Health - It's all in the
Mind
Do
you ever listen to other people's conversations? I mean when
you're standing at a bus stop, or having a drink in a café
after a hard morning's shopping. You know, those people whose
voices are just a little too loud and you can't really help
listening; after all you are on your own, and other people's
lives are quite interesting.
What
do they talk about? Their problems I'll bet, with health issues
being high on the list. And have you ever noticed how it's
a bit like a game of ping-pong. One party will bat a little
titbit "my back's been playing up something awful",
and the other will respond with something 'better' and before
you know where you are, you know all about all the cancers,
and the hip operations, and the chronic chest infections,
that their family and friends have had in the past ten years.
Sound
familiar?
So
illness seems important. If it isn't, why do we spend so much
time talking about it?
Have
you ever noticed how you suffer with a bad cold, or dose of
'flu, or possibly something more serious, when life itself
is becoming tedious, work is getting you down, or your husband
seems to have lost interest in you. Have you ever noticed
how, when you are happy and life is full of joy and excitement,
you rarely experience illness? It has been known for a long
time that 'stress' has a depressant effect on the ability
of your body's immune system to fight infection. Illness is
the body's way of saying 'you're not looking after you', and
usually the way you are failing to look after yourself is
in your mind - your emotional well-being is generally the
part which is being neglected when you start to experience
illness.
Now,
the scientists say that disease organisms, viruses, bacteria,
genes, and even your age, cause illness. They may be right.
But if they are then those same 'experts' are your only hope
for defeating illness. Yet with all the drugs and all the
scientific advances over that last fifty years - shouldn't
the hospitals be emptying out by now. How easy is it to get
an appointment with your doctor? How full was the waiting
room last time you visited? All that science seems to be accomplishing
is to change the nature of illness without actually removing
it.
If
illness is a necessary warning system to let you know that
you need to slow down, or look at how you are living your
life then this is exactly what we would expect to see with
scientific advances; a change in the style of illness, but
no change in the quantity or quality. Smallpox and bubonic
plague have been eradicated, but doesn't AIDS do pretty much
the same sort of job.
So,
how can this awareness help you?
Well
it can help you if you want to feel better and be less ill.
Because the first step to freeing yourself from this pattern
of stress/illness is to recognise that the illness is helpful.
Now, I know pain isn't much fun, and I'm not suggesting that
life-threatening problems should be ignored. In fact I'm not
even suggesting that you stop visiting your doctor for treatment.
I would actually strongly advise that you take all the help
you can get if you have a health problem.
What
I am suggesting is that if you want to be free of illness,
you need to start by looking at what illness gives you, and
welcome those gifts. You might get a few days off work, early
retirement, forced retirement from a job you hate; illness
may be the only occasion when anyone looks after you or gives
you affection, if you are lonely then illness at least brings
you into close contact with people (doctors and nurses) who
touch you and treat you gently; if you are trying to cram
too many things in your life then illness gives you break
and gives your body a much needed rest.
It
would be beneficial then to see what changes you could make
to your life so that this 'benefit' was no longer needed because
you already had it. If you don't like your job then consider
the possibility of doing something you enjoy instead; if you
are alone then open your mind to the possibility of this being
different. If you are simply too busy then build relaxation
into your schedule and see it as just as important a part
of life as the 'busy'ness.
But
whatever you do, don't neglect illness, it is your mind's
way of telling you it's time for change.
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