The dramatic effect of the mind on physical well-being has been recognized for centuries by both medical practitioners and nonprofessionals alike despite the lack of specific explanations. "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine" (Prov. 17:22), Solomon declared some three millenniums ago; the scientific validity of this truism is being verified by present-day medical technology.
Demonstrable mental control of the "involuntary" body processes goes back many centuries. Zen and Yoga practitioners can control their heart rate, change the temperature in localized regions of the body, and control various other physiological functions normally considered outside of the conscious will. Primitive fire dancers walk barefoot on burning coals to the amazement of those watching. Much of the doubt regarding such phenomena has now been removed by the development of the currently popular science of biofeedback.
Since 1968, when Joe Kamiya first published his findings that people can control their own brain waves, biofeedback has undergone much refinement. By the use of such recording devices as the electroencephalograph (EEG) people can now be taught to observe the so-called alpha waves of the brain and by so doing learn to relax, overcome fear, control hormone secretions, and, according to some investigators, even cure migraine headaches, insomnia, and certain diseases. 1
An experiment performed by brain researcher Paul Pietsch in 1972 dramatically demonstrated the fact that body activity is under direct control of the brain. Pietsch removed the brain of a salamander—an animal that normally feeds on worms and other invertebrate animals— and transplanted in its place the brain of a leopard frog tadpole, an animal that feeds on plant life. Surprisingly, the salamander survived the operation and thenceforth refused to eat worms, but fed instead on the plant life that the tadpole normally eats. 2 The Bible, although not a book dedicated to science, provides remarkable evidence of the effect of the mind on the body. Luke 8 tells of a man who, being possessed by devils, was able to break all the chains and fetters used to bind him, a feat impossible for a person in his normal state. Verse 35 indicates that when Christ cured him he was returned to his "right mind." Ellen White also spoke of the influence of the mind in curing disease: "The relation that exists between the mind and the body is very intimate. . . . The condition of the mind affects the health to a far greater degree than many realize. . . . Disease is sometimes produced, and is often greatly aggravated, by the imagination. Many are lifelong invalids who might be well if they only thought so."—The Ministry of Healing, p. 241.
Recent scientific literature provides strong confirmation. Dianne Hales, former editor of New Physician and contributing editor of Science Year, claims that personality affects vulnerability to disease. Among her supporting evidence the author relates the portrait that researchers have developed for a rheumatoid arthritic: "A person who is shy, inhibited, self-sacrificing, perfectionist, incapable of expressing anger and hostility, and often troubled by unresolved tensions." She proposes that just as the negative emotions wear away our resistance to illness, positive emotions such as joy, love, and affection may preserve and restore our health. 3
Additional support comes from Norman Cousins' experimental evidence on the curative effect of the placebo. In one experiment half of a group of patients with bleeding ulcers was given a prescription described as a "new and very effective" drug. The other half was given the same prescription but were told it was a "new experimental" drug that was being tested. Seventy percent of the first group were helped significantly, while only 25 percent of the second group were helped. Actually, both groups were given a placebo. Similar results were obtained with patients being treated for mild mental depression who were given placebos after their regular antidepressants were withdrawn. Cousins quotes one researcher, Dr. Arthur K. Shapiro: "Placebos can have profound effects on organic illnesses, including incurable malignancies." In Cousins' own words, "the placebo is not so much a pill as a process. . . . The placebo is the doctor who resides within." 4 The consensus of experts studying the placebo effect seems to be that the patient's confidence in the doctor administering the placebo activates the brain, which turns on the body's endocrine system to produce hormones that regulate the body's physiology in controlling disease.
The fact that mental stress may have dramatic effects on body physiology recently received strong confirmation from cancer researcher and microbiologist Dr. Vernon Riley. 5 His work was designed to test the various effects on mice of such stressful situations as fright, overcrowding, and handling. He was able to demonstrate that among the many biochemical changes that occur as a response to anxiety there is a marked increase in the secretion of corticosterone from the adrenal cortex under activation by the hypothalmus of the brain. This increase in corticosterone levels results in a dramatic lowering of the body's immune response to disease as a result of a reduction in the number of circulating lymphocytes (white blood cells that fight invading germs), a decrease in size of the thymus, a gland that is intimately involved in disease resistance, and a loss in the tissue mass of the spleen and lymph nodes. These stressed animals showed a marked reduction in their resistance to viral infections and other diseases under immunological control, and were less capable of defending themselves against introduced cancer cells. In addition, tumor growth was greatly enhanced in the mice when two to twenty were placed in a single cage as compared to one mouse per cage.
J. P. Henry and J. Meehan support Riley's findings regarding the effect of the emotional state on kidney secretions. Their book Brain, Behavior and Bodily Disease points out that the adrenal medulla releases potent chemical neurotransmitters when fear or rage is a component of the inciting stimulation. In fact, growing awareness of the mind-body relationship in controlling disease has led to the development of a new discipline, called psychoneuroimmunology, within the field of behavioral medicine.
Recently, neurophysiologist Leslie L. Iverson offered the intriguing suggestion that the brain may have some undiscovered anxiety-producing and -relieving substance. 6 Such an observation may well be true; people's moods and behavior can be easily altered by taking various psychotropic agents such as tranquilizers, sedatives, stimulants, and hallucinogens. These agents are effective because they often mimic or counteract naturally occurring chemicals that function within the nervous system.
Several such brain-mediating chemical agents, called neurotransmitters, are known to modern medicine. According to Iverson, some thirty are known or suspected to be transmitters in the brain. (Some scientists estimate as many as a hundred.) Many of these are also known to be involved in the control of emotional states. According to Richard Restak, adrenalin, noradrenalin, and dopamine are naturally occurring neurotransmitters that are known to be involved in arousal, rage, fear, pleasure, motivation, and exhilaration.7 He further points out that such depression-producing drugs as reserpine produce their effect by causing the disappearance of the natural neurotransmitters serotonin and noradrenalin. Thus drugs that restore the normal levels of these transmitter substances or increase their effectiveness function as antidepressants.
Neurotransmitters function at specific sites of the nervous system called synapses. These tiny gaps between the ends of interconnecting nerve fibers serve to regulate the passage of nerve impulses. Some synapses have a stimulatory function and enhance the passage of impulses from fiber to fiber. Others have an inhibitory function, preventing the passage of some impulses, and consequently preventing the body from responding to irrelevant stimuli. Whether a synapse is excitatory or inhibitory depends partly upon the type of transmitter substance secreted by the nerve ending at the synapse, and partly on the nature of the receptor site on which the transmitter acts. When both excitatory and inhibitory fibers converge at synapses, it is the sum of the excitatory and inhibitory effects that determines whether or not a neuron (nerve fiber) will fire and produce an impulse. Since a person's mental state can regulate brain chemistry, the type of transmitter substances released most abundantly in the brain will depend largely on the person's cultivated mood. The longer a particular pattern of thought is entertained, the greater will be the effect of the associated transmitter on brain physiology. Some brain researchers now say there is no twisted thought without a twisted molecule.
It is important to note that brain cells that produce particular transmitters are not randomly distributed in the brain, but are located in specific clusters. Consequently, various physiological states and moods can be induced by stimulating specific areas of the brain. According to reports from various researchers, significantly diverse reactions can be produced by activating brain centers separated by no more than a few millimeters. The significance of this point lies in the fact that repeated use of a particular neural circuit produces changes that make it progressively easier to use that circuit. This, as David Hubel (a 1981 Nobel laureate) suggests, may be the basis of memory enhancement by repetition. 8
A particular combination of stimuli, if repeated, might enhance one possible pathway among many in a neural structure. If so, then a person may cultivate specific moods by habitually thinking certain thoughts, and since these moods emanate from brain structures that release specific transmitters, these frequently used brain pathways produce characteristic behavioral patterns. Thus a happy attitude, consistently cultivated, becomes a physiological phenomenon that is fixed in the nervous system and gradually becomes automatic. As Paul puts it, "Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, [we] are changed into the same image" (2 Cor. 3:18). If, as Solomon says, "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine," then physical well-being will result. A morose attitude will have the opposite effect.
Medical technology is suggesting that thought patterns can affect a person's health by releasing in the nervous system chemical agents that have dramatic effects on body physiology. Thus happy, pleasant thoughts may produce a feeling of exhilaration because they are mediated by neurotransmitters that have a stimulatory effect, while thoughts of gloom, anger, or resentment may produce chemicals that have a depressing effect or reduce the body's capability to resist disease.
If a person's thought pattern can affect his health, then mental processes must also have a strong influence on spiritual well-being, for it is through the mind that man communicates with God. Paul's admonition "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5) suggests that what we are in our thinking is what we are in reality. We are not necessarily what we think we are; rather what we think, we are! Our words, our actions, and our attitudes are all expressions of our thoughts, our true selves.
The realization that thought patterns can become fixed by repeated use of the neural circuits that produce them should strongly motivate Christians to take seriously Paul's counsel in Philippians 4:8 to think on those things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. Isaiah declares that God dwells with those who are of a contrite and humble spirit (see chap. 57:15). The suggestion is that the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit will remain with us only when the mind is kept in a state of constant receptivity. This receptive state can be cultivated through the habit of meditation and prayerful awareness of God's presence. "Pray without ceasing," we are admonished (1 Thess. 5:17). This state is described by Ellen G. White in these words: "If we consent, He [God] will so identify Himself with our thoughts and aims, so blend our hearts and minds into conformity to His will, that when obeying Him we shall be but carrying out our own impulses."—The Desire of Ages, p. 668.
Just as repetition deepens impressions on the mind, it appears that repeated suppression of certain neural processes may result in a gradual lessening of the ability to respond to the associated mental stimuli. This has been shown to be true in such simple invertebrate animals as mollusks. In his study of neural circuits in the mollusk Aplysia, brain researcher Eric R. Kandel showed that habituation, a gradual decrease in the strength of a behavior response to a specific stimulation, results from a progressive decrease in the amount of transmitter conveyed from the nerve cells to the target cells they innervate. 9 After eight days of habituation, 30 percent of the synaptic connections were no longer effective. Although one cannot safely make correlations between the neural processes of lower animals and those of man, the implication is strong that permanent changes may take place in the nervous system when certain neural path ways are not used because of the suppression of the stimuli that would activate them. Thus it may become progressively more difficult to respond to suggestions of the Holy Spirit if we habitually suppress repeated urgings to respond.
The mind is the medium through which God communicates with man. It is man's mind that makes him human, created in God's image; and it is by the renewing of the mind that we become sons of God. The power of the mind to influence body and spirit cannot be overestimated. Both our physical and our spiritual well-being are dependent upon good mental health.
Modern medical studies are verifying the ancient wisdom of Solomon. A spirit of gratitude and praise apparently does pro mote health of body and soul. Is it not, then, a positive duty to resist melancholy, discontented thoughts and feelings? As much a duty as it is to pray? There is every reason for Christians to be the happiest people on earth, and, if Solomon is correct, the healthiest as well!
Notes:
1 Scott Morris, S. Wilson and R. Roe in Readings in the Life Sciences, (New York: West Publishing Co., 1975), p. 247.
2 Paul Pietsch, "Shuffle Brain," Harper's, May, 1972, p. 41.
3 Dianne Hale, "Psycho-immunity," Science Digest, November, 1981, p. 12.
4 Norman Cousins, "The Mysterious Placebo," Saturday Review, Oct. 1, 1977, p. 8.
5 Vernon Riley, "Psychoneuroendocrine Influence on Immuno-competence and Neoplasia," Science, June 5, 1981, vol. 212, p. 1100.
6 L. L. Iverson, "The Chemistry of the Brain," Scientific American, September, 1979, p. 134.
7 Richard Restak, "Psychochemistry of the Brain," in Mind and Super-mind, edited by Albert Rosenfeld (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977), p. 88.
8 David Hubel, "The Brain," Scientific American, September, 1979, p. 44.
9 Eric R. Kandel, "Small Systems of Neurons," ibid., p. 66.
