Our Thoughts & Our Physical Health
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.” – Henry Ford
In July, 1978, 9-year-old Garrett Porter was diagnosed with a right-hemisphere brain tumor. Named astrocytoma, it was practically a death sentence due to the fact that it was inoperable and there were no existing medical options for prolonging his life. Doctors told his parents that he had less than a year to live.
Enter Dr. Patricia Norris, a biofeedback therapist working at the Biofeedback Center at Menninger Clinic in Topeka, KS. The field of biofeedback therapy was new, and Dr. Norris was just starting her career. In fact, Garrett would be her first cancer patient. Garrett’s parents, desperate, took a leap of faith and agreed to have Dr. Norris treat Garrett.
Garrett had a reputation for having a vivid imagination, and at one art therapy session he drew his tumor as Planet Meatball. He then drew white blood cells in the shape of Pacman video game characters circling the planet, ready to eat it. With Dr. Norris’ guidance and encouragement, Garrett modified this imagery slightly and started visualization exercises every night. Using relaxation techniques, he used his mind and his thoughts to picture spaceships attacking Planet Meatball and breaking off pieces of it. Every night he imagined the ships blowing it away completely.
But in October of 1979, Garrett went to his father to let him know he could not do his exercises that night, as he could not visualize Planet Meatball. No matter how hard he tried, all he could see was a tiny white dot. A CAT-scan was scheduled for early 1980, and the scans were conclusive: the tumor was gone, replaced by a small calcium deposit. A tiny white dot.
This true story is as heartwarming as it is astonishing. How is it possible that anyone, let alone a young child, beat terminal cancer without receiving any traditional medical treatment? Is it really possible that Garrett thought himself back to health? As it so happens, there is a growing body of research that suggests that our thoughts may actually be able to impact our health. This coin, as the expression goes, has two sides however. Studies are showing that positive thoughts may increase our chances of positive health outcomes, but negative thoughts may have the opposite effect.
For centuries, the mind and body were considered separate entities, largely due to Rene Descartes’ study of metaphysics, where he concluded that the mind and body were completely different, and that one could exist without the other. This has influenced the way we have approached medicine and health for generations, as the assumption has been that doctors could treat the body, but religion would treat the mind and soul.
Today, however, there is a field of research known as psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), as well as an expanding branch of treatment called Mind Body Medicine (MBM). The aim of these is to explore the connection between our thoughts and our physical health, and to develop treatments that incorporate the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of a patient into the medical assistance they receive. Let’s be very clear here: this research does not advocate for ignoring traditional medical treatment, but it is seeking to discover if the mind/body connection might actually aid traditional therapies in order to improve overall health outcomes.
One of the first PNI studies to suggest a real mind/body connection was conducted by Professor Robert Ader, an experimental psychologist at the Rochester School of Medicine. In 1974, while researching conditioned responses in rats to see how long a trained response could be maintained, he discovered that the rats eventually began to suffer various diseases. Finding that the medication he was giving the rats to make them associate sweet water with nausea also contained an immunity suppressant, he realized that the rats had also been conditioned to associate the water with a suppressed immune response. In other words, the rats’ minds were actually influencing their immune systems.
In 1981 David Felten, then a faculty member at the Indiana University School of Medicine, conducted research that demonstrated a hard-wire connection between the body’s immune system and the central nervous system, which is controlled by the brain. He discovered a network of nerves leading to blood vessels as well as to immune system cells. Basically, therefore, he found that the brain has the ability to send signals to the immune system. The question now became: was there a causal connection between the brain and the immune system, and if so, what might it be?
Another study, conducted in 2022 by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, found another intriguing link between our thoughts and our physical health. The experiment concluded that people who have a positive outlook about aging tended to live longer, and enjoyed greater health, than those with a negative attitude about the aging process.
While not necessarily within the strict scope of PNI studies, there have also been numerous experiments on visualization in athletics, and the findings are certainly interesting. One study, by Dr. Blaslotto at the University of Chicago, found that people who simply visualized shooting successful free throws with a basketball for 30 days had almost the same rate of improvement as those who physically practiced every day. Is it possible, that by using our thoughts and visualizing, we are causing our bodies actually to experience the outcome we envision? The research is still relatively young, so we have much more to discover, but it certainly makes one wonder why athletes like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan practice disciplined visualization.
Finally, there are numerous studies that support the theory that people with more optimistic outlooks tend to enjoy greater mental health, with fewer complaints of depression, anxiety, stress, anger, or problems with sleeping. This improvement in one’s mental health may also contribute to more robust physical health. As Dr. Julie Elder, Chief Medical Officer at GraceMed, points out: “We know, for instance, that stress can play a role in weakening our immune system, so certainly reducing stress would have a positive effect on our physical health. Not to mention that we would be living happier, less stressful lives.”
This is heady stuff indeed, but we must be careful about drawing definitive conclusions, at least for now. It is estimated that we understand only about 10% of how our brains function. Clearly, there is a great deal more to learn. Having said that, it could reasonably be argued that one has nothing to lose by thinking positive thoughts instead of negative thoughts.
Perhaps we should all make a conscious effort to increase our positive thinking, decrease our negative thoughts, and embrace a more optimistic outlook. We would surely be happier, and we may very well be taking an active role in our bodies’ biological defense of our health and well-being.
