Written by David Corby.
This article looks at how the mind and body are linked, and how Mind Body Medicine represents a revolutionary approach to achieving wellness.
Researchers have found that people adopt a different posture when they are depressed to when they are feeling good. They round their shoulders, lean their head forward and alter the position of their pelvis.
In Mind Body Medicine we map in detail the effects of different mindsets on posture, movement, organs and diseases. This enables us to help people understand how their mind is contributing to their physical state, and hence give them power to improve their physical state.
Many links are intuitively obvious, for example, heart palpations generally reflect stress around love, relationships, and in particular feeling empowered in our intimate relationships.
Other links are less obvious, for example having difficulty falling asleep is usually caused by the mind being overly busy – that is from excess thinking. In contrast, having difficulty staying asleep is usually caused by low vitality. This lack of physical vitality may be caused by a person being depleted from too intense a lifestyle – possibly either being too intense in the mind or undertaking intense physical activity over a period of time or being rundown as an outcome of another serious illness.
We would treat these two problems differently:
- Difficulty falling asleep can be addressed by looking at what is currently stressing the client, in particular helping them to feel their way to a solution rather than maintain their knotted thoughts.
- Difficulty staying asleep can be addressed by helping rebuild the clients’ vitality through diet, low intensity stress relieving exercise, breathing, and meditation, a change in lifestyle and approach to life.
Clients come in with a tapestry of signs and symptoms. Our unique constitutional approach enables us to link many of these signs and symptoms together so that we spot themes. For example, a client may be a perfectionist who does not like to be criticised. This type of client may develop the following signs and symptoms:
- Never wanting to let people down they may feel constrained to do what others want and expect.
- In the process they lose their freedom and feel constrained.
- This engenders frustration and anger.
- This may result in headaches, eye floaters or dry eyes, stiffness or lack of muscular flexibility.
- They are likely to find it hard to get out of bed in the morning, but once out of bed and moving around they begin to feel more energetic.
- In their forties and fifties they may experience hypertension.
- They may suffer intermittent digestive problems, such as reflux with stress, constipation followed by diahorrea, and at times bloating or abdominal pains
This approach is very different to Western medicine. The focus in Western Medicine is usually in treating the specific disease or symptom. In Mind-Body Medicine the whole person, mind, body and spirit, is assessed. In treatment the aim is then to understand and address the key driver behind all signs and symptoms. In this way both mind and body can be addressed together and a person can feel empowered to truly heal.
Conclusion
The mind and body are one and addressing both enables a practitioner to focus on wellness rather than just specific diseases. Understanding the links between mind and body enables clients to feel empowered, better understanding what factors are driving their condition and what they can do about it.
David is CEO of CCM, teacher of holistic kinesiology and mind body medicine and published author of ‘Finding Joy Within’, ‘Energetic Protection’, ‘Neuropressure’ and numerous accredited courses. David is a registered Acupuncturist, a mind body practitioner and holistic kinesiologist. A world renowned lecturer who teaches in Australia and overseas.
