It’s Not Mind and Body, It’s BodyMind

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Image by Guiyu - Getty Images

BodyMind

Image by Guiyu - Getty Images

We are not both body and mind. We are one bodymind, a fully integrated biochemical and electromagnetic entity that, among other things, generates consciousness. The common belief that mental and physical processes are somehow independent of each other has long been debunked by science, but this myth remains stubbornly ingrained in our thinking and continues to inform many approaches to treating illness and disease.

In medical circles, the oft-used phrase that is a poster child for this delusion is “It’s all in your head.” More than a few of us have heard an equivalent pronouncement from a health care provider unable to nail down a physical cause for our symptoms. This and similar assertions reinforce the misguided notion that mental experiences do not have physical correlates, and vice versa.  

Consider the experience we call thinking. We don’t tend to regard thoughts as having physical properties or effects, even though they arise from the brain. What’s more, we often disregard or downplay the capacity of thoughts to directly influence bodily processes, even though cognition itself is a bodily process.   

Counterclockwise Experiment  

A study by Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer in 1979 called “the counterclockwise experiment” upended the mind-body delusion. In this study, elderly men lived in a retreat center retrofitted to appear as it existed 20 years earlier. They outfitted the facility with vintage furniture, appliances, decor and reading material from around 1959. The men lived as their younger selves, including discussing past events in the present tense as though currently happening. The results? Absent any medical intervention, their hearing, vision, memory, posture and strength improved. Subjectively, others viewed them as looking noticeably younger. The study lasted only one week, yet in that brief time, changing their thoughts changed their bodies.

In another study, 650 people were interviewed about their views on aging. On average, those with a positive attitude lived seven years longer. Translation? Thoughts are not disembodied apparitions ghosting through one’s consciousness. They arise from, are a part of and directly affect physiology. As research shows, the way we think about time and aging influences our health and well-being. Does this mean mental processes are all-powerful, that we can cure disease and reverse aging simply by how we think? Of course not. These effects demonstrate influence, not total control.

Nonetheless, traditional medicine too often minimizes or even pooh-poohs the capacity of thoughts, beliefs and other variants of consciousness to affect physiological processes. A recurring example of this dismissive attitude emerges in research on pharmaceutical agents. For example, in many studies of antidepressants, subjects receiving a placebo exhibited similar or better outcomes than those taking the actual medication. Their belief (“I’m taking a neuro-active drug”) was the change agent. In examining this powerful impact, many researchers brush it aside as “just the placebo effect.”

Predictions are Difficult

Another example of where this interface manifests is when a physician gives someone unwelcome medical news, such as an advanced cancer diagnosis. Statistical modeling provides estimates . . . or perhaps I should say guesstimates . . . about the prognosis for any potentially lethal disease. Telling someone they have a set time left to live based on certain treatment choices masquerades as predictive certainty, which simply does not exist. As the great physicist Niels Bohr said, “Predictions are difficult, particularly about the future.”

Some people receiving a terminal diagnosis disbelieve and disprove these prognostications, but most are more likely to believe them than not. And belief is no small influence. Hence, a prognosis, unless truly certain, should always come with “maybe.” Why? Because hope propels belief which, in turn, influences the entire bodymind. In discussing this with a physician friend, he cautioned against giving a patient false hope. Fair enough, however, neither should we be giving them false despair. Hope is part of healing and central to the well-being of the bodymind.

Increasingly, functional medicine practitioners and a growing number of primary care physicians bridge this false mind-body dichotomy. This process of moving toward bodymind instead of a duality of mind and body is at the forefront of the healing arts, and I’m optimistic it will spread and flourish in the near term. 

Because it’s not mind over matter. It’s mind in matter.