The Body/Mind Connection

I’ve been told that if I could just have enough faith, my pain would cease to exist.

Have you ever read the scientific studies about any specific drug? One of the things they tell you is that this drug made a certain percentage of the people respond in a specific positive way compared to another (lower) percentage of the group who were taking a placebo. The group taking the placebo always has some people who respond.

Science recognizes this as “the placebo effect.” Researchers don’t compare success percentages to those who never took the drug at all. They compare them to the percentage of positive reactions achieved with a placebo.

The placebo effect proves that just thinking something is going to help does help. It is especially accepted for certain types of problems. For example, I understand that people with warts can often “believe them away.”

If I had one wish in life, it would be that I could believe my fibromyalgia away. I’d be such a happy person if I could tell you it were true. “Oh yes,” I’d love to say, “You can just believe and be pain free.”

I’ve tried having faith. I’ve tried talking to my pain and asking it to go away. I’ve tried telling myself that it will go away & believing, believing, believing. I’ve tried praying that it would go away.

It hasn’t left me.

On the other hand, if I have enough stress my pain will increase.

I’ve stayed up at night thinking about what evil could happen the next day. I’ve spent time fretting about the pain itself and what it might be a sign of. I’ve let myself become engulfed in worry.

It made me feel so much worse.

In my own personal case, mustering up faith in being pain-free has not yielded the good results that I have obtained by eating wisely, stretching, exercising, sleeping well, etc.

However, thinking positively does help. If I am stressed in my mind and tense in my body, then relaxing will reduce my pain. Thinking positively facilitates relaxation.

Mind and body are certainly connected. The fact that faith works is a truth accepted by science. Just because I can’t verify it with my own personal experience doesn’t mean that you won’t be successful in using it. My own experience does verify that people who replace stressful thoughts with positive ones will definitely decrease their physical distress.