A popular cholesterol-lowering drug—one of the statins—was removed from the market about a decade ago because it causes a side effect that can lead to death. All of the statins cause this side effect, but the statin-using public (a whole lot of people) was urged not to panic. Taking drugs to reduce your chance of dying that have side effects that can increase your chance of dying is standard operating procedure in modern medicine. Really nothing to worry about…we do it all the time.
But instead of urging the public not to worry about death by prescribed medication, perhaps what the public ought to be urged to do is practice health interventions that don’t have harmful side effects—like mind-body therapies.
Science sees the body as a machine made of separate parts that malfunction and can be tinkered with to make them work better. Because the body is a marvel of complex interrelationships that interact in an intricate dance of checks and balances, scientific tinkering is always done at some cost. Using drugs to jack up (or tone down) functioning in specific areas tends to knock other bodily systems out of true. The drug that does the least damage—has the fewest side effects, as they say—gets FDA approval. Until an alarming number of people die from it. Then it gets yanked.
Mind-body therapies also have side effects—positive ones. The mind-body approach is the opposite of treating the body as a machine with malfunctioning pieces. Instead, the body—and your life—is regarded as an interconnected whole, where the proper functioning of each part contributes to the balance of all parts. Therefore, many areas of your life tend to smooth out when you cultivate the positive mental habits of mind-body health, such as adaptability, flexibility, resilience, self-confidence, a sense of control, and optimism.
For example, if you practice the Relaxation Response 10 to 20 minutes twice a day, it will not only lower your blood pressure, it also positively impacts any other stress-related symptoms you might have—from improving fertility to reducing tension headaches—plus it leaves you feeling better in other, less tangible ways.
If you use cognitive therapy to change your “thinking style,” learning to become an “adaptive coper” instead of a maladaptive over-reactor, the ripple effect will improve every area of your life. You’ll become a more centered, solid, functional, and happy person.
If you use hypnosis or self-hypnosis to treat bothersome physical symptoms, you usually find that you’ve become calmer, less reactive, and more confident in other areas of your life, as well as in your body.
The downside? Reaping the benefits of mind-body therapies requires more participation and commitment from you than just saying ‘yes’ to drugs. You will need commit to whatever it takes for you to develop of new ways of looking at life that promote a reliable ability to access a sense of relaxation and well being. But even though you have to make more effort when you use mind-body therapies, you’re almost guaranteed to experience greater rewards as a result.
It’s the kind of side effect you can live with.
Resources
The Feeling Good Handbook, by David D. Burns, M.D.
How to practice Dr. Herbert Benson’s Relaxation Response:
- Sit quietly in a comfortable position.
- Close your eyes.
- Deeply relax all your muscles, beginning at your feet and progressing up to your face. Keep them relaxed.
- Breathe through your nose. Become aware of your breathing. As you breathe out, say the word, “one”, silently to yourself. For example, breathe in … out, “one”,- in .. out, “one”, etc. Breathe easily and naturally.
- Continue for 10 to 20 minutes. You may open your eyes to check the time, but do not use an alarm. When you finish, sit quietly for several minutes, at first with your eyes closed and later with your eyes opened. Do not stand up for a few minutes.
- Do not worry about whether you are successful in achieving a deep level of relaxation. Maintain a passive attitude and permit relaxation to occur at its own pace. When distracting thoughts occur, ignore them by not dwelling upon them and return to repeating “one.” With practice, the response should come easily. Practice the technique once or twice daily, but not within two hours after any meal, since the digestive processes seem to interfere with the elicitation of the Relaxation Response.