Tag: mind-body connection

  • F.M.Alexander – the orator with no voice

    Frederick Matthias Alexander (1869-1955) was an Australian actor who had made a good living from poetry recitals in the 1890s until he encountered a career-threatening problem: he developed breathing problems and chronic laryngitis, and lost his voice! He went from doctor to doctor, but none could find any physical cause nor any cure. Since no-one…

  • An empty shell

    Today’s doctors study anatomy in great detail, aided by constant improvements in microscope technology, electronic scanning and, in recent decades, computers. But what exactly are they studying? If you want to see what a human body looks like with its mental and emotional energies taken away, look out for Professor Gunther von Hagens’ travelling Bodyworlds…

  • 10 years hiding in a room

    A young friend of mine, Naomi, has spent the past ten years hiding in her room with the curtains closed, scared to go out because she dreads being seen in public. On the rare occasions she ventures out, she smothers herself in makeup and wears a floppy hat or balaclava, scarf and baggy clothing to…

  • What are you?

    What are you? When you think, exactly who or what is doing the thinking? When you stare into a mirror, who is doing the looking? There’s a story of a young philosophy student who went to see his professor. ‘Please help me,’ he pleaded. ‘There’s a question that’s been eating me alive. I can’t sleep…

  • Placebos – the Best Medicine

    It is well known that pills and potions with no active ingredients can be just as effective as pharmaceutical/chemical medicines. Sometimes they are more effective, depending on how they are administered. They can cure illnesses for no other reason than the patient trusts the doctor and believes they can.  Despite the research evidence, placebos are…

  • The Molecules of Emotion

    Anyone who has ever felt sick with worry or cried at the cinema knows that there is a close connection between our thoughts, emotions and bodily state, but only in the last couple of decades has the medical establishment acknowledged this connection and begun to take it seriously. The reason was that scientists could find…

  • Working in Nature Improves Mental Health

    A study by the University of Essex for the Wildlife Trust has revealed that doing voluntary work in nature improves mental wellbeing. 95% of the 139 volunteers reported an improvement in their symptoms within six weeks. The work included shrub clearing, conservation work, tree planting and food harvesting. The results demonstrate once again that the…

  • Mind-Body Healing the Quimby Way

    All illness has a psycho-somatic component. Often it’s hard to tell where the boundary lies between the mind and body. One great pioneering healer knew no bounds; his name was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. He was born on February 16, 1802. He was a clock-maker in Belfast, Maine, where he lived most of his life. Although…

  • Healing the body with the mind

    Following the success of Barbara Mohr’s ‘Cosmic Ordering’[1] and Rhonda Byrne’s ‘The Secret’[2] in 2006, the ancient spiritual Law known as the Law of Attraction has come to the fore. It is enshrined in Buddhism, Taoism and the Vedic and Hebrew scriptures. In the Hebrew Scriptures King Solomon went so far as to say, ‘For…

  • Healing and the Imagination

    The imagination can be a potent force in healing. It’s no exaggeration that patients who cannot imagine themselves well are unlikely to be or stay so, and an increasing number of doctors and complementary practitioners agree. For example, in pain control clinics patients are taught to imagine the sore area going cool and numb, and…