Mind-Body Communication

Mind-Body Communication
Advances in identifying the biological mechanisms of mind-body communication confirm that the mind can affect health in powerful ways.

Joy, creativity and contentment lead to a state of mind-body harmony, which we experience as bodily health and subjective well being.

Fear, anxiety, stress and depression contribute to mind-body disharmony, which increase risks for a variety of illnesses, impedes healing and fosters a sense that life is difficult and unpleasant.

Nerve cells in the brain’s thought and feeling centers connect to other nerve cells in the brain and body, hormone-producing tissues and organs and immune cells throughout the body.

In this way, mental activity is able to influence many of the body’s physiological processes and maintain homeostasis.

A classic method for using the mind to later bodily functions is biofeedback.

This method employs a recording device to facilitate learned self-control of physiological activities.

The recording device is connected to a region of the body and information without biological activity in that region is “fed back” on a screen or by means of a sound to the person in whose body the activity is taking place.

Using this visual or auditory information about the activity, the person can learn to control the activity in a desired way.

Biofeedback has been used successfully to treat more than 150 medical conditions, including high blood pressure, back pain, panic attacks, and headaches.

Biofeedback also can be used to produce changes about a state of relaxation.
Mind-Body Communication