A Harvard University study published in 2008 found the first compelling evidence that the Relaxation Response (RR) – the physiological response to meditation, yoga, tai chi, Qi Gong or repetitive prayer – affects our genes. Nineteen adults were long-term daily practitioners of various RR techniques, 20 were trained in RR eliciting techniques (breathing, mantra and […]
Month: April 2011
A calm mind speeds up wound healing…..Marital Stress slows it down
Scientists at Ohio State University, Ronald Glaser and Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, created small blisters on the skin of volunteers who were married to each other. First they asked the married couples to discuss a neutral topic, then they monitored the levels of a protein that is produced during wound healing over the next 3 weeks. Then […]
The Healing Power of Belief
I recently read about an amazing story of the power of the placebo effect. It was recorded in 1957 and demonstrates just how powerful the human mind can be. A patient had advanced cancer of the lymph nodes (lymphoma) and was told that he had no more than a few weeks to live. He couldn’t […]
Think Yourself Well: Scientific Evidence for the Power of Visualisation
A 2008 study at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak demonstrated the power of visualisation for the treatment of interstitial cystitis. Fifteen women visualised for 25 minutes, twice a day, for a total of 8 weeks, where they pictured healing the bladder, relaxing the pelvic-floor muscles and quietening the nerves involved. Fifteen women in a […]
Loving-Kindness Meditation Can Help Build Relationships
Scientists from Stanford University, publishing in the journal, ‘Emotion’ , showed that meditation that focused on loving kindness increased people’s feelings of social connectedness. The Tibetan Buddhist ‘Loving-Kindness’ meditation invites practitioners to cultivate a sense of loving kindness, wellness, peace, happiness, and compassion for ourselves, our loved ones, neutral people, and even aggressors in our […]
Visualisation Alters the Brain & Body
Your brain cannot tell the difference between something that’s real and whether you are just imagining it. Neuroscientists at Harvard taught a simple 5-fingered combination of piano notes to a group of people – thumb, index finger, middle finger, ring finger, little finger – which they played over and over again for 2 hours a […]
Healing Hands Benefit Premature Infants
A study published by medics at McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, showed that Therapeutic Touch (TT) – the laying on of hands – benefited premature infants. It was a double blind and randomized trial involving 20 infants of gestational age less than 29 weeks. Ten received 5-minute TT sessions on 3 consecutive days and […]
Weight Loss Through Yoga
A study published in September 2009 by scientists at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, reported on the experiences of 25 obese women who took a 12-week course in yoga. Throughout the course, the women kept a personal journal where they reported on their thoughts and feelings about food, how much they ate, what they ate, […]
The Placebo Effect is Getting Stronger
From 2002 to 2006, the number of drugs that were axed after Phase-II clinical trials (volunteer trials) increased by 20% because the drugs couldn’t beat the placebos they were compared against. More recently, in 2008, a new gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease failed against the placebo. Similarly, in March 2009, Eli Lilly withdrew a new […]
Good Relationships Protect Against Cancer and Heart Disease
Did you know that good relationships are good for your health? The US National Longitudinal Mortality Study (NLMS) involving 281,460 men and women over 45 years of age it found that marriage was associated with a much lower risk of mortality than being single. Similarly, the British Regional Heart Study of 1995, that involved 7,735 […]