Content Library Articles UltraWellness Lesson 7: The Mind/Body & Body/Mind Effect

UltraWellness Lesson 7: The Mind/Body & Body/Mind Effect

April 28, 2010

IN LESSON 6, we reviewed how important energy is for life and for UltraWellness. You learned why we lose it and how to make it! But what is more important than almost any other factor in heath? What is the cause or worsens ninety-five percent of all illnesses? What has been associated with dramatic reductions in disease and increased longevity? In fact what is the one thing that is more important than cholesterol, blood sugar or blood pressure or any other risk factor in determining whether you will live a long and healthy life?

It is your attitudes, your social network, community and spiritual beliefs. Oddly, the biggest predictors of longevity are eating breakfast and psychological resiliency, being able to roll with the punches life throws at us.

I was browsing my old library (I hate throwing away books because they are like treasures), and found an old book I read in college called Mind as Healer, Mind as Slayer, by a friend and leader in the field of Mind Body Medicine, Kenneth Pelletier, Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California (UCSF) and University of Arizona Schools of Medicine.

It was published in 1977. I wish I could say a lot has changed since the book was published. We have filled in the gaps, learned more about the mechanisms through which the body affects the mind and the mind affects the body, but the basic truths remain the same.

There is a dramatic and powerful connection between our mind and body, and of our body on our mind, in fact it really should not be called a connection because it is just one bidirectional system. Hans Selye, MD, the man who coined the word