The Most Powerful Drug: Belief

Before we get under way…

Hi Guys. Today’s post is a little sciencey (in parts) but I’ve done my best to keep it as understandable as possible. This topic will challenge some people because it simply won’t fit into everybody’s personal paradigm of how things work. As always, I’m not suggesting that you simply believe or take what I write as gospel but rather that you consider and explore the ideas for yourselves. That is, learn your own truth. Consider what you might learn beyond what you already know.

PsychoneuroWHAT?

I’ve spoken to you before about a thing called Psychoneuroimmunology (say that ten times fast). PNI is (put simply) the impact our thinking can have (positively or negatively) on our immune system. Some might call it the interplay or relationship between our thoughts and our physiology (well, part of our physiology). It is now known – not hypothesised or theorised – that our thoughts can increase or decrease our chances of becoming sick, of recovering more quickly or slowly and, in some instances, of recovering at all. No, we don’t totally understand it (well, I don’t) but, yes, we know it’s a reality. In fact, we have known about (the science of) PNI for around forty years. We just haven’t explored it, exploited it or tapped into it as effectively as we could. In my opinion.

However, in many cultures less scientific and educated than ours, the powerful relationship between mind and body (in terms of potential for healing) has been respected, explored and exploited for millennia.

Some shamans in remote areas of the world are well aware of the power of an individual to cure themselves and use that as a legitimate part of their “whole person” treatment. Their ceremonies sometimes give their patient the feeling that they are being given “the works”. The sick person totally buys into the treatment, and their internal curative powers step in to do the work. That is, they heal themselves courtesy of their belief in the ‘treatment’. (P.19, book reference to follow).

I also wrote a few weeks ago about how we can consciously manipulate our physiology (respiration, blood pressure, heart rate, hormone production, sweat response, anxiety levels and lots more) while doing absolutely nothing but sitting in a chair and thinking. Our body doesn’t know the difference between fantasy and reality so it responds (physiologically) as though the experience is real. Which is why when you dream that you’re being attacked by bad guys in a dark alley, you wake up with your body in a state of heightened arousal. No, not that kind of arousal. The other one: the stress response.

Even though you’re lying there sound asleep, your body responds as if the experience is totally real because it doesn’t differentiate between your dream-state (your self-created reality) and what happens when you’re awake and functioning in your physical world. Your mind has created your reality (and we don’t only do this when we’re asleep, by the way!). Was it your intention to create that physical response? No. Was it a conscious process? No. It all happened without your consent (so to speak), without your knowledge and at a level below your conscious self.   

It’s amazing that our mind can create this kind of (perceived) reality isn’t it? If I were to ask you if you believe whether or not it’s possible to manipulate your physiology (heart rate, hormones, blood pressure, etc.) through thought alone, would your answer be ‘yes I do’ or ‘no I don’t’? At this point, I’ll assume it’s yes.  

Okay, what if I were to ask you if you believe that you could heal yourself from a terminal disease using a similar process – that is, manipulating your physiology (creating change on a cellular level) via thought? I’m guessing if we were all totally honest, most of us would answer ‘er, probably not’ to that question. “Sure, I want to believe it, but I don’t think I can. It doesn’t really make sense.”

And therein lies (part of) the problem.

Of course, it’s hard to believe in a concept like self-healing because, with our current level of knowledge and understanding of how things work, it doesn’t make sense. Just ask the experts; they’ll tell you. And in order to believe, most of us need things to make sense. Being a scientist (of sorts), I’m all for proof, logic, data and evidence but the fact remains: when it comes to the human body and its potential, there’s simply a lot we still don’t know or understand. Especially when it comes to the mind-body dynamic and the potential therein.

We’ve all heard of people who have taken tablets full of nothing (placebos) in double-blind studies who have experienced immediate relief from certain physical symptoms (sometimes chronic symptoms) because they believe they’ve taken an actual drug. While we still don’t (totally) understand it, we now know that our belief can affect our physiology on a cellular level. It can create chemical changes. It can slow or accelerate healing. It can turn hair grey.

David R Hamilton (a cool bloke with a Ph.D in organic chemistry) in his (awesome) book It’s the Thought That Counts asserts that it’s often not the drug which does the healing but rather our belief in the drug. That is, we (unknowingly) create the appropriate chemical reaction independent of the actual tablet. Is that amazing or what!? 

Take a peek at a few extracts from his book:

Some doctors believe that it is important to give a patient a new drug while it is still considered the “in thing” because once a new drug appears on the scene, the previous one seems to lose much of its miraculous healing power. It’s not because the medicine stops working but because people stop believing in it (P.19).

Time has revealed that many miraculous medicines of the past had almost no curative powers of their own. But the patients who believed in them and were cured by them didn’t know that at the time (P.19).

Taking faith out of the healing equation would nevertheless reveal many medicines to be very powerful, but it is just not possible to remove faith (belief). The bottom line is that if you believe in a particular medicine, or in the doctor who prescribed it, then it is more likely to work for you. Conversely, if you don’t believe in the medicine or the doctor, there is a good chance that you will negate the medicine’s power. (P.19)

And here’s the kicker – my personal fave (you might need to read it a few times):

It is now understood that neuropeptides are involved in a whole array of different bodily functions, from hormone regulation to protein manufacture, cellular repair upon injury, memory storage and pain management. So, since neuropeptides are produced by emotion, all of these things are affected by how a person feels. It is now known that there is an entire psychosomatic network connecting the body and mind involving hundreds of neuropeptides and thousands of receptor locations throughout the body. Any of a vast range of thoughts or feelings can cause a whole cascade of changes in a person’s body (P.28).

And I love this sentence….

The whole body is psychosomatically wired to dance to the tune of thought and emotion (P.29).

I know some of this stuff can be a little technical, sciencey, confusing and.. er.. out-there, but hopefully you get the gist of the message: what we believe can have a dramatic (and often, instant) impact on our physiology. For good or bad. I’m still studying and slowly getting my head around this topic so that I might be able to distill it into further messages which hopefully will be of interest and value to you. Our body is indeed an awesome gift with incredible capabilities – we just need to learn to drive it.

Let me know your thoughts on these types of posts and whether (or not) this stuff interests you.