The Body in Flux

The new medicine requires a new way of thinking about the body. The body is alive and constantly on the move, constantly changing. The body is also constantly healing and renewing itself – cells die and are replaced, food is processed and oxygen pours in to fuel the biochemical furnaces that give us energy. Physical and mental demands are met by continual adjustments in our internal systems. On the one hand, these demands may be as straightforward as those involved in taking this book off the shelf, sitting down with a cup of coffee and reading; or they may be demands that the body finds hard to deal with.

These difficult challenges could involve something as tiny as abnormal genes, chemical toxins or disease-causing germs, or something much larger, such as the constant strain of an uncomfortable working position, the effects of an injury, or widespread hardening of the arteries. More subtle kinds of distress, such as the emotional strain of a difficult relationship, financial pressures or the death of a loved one, can also present the body with challenges. Common sense tells us that how well we feel must influence our approach to life, and that when negative influences outweigh the natural resilience of our body and mind, we become ill.

Science bears these ideas out. The latest research shows that the connection between mind and body is complete; one influences the other. It is also clear that the mind–body has built-in healing responses of its own that we can tap into. Many scientists and doctors suspect that natural healing techniques can mobilize this self-healing response to prevent illness and promote better health and well-being, even in someone who has a chronic disease. Some people are convinced that the future of medicine depends on our learning how to make use of the response. Modern medicine, although skilled in waging war on disease, has lost its knowledge of self-healing. Various people have compared medical science to war: weapons can backfire and wars tend to increase the enemy’s aggressiveness.

Looking at medicine today, we can see how the “arms race” between science and disease has led to over-reliance on technology, high costs and side effects, and more resistant infections. What is missing is a way of building up the mind–body’s natural defenses. This is something the world’s traditional medical systems know about.

These systems have had to rely not on scientific research but on their traditional knowledge and skills to trigger self-healing through touch, words, movement, art, the products of nature, food, exercise and harmonious living.