Experience the Mind-Body Connection: A Metaphor for Immune Competence
Experience the Mind-Body Connection: A Metaphor for Immune Competence
Feeling overwhelmed, hopeless, and powerless are common feelings especially when sick. We often forget that evoking or ruminating on negative thoughts decreases our energy level and strength. This change in strength can be used as a metaphor for immune competence. In many cases caretakers of a family member with Alzheimer disease or a disabled child have reduced immune competence. For many of these care takers, life feels like being on a treadmill with no end in sight.
Just recalling or ruminating on a hopeless, helpless, powerless memory causes our energy to drop. Experience the change in energy and physical strength when you shift your thoughts in the following exercise taken from our book, Fighting Cancer-A Nontoxic Approach to Treatment (Gorter and Peper, 2011).