 Would you believe that what you think you're eating can affect what you're actually eating? That there's a difference between the food placed in front of you -- and what you perceive that food to be? That your body may respond to what you *think* you're eating OVER what you're actually taking in?
The first time I was introduced to this topic was throughout the book Mind Over Medicine. Author Dr. Lissa Rankin wrote this book to discuss the body's innate ability to self-repair -- and highlight our capacity for influencing this ability through the power of the mind. In Mind Over Medicine, Dr. Rankin shares a study done by Dr. Alia Crum, clinical psychologist at Yale University, called "Mind Over Milkshake". This study has since become one of my most favorite examples of how the mind can influence the physical body. It shows how our beliefs about the foods we're eating can impact the digestive system even more than the contents of the food itself.
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 If you're wondering how to feel better with autoimmune disease, then you've probably been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease or other physical illness that impacts your daily life. You probably are ALREADY doing a ton of the things in an effort to feel better and maybe even feel like yourself again.
But likely, since you're here, things aren't exactly working or you haven't found the right combination of tools just yet. You're not actually feeling much better. You might be where I was a few years ago... Hopping from program to program, expert to expert, diet to diet, self-care fad to self-care fad... all in the name of trying to feel better with autoimmune disease. Maybe you've tried meditation, and EFT, or even Reiki. Maybe you're doing anything at all to feel even the tiniest bit better -- but nothing seems to stick. Perhaps even all of those different healing remedies are starting to take over your life. You’ve got one foot in this tool and one foot in another. Your drive to feel better is eating up your time, energy, and money. Maybe you're frustrated, or overwhelmed, or even bitter at these changes you have to make. You might be saying, with a twinge of exhaustion in your voice, “Why did {insert latest remedy} work for so and so but not for me??”  If you want to feel better, you need these two things to be happening. You need to spend time out of a stressed state and spend time in a relaxed state. In other words, people who want to optimize the body for health and healing need time out of what's called the stress response and time in what's called the relaxation response.
Dr. Lissa Rankin, author of the book Mind Over Medicine, explains this best. She says, “The body has natural self-repair mechanisms that fight disease, kill bacteria, get rid of toxins and foreign bodies, repair broken proteins, slow aging, and generally keep the body healthy. But…. those natural self-repair mechanisms don’t function when the nervous system is in the midst of a ‘fight-or-flight’ stress response. Only when the nervous system is in a counterbalancing relaxed state – in what Dr. Herbert Benson at Harvard named ‘the relaxation response’ – can the body effectively heal itself.” In very generalized terms, this idea that we need to spend time out of the stress response and spend time in the relaxation response is what natural treatment and self care aims to address. It's why we might be recommended to make dietary changes, lifestyle modifications, practice regular Yoga, create a daily meditation routine, etc. These area all just tools for moving the body from a stressed state to a relaxed state in an effort to feel better. In other words, these self-care or natural treatment plans have the ability to calm down (again as Dr. Rankin says) the “trigger-happy, freaked out amygdala responsible for activating stress responses”. What exactly is all this stress fuss about? |
MEET KELLYI'm a wellness coach, fitness trainer, & always on the hunt for the next self-care tool. Read more here! Categories
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