DNA<\/a>, essentially grabbing hold of the individual strands (the technical term is \u2018bonds\u2019 to), thus interfering with the DNA and preventing cancer cell replication.<\/p>\nI drew a little diagram (above) showing how the platinum rigidly holds the DNA strands. She loved it and used that visualisation through her treatment. She\u2019d never tried visualisation before, but she told me that it gave her something positive to do with her mind.<\/p>\n
Could these visualisations be helping? I don\u2019t know of any research specifically around visualising drugs working, so any conversations I\u2019ve had with numerous people who\u2019ve visualised in this way might only be considered anecdotal. But I feel it\u2019s worth knowing what some people do because at the very least it gives a person something positive to do with their mind while they take medicines, which might be a welcome replacement for worry or stress.<\/p>\n
Perhaps, as some believe, any benefits are simply due to a reduction in stress or the person gaining a more optimistic attitude. But maybe there\u2019s more to it than that. Given the overwhelming amount of evidence for the different ways that the mind impacts the body, my hunch is that visualising like this does add something extra a lot of the time.<\/p>\n
Maybe it\u2019s something to do with the action of imagining the physical condition improving. In other blogs, I\u2019ve shared that the most common use of visualisation that I know of is where a person thinks of the site of injury, illness or disease, and imagines it being repaired or healed. And they do this repetitively. Perhaps this repetitive visualisation of the drug doing its thing is producing a real effect.<\/p>\n
Some research has shown that repetitively visualising the immune system working can enhance the immune system and this technique has now even been shown to be beneficial in randomised controlled trials of patients undergoing treatment for cancer. In these trials, patients who visualised experienced a higher clinical response to their treatment than patients who didn\u2019t visualise.<\/p>\n
We also know through placebo research that some drugs work better when a person believes in them, or believes in the doctor who prescribed them, so the mind certainly seems to deliver an effect.<\/p>\n
So, I\u2019m inclined to believe, just like the girl who has imagined her painkillers working since childhood, that visualising medicines working might well have beneficial effects over and above the action of the drug alone – some, or even a lot, of the time.<\/p>\n
The above piece is based on research and content from my book, ‘How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body’.<\/p>\n
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Can you visualise drugs working? - David R Hamilton PHD<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n