The human brain is the most exquisite creation in the universe. With the right “brain tools” or memory training, many have been able to dramatically improve their memory and acquire extraordinary feats of memory. Students can excel in school with enhanced study skills and achieve accelerated learning, with only a slight change in their study habits using special memory techniques and their own imagination. The brain can also be called upon to heal critical illnesses, like cancer and tumours, and although rare, scientists are trying to determine what are the “psychological triggers” that are necessary for such spontaneous healing.
There are a number of factors which protect us from disease and give us health. If we can understand and implement them into our lives, we can prevent sickness and relieve afflictions from which we are suffering. One of the key factors is Positive Thinking. An important part of Positive Thinking displayed by spontaneous-healing patients was their firm belief that they would recover, that they would defeat their illness and would influence its progress. Although there is no denying that the support of friends, family and helpers do play an important role in the healing, it is the patient’s belief that the body has strong self-healing powers which would contribute to the final defeat of their sickness.
There are many weapons that have been formulated to fight cancer. Among the most interesting are the so-called visualizing techniques successfully used by many medical practitioners like O. Carl and Stephanie Simonton, a husband and wife team of doctors from Texas. O. Carl Simonton, an oncologist, is director of the Simonton Cancer Center in the US, and his books and lectures have brought the Simonton Method to wide public notice. The technique developed by the Simontons involves asking patients to describe their suffering in detail. They are instructed on how to form the most vivid image of their suffering they can imagine – no matter if this is the image of a tumour or of a failing heart and to allow it to open up in their imagination. They are then asked to form images on how the white corpuscles attack the cancer cells and destroy them, or how the narrowed arteries of their heart open up and allow the blood to rush through. For a number of patients, the imaging technique does indeed cause the tumours to disappear.
However, there is no clear scientific answer to the question of whether and more imporantly, how – physical ailments are improved or even healed by positive thinking. There is, however, no doubt that a confident, hopeful attitude makes an illness much easier to endure.
There is no doubt that there is an interaction between the psyche and the human body. Phenomena such as spontaneous healings and the placebo effect show us as such. But what actual roles do emotional factors play when we are sick? How do feelings influence the processes of the body? Since the late 1980s, researchers in the field of Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) have been asking these questions.
PNI involves the collective effort of psychologists, psychiatrists, immunologists, neurologists and endocrinologists. They are trying to decode the connections between the body and the spirit. Their work has produced some interesting findings. For instance, doctors have found out that certain neural pathways of organs in the body’s immune system have direct connections to the brain. In this respect, the lymph glands and spleen stimulate the production of cells responsible for destroying invading cells that cause illness. This also works the other way, with immune cells being influenced by the hormone system. Thoughts and feelings probably work via intertwined routes to affect the immune system. When there is an illness, these paths carry messages to the brain, influencing the emotions,. PNI is still not well-understood, but it could open up new avenues for the treatment of psychological and physical ailments. What it has shown is that the brain is a powerful tool and it does have infinite wisdom stored in it to influence memory, thinking creativity and healing.
