Health and Wellbeing

Just recently I’ve seen on the internet various postings from people looking for help for loved ones who have a chronic illness. Through my studies years ago I came across Bernie Siegel and his book Love Medicine and Miracles. Bernie was interested to discover why people who he thought would die (he was an oncologist) lived whilst others who he thought would live died.

There’s been a lot of press coverage over the past few months with Jade Goody dying from Cancer, Patrick Swayze and also Farah Fawcett too now also have terminal cancer.

What constitutes good health and how do we ensure that we are healthy and if we do get sick how do we heal ourselves.

Websters Dictionary defines health as “the condition of being sound in body, mind or spirit; especially the state of being free from physical disease.....”

Medical science has provided us with various cures for illnesses that at one time were incurable; and throughout the history of medical research we have also discovered factors such as the placebo effect. People being given what was probably basically sugar pills and being told that they were a super drug that would heal them and they heal. Against all odds their disease goes away.

Various alternative health practitioners suggest that to be healthy we need to maintain the harmony between the body and mind and between ourselves and the world that we inhabit. To create a total ecology may necessitate an adjustment in other parts of our lives to stay balanced.

Health and healing often involve addressing several levels of change with beliefs being one of the most important and influential levels. If someone doesn’t believe that they will heal or become well that person can become apathetic and not take full advantage of the resources that are available to them. Whilst as demonstrated with the placebo effect if a person believes that something will help them they activate many conscious processes that contribute to their wellness.

Bernie Siegel found that those people given the life challenging diagnosis who decided there was nothing for them to do (even though their cancer may have been treatable) died. Whereby those who decided that there were too many things they were yet to do in their lives, those who began to make plans about what there were to do next with their lives – lived.