina lost the use of her hand – but doctors found nothing wrong. Were they faking it, or was the mind playing tricks? A neurologist on her most intriguing cases' - The Guardian | May 2015
The idea of an illness manifested completely by the mind is not new. As a sufferer of asthma I remember it being suggested that the problems with my breathing were psychosomatic, and probably brought on by emotional issues. Maybe that's true. I can't say I've ever noticed a pattern that would connect how I'm feeling with a difficulty breathing. That's not proof of anything, of course, much of our decision making goes on behind closed doors. There's an article on beinghuman.org which...
suggests 98% of brain activity is unconscious. So maybe something is going on 'emotionally' which triggers my asthma, I just don't know about it.
Anyway, reading the piece in The Guardian started me wondering; if some people suffer from psychosomatic illness brought on purely by the mind, do others benefit from psychosomatic wellness? Are those people who appear to have inordinately good health, sometimes despite a lifestyle which we're told will cause health problems, simply coming from an unconscious assumption of wellness completely out of their control?
This train of thought might also suggest some insight into why it is that, in some cases, placebos work even when the recipient knows what they are taking is a placebo. The unconscious mind cares little for what we might call reality, completely ignoring what we are consciously thinking and, with it's 98% against 2% overwhelming majority in the democracy of our mind, goes ahead and passes all sorts of unlikely new laws.
Do check out the article in The Guardian - 'You think I'm mad? - the truth about psychosomatic illness - it makes for fascinating reading for anyone interested in the random foibles of the grey matter, which increasingly studies seem to show is invisibly creating what we think is real.
Best wishes,
Gareth
Anyway, reading the piece in The Guardian started me wondering; if some people suffer from psychosomatic illness brought on purely by the mind, do others benefit from psychosomatic wellness? Are those people who appear to have inordinately good health, sometimes despite a lifestyle which we're told will cause health problems, simply coming from an unconscious assumption of wellness completely out of their control?
This train of thought might also suggest some insight into why it is that, in some cases, placebos work even when the recipient knows what they are taking is a placebo. The unconscious mind cares little for what we might call reality, completely ignoring what we are consciously thinking and, with it's 98% against 2% overwhelming majority in the democracy of our mind, goes ahead and passes all sorts of unlikely new laws.
Do check out the article in The Guardian - 'You think I'm mad? - the truth about psychosomatic illness - it makes for fascinating reading for anyone interested in the random foibles of the grey matter, which increasingly studies seem to show is invisibly creating what we think is real.
Best wishes,
Gareth
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