State of Mind, Effect of Angst, Forgiveness,

The other night at work I bought the latest NEWSWEEK magazine, whose cover story is "The New Science of Body and Mind". Parts of it I thought were interesting.

Brain Check
Imagine you're allergic to the oil of the Japanese lacquer tree -- so allergic that the brush of a leaf against your skin provokes an angry rash. Strapping a blindfold over your eyes, a scientist tells you she's going to rub your right arm with lacquer leaf and your left arm with
the innocuous leaf of a chestnut tree. The rubbing commences, and before long your right arm is covered with burning, itchy welts. Your left side feels fine. No surprise, until you learn that your left arm-not the right-is the one that got lacquered. Or imagine that Parkinson's disease has reduced your walk to a shuffle and left your hands too shaky to grasp a pencil. You enroll in a study and receive an experimental surgical treatment, which dramatically improves both your gait and your grip. You're ready to declare it a miracle of modern medicine, when you discover that the operation was a sham. The surgeons merely drilled a small hole in your skull and then patched it.

That thoughts and feelings can affect our health is hardly news. In the span of a few decades, mind-body medicine has evolved from heresy into something approaching cliché. So why is NEWSWEEK devoting this
Health for Life report to the mind-body connection? Because the relationship between emotion and health is turning out the be more interesting, and more important than most of us could have imagined. Viewed through the lens of 21st-century science, anxiety, alienation and hopelessness are not just feelings. Neither are love, serenity and optimism. All are physiological states that affect our health just as clearly as obesity or physical fitness. And the brain, as the source of such states, offers a potential gateway to countless other tissues and organs--from the heart and blood vessels to the gut and the immune system. The challenge is to map the pathways linking mental states to
medical ones, and learn how to travel them at will.
- pgs 45 - 46

It's all about state of mind. You may think you're stupid, or that you're sick, but its sometimes all in your mind, and not actually a reality.

How the Body Harms Itself
Humans have evolved a complex system for responding to danger. While these fight-or-flight responses served our ancestors well, they can lead to long-term health problems in modern-day environments.

SHORT-TERM EFFECTS
Stimulus: When it senses a potential threat, a loud noise or a shadopwy figure on a dark street, the brain initiates a cascade of events that readies the body for action.

Hypothalamus: In response to warning signals, this structure secretes a chemical called CRH that stimulates the nearby pituitary gland.

Pituitary: The gland makes a molecule called ACTH, which travels to the adrenal glands.

Adrenal glands: The glands release cortisol. This hormone helps keep up blood sugar, giving the body extra
energy to act.

RELATED RESPONSE:
The body has other ways to ramp up. The adrenals produce epinephrine, which increases heart and breathing rates. Blood pressure
rises; the legs and arms receive extra blood for energy.

LONG-TERM EFFECTS
New Conflicts: While well adapted to passing threats that require immediate action, our stress responses are less effective against constant, low-level annoyances, such as a pushy boss or a hectic daily commute.

Health problems: After years of chronic activation, stress responses can wear the body down. Some of the common symptoms include:
* impaired memory
* a weakened immune system
* high blood pressure
* stomach ulcers
* skin problems
* digestive difficulties
- pg 46

Forgive and Let Live
Of all the extra-ordinary events in the life of John Paul II, few can compare with the 21 minutes he spent in a white-walled cell in Rome's Rebibia prison. Just after Christmas, 1983, the pope visited Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who 30 months earlier had shot him in St. Peter's Square. He presented Agca with a silver rosary, and something else as well: his forgiveness.

It requires a Christ-like forbearance to pardon a would-be assasin, of course. But how many of us are ready to forgive an unfaithful lover, a sheming colleague or even the jerk who cut into the line at Krispy Kreme? Persistent unforgiveness is part of human nature, but is appears to work to the detriment not just of our spiritual well-being but our physical health as well.

...

Research suggests that forgiveness works in at least two ways. One is by reducing the stress of the state of unforgiveness, a potent mixture of bitterness, anger, hostility, hatred, resentment and fear (of being hurt of humiliated again). These have specific physiological consequences--such as increased blood pressure and hormonal changes--linked to cardiovascular disease, immune suppression and,
possibly, impaired neurological function and memory.

...

The other benefit of forgiveness is more subtle; it relates to research showing that people with strong social networks--of friends, neighbors, and family--tend to be healthier than loners.

I'm screwed. Heh.

Someone who nurses grudges and keeps track of every slight is obviously going to shed some relationships over the course of a
lifetime.

...

forgiveness turns out to be a surprisingly more complex process, according to many researchers. Worthington distinguishes what
he calls "decisional forgiveness"--a commitment to reconcile with the
perpetrator--from the more significant "emotional forgiveness," an internal state of acceptence. Forgiveness does not require us to forgo justice, or to make up to people we have every right to despise. Anger has its place in the panoply of human emotions, but it shouldn't become a way of life. "When I talk about forgiveness, I mean letting go, not excusing the other person or reconciling with them or condoning the behavior," says Ornish. "Just letting go
of your own suffering."

- pg 52

I can name at least one friend who could benefit from being able to forget the pains of the past. When I read this article I instantly thought of her. Heh, it's something I once had to do in a similarly big but quiet way. Otherwise they drag you down, make you miss out on perhaps something really enjoyable or promising right under your nose while you unknowingly have a chance there, whether it be a job opportunity, chance for a new good friend, a person to have a good relationship with, whatever. You miss out when you're [in a way rightfully] preoccupied with past pains for a long time.