Does the Mind Affect the Body?

For many decades I have contemplated and explored how the mind can affect the body. Although the body is the smallest and most dense part of each of us, its health can have a dramatic impact on our ability to enjoy our life. Below are 5 excerpts below from my ebook “Your Health = Your pH: How To Reverse Ilness & Gain Vitality”.

“Why is it that “fire walkers” can step on hot coals and not get burned? How could Mother Teresa have worked amongst infectious diseases for all those years and never have caught any of them? Have you wondered how Tibetan monks could heat icy wet sheets with their bodies in freezing temperatures or raise the temperatures of their fingers and toes by 17 degrees while doing Tum-mo meditation (Benson study, Harvard Medical School, 1989)? Why do those with cancer who have supportive families and friends have higher recovery rates than those who stated in these studies that they do not have this social support? How does the mind-body-spirit relationship affect health?”

“Think of yourself as a “package deal” in that your health (and mineral reserves) is a culmination of the state of your body, mind, and emotions, with each affecting the other two. If you’re in physical discomfort or pain it’s likely that you’re not in the best mood, just as a lifestyle of negativity (resentment, fear, unprocessed grief, buried anger, etc…) makes it hard for your body to be at its optimum. This is because your overall “system” has to work to handle the negativity, which leaves less reserves to assist your body should you encounter a bacteria or virus.”

“Another way to view your health is as an equation. If life is going well and you’re feeling good, you can probably get away with eating something that is not good for you. However, if you haven’t had time for enough sleep, if there is angst in your personal life, and you’re racing to meet a tough work deadline, a small dietary infraction will be more problematic than if it were eaten in happier times.”

“Recently I awoke from a nightmare wherein I was beyond angry and frustrated and while not awake enough to laugh at the ridiculousness of the dream, I stumbled down the hall and tested my salivary pH. It had dropped from 6.9 down to 6.0. A few years earlier I had been cruising along with a morning saliva measurement consistently ranging from 6.8 to 7.0 when something that really angered me happened. Rather than fully speak my peace about it I instead coddled that resentment for six weeks. During these weeks my morning saliva seemed fixed at 6.3 no matter how many alkalinizing foods and supplements I was ingesting.

Finally, while on a long flight, I caught myself nursing that resentment again, and realized how futile it was to waste this personal time on thoughts that weren’t productive. I realized I could instead be spending that time reflecting on the endearing time I had just shared with relatives, or reading a book on something that interested me. I realized that if I wasn’t going to attempt to address the incident with the co-worker then it was in my best interest to release the resentment and move forward. I resolved to do so and a day and half later, my morning salivary pH was back up to 6.9.”

“The most dramatic instant change in a pH result that has come for me has been by reading affirmations out loud. I didn’t set out to make this happen, rather I just tested my saliva after reading affirmations purely out of curiosity. My rising salivary pH was 6.0. I tested it a second time (6.0 again) and then said my affirmations. To my astonishment my saliva had changed in those 12 minutes to 7.0. I measured it again a few seconds later and it was again 7.0. For the next three weeks I tested this each morning and although it was always 6.0 upon rising, it was 7.0-7.4 after the affirmations. It was like being in some sort of magic show.

Because the change was so dramatic and because such a rapid improvement was not possible without putting something highly alkaline into my mouth according to my studies and training, I was intrigued. In both the pre and post affirmations pH measurements, not one thing had gone into my mouth, no exercise had taken place (I was generally barely awake), and less than 15 minutes had passed between the two sets of measurements, yet something was making a radical difference for the better in the measurements. I wondered if it could be oxygen getting in my mouth during the process of saying the affirmations out loud. Although I knew better because often I was awoken by a phone call such that I didn’t get to test my salivary pH until after the conversations were over and they were the same as upon rising on other days, I experimented with reading anything out loud- such as saying the alphabet and counting to 100. Although a similar length of time verbalizing was spent as was on the affirmations (and therefore similar oxygen exposure to the mouth), blathering the non-inspiring words made no difference in my pH.

How could something as simple as reading a page of “feel good” statements make more of an improvement in my salivary pH than the previous year of dietary modification and supplements had? While we may not know all the details of how, or to what extend there is influence, clearly a dynamic of some sort is in operation. For me, attaining and sustaining an ongoing healthy pH required paying as much attention to non-physical factors as I had been to the physical factors.”