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Mind-Body Health

 

            For the last three hundred years Western civilization has been shaped by a rational, scientific, mechanistic world view of Orthodox medicine. Undoubtedly, this view has provided us with many life saving and enhancing benefits. Infectious diseases are becoming a notion of the past as more and more are eradicated. Collectively this push by Western medicine has been able to put an end many premature deaths and unneeded suffering throughout the world. The down side is that these diseases are being replaced by more chronic diseases that are far harder to cure and more expensive to treat. Research by the Stress Confidential Helpline of the United Kingdom (2001) indicates that two thirds of these new diseases are caused by lifestyle related factors. Through revived tactics and theory of the mind-body connection, the medical community are beginning to put more focus on treating the individual and cause of an illness rather than the symptoms and disease itself. Mind/body medicine, as it is called, is beginning to revolutionize modern health care. Dr. Leon Chaitow, a practicing osteopath in the United Kingdom and a firm supporter of the min/body medicine movement said "A holistic approach is vital as we evaluate the complex interacting elements involved in the causation and maintenance of many health problems- (The Stress Confidential Helpline, 2001). By recognizing the profound interconnection of mind and body, the body's innate healing capabilities, and the role of self-responsibility in the healing process, mind/body medicine is the way of the future in treating emerging diseases. .
             The relationship between the mind and the body can be seen as the conscious ability to influence one another. Mind-body relations are always mutual and bidirectional; the body affects the mind and it is also affected by the mind. Therefore the term mind-body' can be regarded as a process that cannot be easily dissected rather than two objects somehow acting on one another although being completely separate entities.


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