Mind Body Medicine
Mind body medicine focuses on the interactions between mind and body and the powerful ways in which emotional, mental, social and spiritual factors can directly affect health. It regards as fundamental an approach which respects and enhances each person's capacity for self-knowledge and self-care and emphasizes techniques which are grounded in this approach.
Mind body medicine includes skills and techniques to enhance well-being. These techniques include self-awareness, relaxation, breathing, meditation, visualization, chanting, exercise, diet, biofeedback, visual imagery, self-hypnosis and group support. Mind body medicine explores and integrates the healing practices of other cultures, such as acupuncture and acupressure, meditation and yoga, as well as alternative Western approaches, including herbal medicine, massage, musculoskeletal manipulation, and prayer. Mind body medicine views illness as an opportunity for personal growth and transformation and health care providers as catalysts and guides in this process.
Mind body medicine teaches us how to integrate mind, body and spirit enabling the individual to take responsibility for their lives in a powerful way. Balance is needed in order to obtain wholeness and healing.
|
|
 |
|
Breathing techniques play an important part in achieving mind body medicine. Does your posture encourage or restrict your ability to breathe fully? Most people's breathing patterns utilize a quarter of lung capacity. Increasing volume of breath draws physiological and emotional changes. Increased oxygen, through full breathing, helps the body produce energy, chi, Qi as the autonomic nervous system achieves balance. This helps us endure daily stresses of living and acts as a prevention to disease, for mind body medicine. Inspiration is to breathe in and one achieves an increase of spiritual energy, that driving force or passion in life, divine inspiration of creativity and vitality. We breathe approximately one and a quarter billion times in our lives, unconsciously, and it is one of our greatest healing tools in mind body medicine. The first breath in as we are born exemplifies that Breath Is Life. When we die our last breath is exhaled.
Another mind body medicine technique is meditation and visualization. These are important factors to induce relaxation which increases neurotransmitters, achieves an alpha and theta brain wave, reduces blood pressure and warms the skin.
Mind body medicine is key to prevent over activity of the sympathetic nervous system which aggravates disease. Relaxation can resolve or balance the effects of over activity and stress in the body.
|
|
