Until now, the best approach to stay healthy was thought to be preventive in nature, entailing the need of minimizing risk related to smoking, maintaining normal cholesterol level and managing obesity. However, a new approach has recently come into light, known as “wellness movement.”
Unlike the preventive approach, the “wellness movement” is more positive and calls for healthy lifestyle changes. This new approach can guide our body to conserve its natural state of balancing and renewing for the whole life.
Deepak Chopra feels that the objective of wellness should be extended in one important way – stop thinking that our mind and body are two separate entities. Deepak Chopra, in his new book,” The Healing Self,” argues that there are studies that prove that our thoughts, moods and emotions and psychological response to stress directly affect our body’s cells. By separating mind and body, people actually follow an obsolete model. However, when we begin considering bodymind as a single entity, then the wellness reaches the next level.
Case Studies Related to Wellness Movement
Deepak Chopra discusses several case studies that confirm a strong connection between our mind and body. To prove this, he refers to a case, wherein allergic reactions tended to go away in a patient of multiple personality disorder, whenever there was a personality shift.
Likewise, he discusses the case of a child, who used to break out in hives while consuming orange juice due to the appearance of his allergic personality. Surprisingly, he did not show any such symptom while in a different personality state.
He further mentions the unbelievable ability of Tibetan Buddhist monks, who could sit overnight in a freezing cave wearing only a thin silk robe. Deepak Chopra adds that since they have mastered a type of meditation, known as tumo, they are now able to have conscious control over body temperature – an involuntary biological process for a normal human being.
The study, published in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides evidence for voluntary activation of nervous system and suppression of the immune response.[1] The study participants were divided into two groups. The first one was trained for third eye meditation for 10 days and different breathing techniques. Additionally, they were taught to resist exposure to cold. The second group was not trained at all. Both the groups were injected with toxins from the strain of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria.
After getting the toxins, the first group continued practicing those techniques while the control group did not. Blood samples were then collected from both the groups. It was observed that the trained group had a lower release of pro-inflammatory chemicals as compared to the untrained group. The researchers concluded it this was due to increase in epinephrine – a hormone known to reduce inflammation. The study results possibly helped to establish a relation between autonomic nervous system and incredible physical control.
Deepak Chopra adds that such examples may seem unbelievable, but nearly everyone can develop such abilities. For instance, using some simple biofeedback techniques, anyone can warm his/her palms. He says that these days, medical science is looking out for ways by which, people can assess the signs of stress or some disease via a wrist-based wearable device, which actually does nothing, but only guides us to willfully go back to our normal state. And, this is what biofeedback is! He concludes by saying that undoubtedly, the future is going to be of wearables, but focusing on our extraordinary wellness is always in our hands. If you make wellness your foremost goal, many positive changes may occur in your life, whose benefits can be reaped forever.