We tend to live in our heads, safely divorced from the sensations and feelings that emanate from the life of our bodies as if only thinking mattered. Thinking is easy because it’s automatic … but we do have options.
Learning to connect with the felt life of your body is challenging, yet it’s this conscious connection with felt experience that regulates the body … and more specifically balances the autonomic nervous system that’s ultimately responsible for our health and well-being.
To live in one’s head is to be a ship without a rudder.
Low back pain is a good example of a painful mind-body syndrome … where the true cause of the pain … suppressed stressful feelings … is ignored.
MRI’s … Seeing Can Lead to Believing
Most chronic low back pain has no physical cause … aside from the stress-induced muscle tension that generates pain. NYU’s Dr. John Sarno’s research has demonstrated that over 90% of back pain sufferers have no structural abnormality that’s responsible for the pain … even in the presence of positive MRI findings like a bulging disc.
Most people have structural abnormalities that will show up on an MRI … but that have no relationship to pain. However, the structural abnormalities can become a convenient and believable explanation for pain … and a focus for treatment or surgery.
Back surgery is a $30 billion dollar industry where 50% of the procedures are deemed unsuccessful and where 10% lead to permanent increases in pain.
On the other hand, Dr. Sarno’s very successful approach is to treat the source of the pain … the invisible stressors that are responsible for generating pain … while also encouraging patients to let go of the false and limiting belief that the pain is coming from a physical source.
In my practice, I utilize Dr. Sarno’s strategies along with an additional complement of natural therapies and find that this comprehensive approach is very effective in addressing painful and other chronic conditions.
Strengthening the Mind-Body Connection is Healing
We can look at the 2004 Segerstrom and Miller study that was sponsored by the NIH … showing that 85% of all doctor and hospital visits were due to chronic stress.
Stress is the culprit … the scientific, research validated, evidence-based cause of most illness. The pivotal healing choice is to be found in reconnecting mind and body.
Knowing that stress is the culprit and that re-establishing the mind-body connection is the solution … is an empowering starting point. Then, because we’ve put the body into a self-healing mode, positive dietary, nutritional, and lifestyle changes really make a difference.
My Favorite Practices for Reconnecting Mind & Body
The following practices help to reprogram our brain and psyche.
Heart Breathing
Focusing
Journaling
Walking (Ideally in Nature)
The next time you’re feeling stressed … stop … move out of your amygdala and into you prefrontal cortex … by CHOOSING to breathe slowly … 5-6 seconds in and 5-6 out … while you attend to (not react to) any sensations around your heart.
This 12-second process will interrupt old unconscious patterns while at the same time introduce more conscious and life supportive patterns of perception and behavior while triggering the process of brain neuroplasticity.
Steve is a retired Doctor of Oriental Medicine, Acupuncture Physician, and HeartMath Trauma-Sensitive Certified Practitioner with over 35 years of clinical experience in Energy Medicine, Energy Psychology, and Biofeedback.