Who Is in Charge Here?–How Our Minds Control the Body

The positive role of psychological resources in physical health and overall well-being from my experience

Humans are complex organisms. Despite the effort and time researchers have spent studying the human body, we still know little about how our brains and minds work. For centuries, the brightest minds have been puzzled by the human mind and the many ways our psychology can affect our daily lives, our health, and even our existence.

Scientists have observed that the way we think — our cognitive psychology — can have tangible effects on our physical health and well-being.

But despite advancements in medicine and science, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, and psychologists have not been able to provide concrete answers or find any physical link between the human body and the human mind. I aim to provide insights from my studies, practices, and hypotheses in medical science and pscyhology.

Before we explore the relationship between individual optimization, health, personal well-being, and psychological resources, it would be prudent to first define the keyword(s): health and psychological resources to set the context and framework of my story.

1 — Definition of health

The WHO defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Some scientists disagree with the WHO definition because it defines health in absolute terms.

If we take the WHO definition at face value, most of us would be defined as unhealthy most of the time because the WHO definition is a pretty high bar.

As a medical practitioner, my definition of health would be somewhere in the middle. I would define health in terms of any positive movement or progress made by a sick person toward alleviating the symptoms of the infirmity.

With this definition, we can talk about healing, which has been defined as the personal experience of the transcendence of suffering.

2 — Definition of Psychological Resources

These are the skills, beliefs, and personality factors that hold value for a person. Psychological resources also include social support. When a person faces stressful situations, they can draw from these psychological resources to manage the stress.

The idea of psychological resources is different but closely related to the placebo effect. The placebo effect — which has been extensively documented in medicine — cannot occur in the absence of psychological resources which the individual can draw from.

When a patient is given a placebo drug but still experiences benefits that are similar to the benefits that the real drug would have provided, these benefits cannot be attributed to the placebo drug but instead to the patient’s psychological resources, especially their belief in the drug.

Numerous theories have tried to explain how a person can summon their psychological resources to improve their health and well-being. Now that we have defined the terms, we will go ahead to see what evidence we can glean from science and our experiences to explain the connection between mind and body.

Exploring the Role of Faith for Health and Well-Being

Religion and religious beliefs have been around before we invented modern science. For thousands of years, we used religion as a tool to create order in their societies, to understand the world around them, and to give meaning to life.

Importantly, our ancestors also used religion to bring succor, health, and well-being to the sick. The religious faithful who were sick aspired to the health that was promised in the religious text(s) by applying the principles of religion. This connection between religion and health exists today.

The relationship between religion and health is mediated by faith. According to one definition, faith is a show of belief, trust, and obedience directed towards a religious being. When a religious person is sick, their faith in the divine is a source of hope that they will get through their disease and become well again.

In a non-religious person, this show of belief and trust can directed toward non-divine beings, such as the health workers who are responsible for nursing the individual back to health. It can also be directed inwards towards one’s self. For example, a cancer patient who has the faith that they are strong enough to fight cancer and win. Here is my story explaining it: My Life Was Changed Forever.

A study on patients who had terminal illnesses but outlived their doctors’ predictions found that these patients had a strong belief. The belief they had gave them the will to take responsibility for their illness and formulate strategies for improving their health, such as praying, exercising, meditation, and committing to change to a healthier lifestyle.

For people who believe in a divine being, religion exploits their belief by using religious rituals such as prayers. One study shows that individuals who have strong religious beliefs use prayers and other religious rituals as a coping strategy when they are sick.

Because their belief gives them more hope, these individuals will also make lifestyle changes that will increase their prognosis, such as engaging in exercise, avoiding sexually risky behaviours, etc.

Positive Thinking and Positive Illusions

While researching the experiences of women who survived breast cancer, scientists noticed that some of these survivors had the illusory belief that they had the power to control cancer and stop it from recurring.

A similar positive illusion was discovered in HIV patients and people who had heart diseases. Positive illusions, in this case, refer to a type of strong belief in one’s recovery, very high confidence in the healthcare system, and absolute trust in the skills of the healthcare workers.

In the study of HIV patients, people who realistically accepted their prognosis lived shorter lives than those who didn’t. In other words, those patients who had positive illusions about their ability to fight their illnesses outlived those patients who were more realistic.

The strange effect of positive illusions can be explained by the power of positive expectations. When you expect something, you unconsciously elicit cognitive, emotional, and behavioural changes that increase the likelihood of the event occurring.

Being positive and having positive illusions in one’s supernatural abilities to overcome an illness can produce a positive mood in the individual, strengthening their functional stress response system.

This positive mood also motivates the person to make behavioural changes or take actions that will lead to improvement. One study during the COVID-19 period showed that COVID-19 patients who were more positive-minded recovered faster than those who weren’t.

Hardship and trauma offer a person the opportunity to find a new meaning in life. A person going through trauma tries to make sense of the stressful situation through cognitive processing.

For some individuals, this cognitive processing can lead to a new understanding of the meaning of life and what matters to them.

As a result, they will reorganize their priorities and shift their values to reflect their newfound meaning in life. A positive mind when facing stressful events and finding meaning can offer psychological protection to the individual facing these events.

The PNI Theory

PNI stands for psychoneuroimmunology. PNI is a field that studies the relationship between our immune system and our central nervous system. Our immune system — which protects our bodies from diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms — is very important for our health.

On the other hand, the central nervous system — which includes the brain and spinal cord — mediates our actions, thoughts, and feelings.

An experiment in the field of PNI shows that by altering the behaviour of an organism, you can alter its immune response. Your thoughts affect your behaviour but also play a role in which hormones are secreted by your body and in what quantity. According to Seymor Reichlin,

The nervous, endocrine, and immune system interact to adapt to infection, inflammation, and tissue injury…These regulatory interactions influence the manifestations and course of disease.

The fluctuations of the function in the immune system mediated by the endocrine and central nervous systems are dependent on behaviour, but also dependent on personality types, coping styles, and emotional states of the individual.

The field of PNI provides enough proof that drugs are only a small part of the treatment process. Drugs are modulated by the thoughts, behaviour, personality, and mindset of the patient and have been shown to predict disease outcomes.

The Role of Social Support for Health

When an individual is going through challenges in their mental health or physical health, they usually have to rely on a circle of professional caregivers such as doctors, nurses, psychologists, etc.

In addition, they also have to rely on informal caregivers who provide a social defense ring around the individual, acting as a buffer that modulates the impact of the stressful event.

The National Cancer Institute defines social support as a network of family, friends, neighbours, and community members that is available in times of need to give psychological, physical, and financial help.

People who have social support have better health prospects than individuals who don’t. The work of some scientists at Yale University demonstrated that positive social support of high quality can enhance resilience to stress, help protect against developing trauma-related psychopathology, decrease the functional consequences of trauma-induced disorders….and reduce medical morbidity and mortality.

People who do not have a strong network of social support usually have an increased heart rate, blood pressure, and an increased sensitivity to stressful factors. A study showed that people without social support are more likely to die from diseases compared to those people who have more social contact and social support.

The neurobiological mechanism by which social support affects a person’s health is still being studied, but the evidence strongly suggests that social support is important for a person’s well-being.

One reason could be that social support provides emotional and cognitive support, which makes the person feel valued. Another explanation is that social support might provide the individual with the courage, the energy, or the spark they need to change to a healthier lifestyle and stick to it.

Imagine an individual who has decided to eat healthy or exercise more often and has drawn a new schedule to achieve this. Or image a patient who is recovering from a sickness and has to follow a specific treatment plan given by the doctor.

There will be days when they would forget to take their drugs. On other days, they might be lazy, unenergetic, or discouraged. Having a strong social support system gives people a reason to get well, not just for themselves alone but also for the other members of their social circle who are counting on them.

Conclusions and Takeaways

Everything we have discussed points to the evidence that our psychological resources play a massive role in our physical health.

Thoughts, beliefs, desires, emotions, mindsets, and behaviour influence the course of our lives and health. We can activate these resources and channel them — whenever the need arises — towards improving our wellbeing. I explored emotions previously in a story titled How To Choose Your Emotions.

I will end my story with a summary and some helpful takeaways.

1. There is compelling evidence that our thoughts and beliefs can mobilize our bodies and improve our health. Thus, psychological resources are very important for our well-being.

2. When you are sick having faith in divine or the expertise of your medical workerscan be a source of hope. This hope can provide the positive energy you need to get better.

3. Positive illusions can be self-fulfilling. Sick people who believe they have supernatural powers to recover from their sickness often get better faster than others. Placebo effect is well-researched and used in healthcare.

4. There are a lot of benefits to having a strong social circle. Your friends and community can provide you with psychological support during times of stress and illness. People who have this support recover faster when they are sick than those who don’t.

Thank you for reading my story. I wish you a healthy life.