When your back aches, is it truly your back that’s bothering you? This may be the question your physician may start asking very soon. Medicine underwent a major revolution in the 1900s with the advent of “allopathic medicine” which included penicillin and other life saving drugs. To this day, no other medication or surgery has had the same impact that penicillin and aspirin had on mortality. In fact, some of the most expensive and highly marketed drugs have gotten FDA approval by showing statistical improvement in mortality of single digits. Meaning, up to a 1000 patients would need to be treated prior to saving 1 to 10 lives. Any life saved, is worth any price, however it is at the cost of increased risk of side effects and complications to countless others, who may not have benefited nearly as much.

With enhanced awareness of our limitations, physicians subsequently discovered that most of the therapies we offer, are treatments that have to be continued lifelong with no real “cures”. Clearly, there has to be a better answer, or is there a missing link?

For the longest time it was felt that this is it! Take it or leave it. During this period in the 1970s, some physicians recognized that contemporary medicine clearly had a diagnostic and a therapeutic role, however, the missing link was what our predecessors always knew. They focused more on the “mind’s effect on the body”. There have been many cases reported where physicians effected amazing cures by strictly talking to the patients! Medical literature from the 1800s, has many excellent therapeutic approaches to maladies, which to this day, are considered untreatable. Majority of these have to do with changing one’s emotional state.

Many leading physicians have started advocating relaxation techniques and mind control as a way to achieving cure from many conditions (some claim all conditions). Dr. Herbert Benson at Harvard studied meditation scientifically and documented reduction in risk of a second heart attack by up to 40%. Many “ultra prevention clinics” have documented cure rates of cancers that have been unheard of in modern science. 

Emotional state of your mind is felt to be a culprit in many conditions. Some common ones are as follows:
· Back pain 
· Change in appetite 
· Chest pain 
· Constipation or diarrhea 
· Dry mouth 
· Extreme tiredness 
· General aches and pains 
· Headaches 
· High blood pressure 
· Insomnia (trouble sleeping) 
· Lightheadedness 
· Palpitations (the feeling that your heart is racing) 
· Sexual problems 
· Shortness of breath 
· Stiff neck 
· Sweating 
· Upset stomach 
· Weight gain or loss 

With the recent discovery of the “Broken Heart Syndrome” there is more evidence that links mind to disease states.

“Mind Control” is the process of attuning your mind consciously to a positive source and thereby negating all negative influences in your mind. Negative energy expresses itself as negative thoughts and emotions. It is commonly believed that thoughts are out of your control and are at the mercy of your life circumstance or “an outside force”. Mind Body medicine clearly has demonstrated that emotions we experience and the thoughts we generate are clearly a choice we have exercised. One way of staying healthy is to eliminate all negative emotions and energies in our life. Dr. David Hawkins, in his book “power v/s force” has actually proven scientific correlates of these emotional states.

A distinction needs to be made in “suppressing” negative thoughts v/s eliminating them. Expression of negative thoughts has also been shown to correlate with disease states. Achieving control over your mind, can be a life long effort and will be expanded upon in future articles. Some simple techniques are 
· Meditation
· Exercise
· Yoga
· Eliminating negative energy in your surroundings (including people with negative mindsets)
· Breathing exercises such as pranayama

Needless, to say that we have come 360 degrees in our understanding of the human body and have come back to the mind. This does not negate the advances we have experienced in science which can be life extending, however, with little regard for the quality of life. Medicines and surgeries try to accomplish externally, with a lot of impunity, which the mind can achieve literally instantaneously with no impunity. There is still a lot to be discussed, learnt and discovered, but we have entered an era of integrated medicine that has the potential of revolutionizing health care to a level, which currently seems incomprehensible.

*Disclaimer: The contents are meant for informative, educational purposes only. Formal recommendations can only be made by physicians involved in your care. Please check with your physician before acting on any part of this article.