Mind Over Stroke

There’s emerging strong evidence that the mind can speed up rehabilitation and recovery after a stroke.

A 2009 study of 35 acute poststroke patients showed this. The patients were split into two groups, one that used daily visualization of themselves moving impaired limbs as well as physiotherapy and the other group who received only standard physiotherapy.

Eighteen of the patients were in the visualization group and the 17 were in the physiotherapy group. The visualization group did mental imagery exercises every day for 3 weeks.

At the end the groups were compared in their ability to carry out tasks with the same tasks before the study began. Those in the visualization group performed much better. They showed substantial improvement in 4 out of 5 tasks whereas the physiotherapy group only made substantial improvements in 1 task.

Previous studies in the use of visualization for stroke rehabilitation (See my book, ‘How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body’) have found the same thing. It works because the brain doesn’t distinguish between real movement or imagined movement. When a person imagines moving a muscle, the same area of the brain is stimulated as if they really did move the muscle.

This sends signals out of the brain, down the spinal column to the actual muscle and stimulates the muscle. The more mental work that’s done, the stronger the muscle becomes.

Here’s a link to the scientific paper if you want to read for yourself: http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/STROKEAHA.108.540997v1



This article is Copyright © 2010 by David R. Hamilton Ph.D.
It has been left Unedited for this Blog.
It's the Thought That Counts: Why Mind Over Matter Really Works

The Placebo Effect is Getting Stronger

From 2002 to 2006, the number of drugs that were axed after Phase-II clinical trials (volunteer trials) increased by 20% because the drugs couldn’t beat the placebos they were compared against.

More recently, in 2008, a new gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease failed against the placebo. Similarly, in March 2009, Eli Lilly withdrew a new drug for schizophrenia because the placebo effect was double that expected. Also in March 2009, Osiris Therapeutics’ new drug for Crohn’s disease was also withdrawn due to a high placebo effect.

What is going on?

There are a few forces that have generated the increase. The first is powerful advertising. Advertising plays on the mind; the very vehicle of the placebo effect.

The Pharmaceutical Industry have hugely increased their advertising expenditure in the past 20 years. Many years ago, drug advertising was little more than a few posters on the walls of surgery waiting rooms. Now, big pharma have created powerful ads that are so effective that patients taking drugs in the west really expect something to happen when they take them.

Now the act of taking any drug in the west brings with it powerful memories as well as even more powerful unconscious associations generated by the advertising that ensure that taking a drug has an effect. But the downside, not for the patients but for the industry, is that the same applies when they take a placebo. Expectancy is a key element of the placebo effect. The same memories and associations are activated that ensure that taking a placebo heals too. Ironically for the drugs industry, as advertising gets better so too does the placebo effect.

The second reason is that there is a growing flux of drug testing now taking place in developing nations. In these trials, poor people who are often deprived of medical care are suddenly able to get the drugs they need. Many are desperate, and have high hopes for the drugs they receive as well as high-level belief in them. Their perception of rich nations is people enjoying state of the art drugs and healthcare into their very old ages.

But hope and belief are also key elements of the placebo effect. Thus, placebos in poor countries often do better than they would do in other countries. And since the global placebo statistics are made up from trials everywhere in the world, the statistics from the poorer nations lift the overall placebo rate up a few points. Thus, as more and more trials are carried out in poor countries, the higher the placebo effect will get.

You could say, with the fancy advertising and trials in developing countries, that the pharmaceutical industry has, ironically, been responsible for elevating the placebo effect. With similar irony, it was my own personal experience as a scientist in the pharmaceutical industry that propelled me into studying the power of the mind over the body.

Another reason for the increase is due to an increase in the use of drugs to treat ‘psychological disorders’. In the past 20 years, there has been an increase in the number of conditions being diagnosed as ‘psychological disorders’. Pharmaceutical companies have ploughed increasing millions of dollars into their research and development.

But many of these psychological disorders involve areas of the brain that are also involved with our beliefs, expectations, hopes, thoughts of rewards, and how we understand and relate to each other. And these are the same areas that are active during a placebo response. Thus the placebo effect is unexpectedly high for conditions like depression.

For example, a 2008 study of Prozac (fluoxetine), Effexor (venlafaxine), Serzone (nefazodone), and Seroxat (paroxetine) covering 35 clinical trials that involved 5,133 patients found that the placebo effect accounted for 81% of the effect of these drugs.

Thus, as more people are diagnosed with psychological disorders and the number of drugs used to treat them increase, the ratio of drugs for psychological disorders compared with all other drugs increases. And since they have a high placebo effect, the overall placebo effect also increases.

It’s a similar story with cardiovascular diseases. As cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the west, in large part due to western dietary and lifestyle habits, drugs to treat it dominate the drug market. But drugs for cardiovascular diseases also have a high placebo effect, which many believe is due to the strong brain-heart link. So as our diets and lifestyles worsen and our hearts pay the price, the drugs used to treat us ensure that the placebo effect is kept high.

Doctors/physicians have a hand in the increase too. Many are now much more aware that the placebo effect is not just a nuisance, or all in the mind, as was once thought, but that it is a real pharmacological phenomenon that produces physiological change in the brain and body. Thus, many doctors treat patients with more empathy and assurance than before. Empathy and assurance also activate the placebo effect. As doctors show more care and confidence, patients get better faster, even when they are taking inert medication.

Consider, for instance, the results of a British Medical Journal paper that reported on 200 patients who had either been given a positive or a negative consultation by their doctor.
For approximately the same medical conditions, the doctors told the patients what was wrong with them and that they would get better in a few days. Accordingly, 64% of them did get better over the next 2 weeks. But for the other half, the doctors told the patients that they weren’t sure what was wrong with them but to come back if they haven’t got better. Only 39% of this group got better…..64% versus 39% and the only difference was in how the doctor acted. For the first group, there was more empathy and confidence.

There is a last unexpected factor that also increases the placebo effect. It’s difficult to quantify the degree of influence it has, but it’s sure to be exerting an increasing force. It’s us! Or at least, it’s our increasing knowledge of the placebo effect and our growing faith in our own capacity to affect our bodies.

In the past few years, research into the placebo effect has delivered a powerful new message. It is that our thoughts, beliefs, our hopes and our expectations impact our brains and our bodies. MRI studies now show beyond doubt that this is true. Recent brain research shows release of dopamine in the brain when Parkinson’s patients are given placebos, for instance. Other studies show release of the brain’s own version of morphine when people are given placebos instead of painkillers. And MRI scans of patients given placebos instead of Prozac show activation in the same areas of the brain.

One of the leaders in the field of placebo research, Fabrizio Benedetti, a neuroscience professor at the University of Turin School of Medicine and member of the Placebo Study Group centered at Harvard, recently wrote:

“The placebo effect has evolved from being thought of as a nuisance in clinical pharmacological research to a biological phenomenon worthy of scientific investigation in its own right.”
This kind of research is filtering into the public domain through the mainstream press, which raises everyone’s belief in the power of the mind. Popular general-public-focused books that discuss the mind-body connection, like ‘How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body’, ‘It’s the Thought that Counts’, ‘The Biology of Belief’, and ‘Molecules of Emotion’, also add to this.
So as our collective awareness that the mind affects the body increases, it’s sure to elevate the placebo effect even more.

The good news in all this is that we are beginning to recognize that we are not exactly powerless. Our own attitudes and beliefs, our hopes and our expectations, all play a part in our own healing.
A general, healthy way of being, then, is to cultivate a more positive attitude towards all that life throws our way. It might just help us live longer, healthier lives, and when we do get sick it might just help us recover faster.

How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body

This article is Copyright © 2010 by David R. Hamilton Ph.D.
It has been left Unedited for this Blog.

Our Beliefs Make Chemistry

I spoke at a Mind-Body-Spirit Fair in Derby recently on How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body...

Wandering around some of the stalls before my talks got me thinking. Some people have asked me if I thought most of the therapies on offer at these fairs are rubbish, just all in the mind. I sometimes reply, ‘What would it matter if they were?’

People go to fairs like these and they feel good when they get treatments, when they talk with stall holders, and when they hear talks.

It wouldn’t matter if the benefits of the therapies on offer were just placebo (For the record, they’re not). If they work for people, then great.

There’s going to come a time in Medicine where it is widely accepted that the mind plays a really important role in, well, just about everything. If a patient believes that something will be good for them, then should it not be encouraged providing it can’t do any harm?
I remember someone even say to me once that visualizing ourselves getting better from an illness is rubbish, that’s its just all in the mind. Of course it is. Is that not the point?
If you believe that a therapy is good for you then it will be. Take a fictitious therapy called ‘X’, for example.

If you have learned that ‘X’ creates a feeling of relaxation and that this will reduce your stress, which will also have a positive impact upon many illnesses, then you will probably receive a lot of benefit from it. Yes, some of the benefit would be placebo – your belief in the therapy. But who cares whether it is or not? That’s just academic.

The bottom line is that the person receiving the therapy is benefiting.

If, on the other hand, a person had been told by someone that there are no real benefits, that’s it’s all in the mind, then they might not have the therapy and so miss out on the benefits, just because a study might have shown that it was no better than placebo. But by receiving the therapy, they are getting benefits, even if much of it is created by the mind.
That’s the thing with the mind. Our beliefs make chemistry! And quite often, that chemistry benefits us.

The mind creates chemical changes in the brain and around the body. Hormone levels change, cells change, and genes express themselves, producing proteins all around the brain and body. In a 2005 paper, Eric Kandel, 2000 Nobel Prizewinner in Medicine, even wrote, ‘There’s no longer any doubt that psychotherapy can result in detectable changes in the brain.’ A new way of thinking about something activates different brain regions from before, encouraging blood flow in a new direction, leading to actual structural changes in the brain, often in the region of the prefrontal cortex.

Getting therapy ‘X’, whatever it is, allows the person’s mind to create healing change in the body, regardless of whether the therapy was any good in and of itself. It really shouldn’t matter if ‘X’ was no better than placebo. Placebo heals in and of itself. That was one of my greatest learnings when I worked as a scientist with one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.

Time and again, I learned about clinical trials (for drugs that are currently on the market) that showed a large number of people improve because they believed they were getting a medicine when, in reality, they were getting a small white tablet made of chalk or sugar – a fake drug. Belief makes chemistry!

I think many criticisms are purely academic. The evidence in mind-body science is compelling. We also now know that thinking causes structural changes in the brain, for instance. We’ve reached a point where we can no longer say, ‘it’s all in the mind’, because our own thinking is not inert. You can’t have a thought or hold a belief without affecting your brain and body.
So if a person believes that a particular therapy can help them on their healing journey then, providing it can’t actually do any harm, it should be encouraged.

I would always recommend, however, that you talk to your doctor/physician about your intentions. Many physicians are open to the use of alternatives and it can be good to have your physician on board, in support of what you’re doing. It can make you feel better about what you’re doing.
If they are not, then it is your right to seek a second opinion, or a third.

This article is Copyright © 2009 by David R. Hamilton Ph.D.
It has been left entirely Unedited for this Blog

Think Yourself Well - Scientific Evidence for the Power of Visualisation

A 2008 study at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak demonstrated the power of visualisation for the treatment of interstitial cystitis. Fifteen women visualised for 25 minutes, twice a day, for a total of 8 weeks, where they pictured healing the bladder, relaxing the pelvic-floor muscles and quietening the nerves involved. Fifteen women in a control group rested during these times so that the scientists could compare visualisation vs. non-visualisation.

After the 8 weeks, the women who visualised had significantly reduced symptoms and pain than those who didn't.

A 2008 study published in the Journal for the Society of Integrative Oncology demonstrated that visualisation reduced the risk of reoccurrence of breast cancer. The study involved 34 women who participated in an 8-week imagery program. It found that the women who visualised had reduced stress and improved quality of life. It also found that cortisol rhythm, which is an indicator of the probability of the reoccurrence of cancer, was improved and thus the likelihood of cancer returning was reduced.

Visualisation even affects wound healing, which was shown in a 2007 study at Southeastern Louisiana University School of Nursing, involving 24 patients undergoing surgery to remove their gallbladders. The study found that, not only did visualisation reduce levels of anxiety and stress hormone levels but those who used it had much lower levels of surgical wound erythema, which is redness around a wound that's usually associated with infection or inflammation. In effect, visualisation speeds up the healing of our wounds.

These 3 studies, and many more, can also be found in my new book, 'How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body', which is published by Hay House UK on 27 th November 2008.

It's the Thought That Counts: Why Mind Over Matter Really Works

This article is Copyright © 2008 by David R. Hamilton Ph.D.
It has been left entirely unedited for this Blog.

The Science of Mind Over Matter

Imagine that scientists discovered a new drug that could cure or improve the symptoms of most known diseases. Just one pill! Wouldn't it make headline news all around the world, and become the greatest selling drug of all time?

Such a thing already exists. Let me introduce to you - The Placebo!

" The placebo effect has evolved from being thought of as a nuisance in clinical pharmacological research to a biological phenomenon worthy of scientific investigation in its own right. "

These are the words of Professor Fabrizio Benedetti, a neuroscience professor at the University of Turin School of Medicine, a world authority on the placebo effect, and member of the 'Placebo Study Group' of the Mind/Brain/Behaviour initiative at Harvard University.

A placebo is a dummy drug that is made to look just like a real drug. It is used in medical trials so that the drug can be tested against a control. Being a control, it is not supposed to heal but it does, because patients believe that it's a real drug. Their mind heals them.

For years the cures were dismissed as 'just placebo' but new evidence has conclusively proven that there is no such thing as 'just' placebo. When you think you are receiving a medicine, you change the structure of your brain on a microscopic level and chemicals are released in several different areas.

For instance, a recent study into Parkinson's disease saw patients given an antiparkinson's drug (apomorphine). MRI brain scans then showed dopamine released in an area of the brain known as the striatum. When patients were given a placebo instead, there was also release of dopamine in the striatum. The brain didn't seem to know the difference between actually getting apomorphine and just believing that the drug was apomorphine.

Much of the effect of many modern drugs is due to the placebo effect. Of course, drugs work in their own right. When I was a scientist in the pharmaceutical industry I worked with them. They work in test tubes. But a test tube doesn't have a mind. When you give a drug to an actual person, their thoughts about the drug become important. If they think the drug will work, it is likely to. If they think that it won't, then it won't work as well.

This is often influenced by what a doctor tells them. Studies have shown that if a doctor is enthusiastic about a treatment then it works much better than if they have their doubts.

In a 1954 study, for instance, patients with bleeding ulcers were given water injections but told either that the injections would cure them, or that they were being given experimental injections of undetermined effectiveness. Of the patients who were told that the injections would cure them, 70% showed excellent improvement, but of the group who were told that it was an experimental injection, only 25% improved.

In another study, some patients were given a positive consultation (for minor ailments) along the lines of, "you will be better soon," and some were given a negative consultation, along the lines of, "I'm not sure what's wrong with you." After 2 weeks, 64% of those who received a positive consultation were better but only 39% of those who received the negative one were better.

So some of the effects of drugs are caused by our belief in the doctor or our belief in the drug. Recent analysis of the bestselling antidepressants on the market revealed that the placebo effect accounts for 81% of their effectiveness.

It was a meta-analysis (summary of a number of scientific studies) of Fluoxetine (Prozac), Venlafaxine (Effexor), Nefazodone (Serzone), and Paroxetine (Seroxat), covering 35 clinical trials involving 5,133 patients.

But as I've pointed out, this doesn't mean that the drugs don't work. It really just means that, for depression, the placebo effect is very high. With heart medicines, there is also a very high placebo effect. A number of heart medicines have a placebo effect around 60-70%. The drugs work, but so do our thoughts about the drugs. So great power to heal lies within us, we just need to believe it.

And it's not just thoughts around whether we are receiving a medicine or not that affect us. Every thought, regardless what it is a thought of, causes changes in the brain and releases chemicals throughout it.

This is how paralysed people are able to walk down a virtual reality street or move a cursor on a computer screen by thought alone, as recent news reports have described. These things are possible because a thought to move, say, a foot causes electrical activity in the 'foot' part of the brain. Implants measure the electrical activity (as brain waves) coming from the foot part of the brain and send a signal to a computer. The computer then makes a virtual character take a step.

In a similar way, paralysed people can make a cursor go left or right, up or down, on a computer screen and point to certain letter so that they can type e-mails with their thoughts. Sounds like science fiction, but it is science fact and it all relies on the simple fact that thoughts change the brain. In other words, that the mind affects the body.

These recent advances, as the forefront of science, are sure to lay to rest, once and for all, any scepticism that exists around whether mind affects body.

How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body

This article is Copyright © 2008 by David R. Hamilton Ph.D.
It has been left Unedited for this Blog.

A Calm Mind Accelerates the Healing of a Wound.....Stress slows it down

Scientists at Ohio State University, Ronald Glaser and Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, created small blisters on the skin of volunteers who were married to each other. First they asked the married couples to discuss a neutral topic, then the scientists monitored the levels of a protein that is produced during wound healing over the next 3 weeks.

Then they asked them to discuss something that they disagreed upon; that would create stress in them both. Again, the scientists monitored the levels of the wound-healing protein.

Astonishingly, the levels of the wound-healing protein were lower when the couples had disagreed - when they had been stressed.

The effects of calm and stress work at the genetic level. For the wound-healing proteins to be made in the body, a gene must be switched on. So calm and stress affect the switching on or off of genes on our DNA. Most states of mind have genetic effects, and studies in epigenetics have shown that prolonged emotional states have genetic effects that can be passed on to the next generation.

My personal philosophy is that if I strive to be the best person I can; that is, the most kind, caring, understanding, and tolerant then any positive genetic effects that come from these prolonged states in me might be passed on to my children. And don’t worry if you are not in the place right now where you can focus in this way. I have had prolonged times in my past when I’ve been depressed and it’s just been so hard. I believe that we are constantly re-writing parts of our genetic code, in terms of which genes are switched on and off. And so any biological effects at that time will now be over-written. All things eventually change. You have plenty of time!

And the effects on the next generation are not going to determine their destiny. Epigenetic effects act more like a gentle wind. Their own free will, and choices in how to live their lives, are the overwhelming authors of their own genetic evolution.

How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body

This article is Copyright © 2010 by David R. Hamilton Ph.D.
Only Title has been Edited for this Blog.

Destiny, Free Will and Attraction

As well as giving us heat and light, the Sun periodically sends out bursts of radiation towards the Earth that bounce off our atmosphere and cause magnetic storms. And some alignments of planets can affect these bursts. For instance, Venus, Earth, Jupiter and Saturn almost in a straight line with the Sun causes them.

And the bursts affect us. Scientists have shown that they can affect the rhythms of the heart and even the release of melatonin from the pineal gland.

Even though this isn't classic astrology it goes some way to lending it credibility.

And the positions of the planets are predestined. We can count on them aligning in particular ways at particular times so there are real cosmic forces of destiny that act upon us.

There are spiritual forces too.

I believe that our ultimate destiny is to come to know ourselves as All That Is, and so our Soul chooses (although not always) for us to be born into certain conditions where we'll meet certain people, and have certain influences, that will offer us the best opportunity for this.

We always have free will though.

Most people nowadays have heard of the Law of Attraction; that we attract what we focus upon. By holding the image or intent of what we want in our mind we can attract it into our lives. And at those times when 'stuff just happens' it is sometimes the forces of destiny calling.

I use an analogy of life as like sitting in a canoe on a big wide river. Free will is our paddle. As we use the Law of Attraction we paddle our canoe where we want to take it. Forces of destiny act like winds, sometimes gentle and sometimes forceful, which blow our canoe left and right, forwards and backwards. Sometimes we're in the flow, and everything is working for us, but sometimes we're trying to attract against a strong wind and it feels like we're not getting the things we want. These are times when we just need to wait out the storm, so to speak.

I believe that humanity has a destiny, but that it's not set in stone. I believe that through our free will we can create the type of world that we choose. If we want a world of peace, sharing, kindness, and love, then we can create it. If you think it will take a miracle, then I invite you, today, to Be the miracle.

It's the Thought That Counts: Why Mind Over Matter Really Works

This article is Copyright © 2008 by David R. Hamilton Ph.D.
It has not been Edited for this Blog Post.