It turns out, that was the easy part. Most of it made sense. How oxygen gets into the bloodstream. How the kidneys know what to excrete and what to conserve. How food is broken down and absorbed, and what we are left to deal with. In the healthy state, every process is carried out with precision, perfect timing, and uncanny coordination. And, for the most part, it all happens without any effort, attention, or awareness on our part. The fact that the body body knows what to do to keep us healthy is incomprehensible. The fact that it knows how to heal itself is beyond imagination.
1970 was also just about the time the mind-body-spirit connection was catching on among forward thinking healers and energy workers. Timothy Leary and Ram Dass were experimenting with hallucinogenic mushrooms in their quest for enlightenment. Quantum physicists were eyeing the nature of consciousness. We started to hear about the therapeutic applications of acupuncture, hypnosis, meditation, massage and therapeutic touch, Reiki, and yoga...all dismissed by the medical elite as malarky for lack of randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies that proved their worth. All of it dismissed by "real" doctors as so much hocus-pocus. Snake oil. Those of us who were curious about it were belittled for our naivete, and shamed for our gullibility.
Nevertheless, these so-called "alternative" therapies intrigued me. The scientific community rejected the concept of the mind-body-spirit connection, but I knew better. I'd seen it work.
When I was a medical student, I shadowed an orthopedic resident who had earned a reputation as something of a maverick when he underwent an inguinal hernia repair under self-hypnosis. No anesthesia, thank you very much. When I worked with him in the Emergency Room, he reduced a patient's dislocated elbow after nothing more than a brief hypnotic induction, sparing her a dose of anesthesia with its lingering after effects, and a night in the hospital. I was sold. I studied self-hypnosis, and submitted to surgery under its spell myself. I squandered my vacations on meditation and yoga retreats. I connected with energy healers. I learned to chant, to visualize auras, to breathe. I understood energy. It all made sense to me.
The quest to connect with my own mind, body, and spirit led me to a mysterious, theoretical, and fantastical world of untold potential. Of waves and particles, of infinitesimal smidgeons of time, and never-ending stretches of space. I learned that our genes express themselves differently depending on our environment and experience. That we have the ability to modify the traits we pass on to future generations. That ultimately, the mind is in charge of that transpires within, and even around us. All because of the incomprehensible complexity, interconnectedness, and precision of all that sustains life.
In the meantime, I continued to see patients in my office every fifteen minutes. I whittled their medical histories and examinations down to a few bullet points in a new-fangled electronic medical record system, and sent most of them off with a prescription ot two, in keeping with my training.
To be fair, not everyone believes that cell biology is affected by our thoughts, emotions, and experiences. Not every biologist supports the idea that the brain affects the biochemistry of cells down to their molecular structure and function. But then, not that long ago, many scientists dismissed the idea that blood pressure, heart rate, and even body temperature could be modulated by meditation. They had to transport groups of Tibetan monks to research laboratories in the US, and hook them up to monitors to record the very phenomena they so vigorously questioned. They were mind-boggled by what they observed. The monks were able to lower their heart rates and blood pressure, and to raise their body temperature even in sub-freezing conditions. Just by thinking about it...
...which is jaw-dropping because it touches on the greatest mystery of all: the origin, nature, and function of consciousness, including thought, memory, and imagination. Science has fully explored the anatomy, molecular structure, electrophysiology, and biochemistry of the brain, but we haven't quite figured out how it works. We don't know how thought is generated in the first place, or how it is translated into something as easily experienced and observed as tears, or laughter, or fear. We don't exactly understand how a thought can raise the heart rate, or make us sweat, or leave us shaking. How a remote memory resurfaces, and where it has been hiding.
I practiced medicine for over three decades without giving either the body or the mind credit for its genius. It's a shame to have spent so many years memorizing, studying, and analyzing information that has since been proven to be inaccurate, or incomplete, or totally untrue. It unnerves me to realize how much time and effort I devoted to learning what has already become obsolete, or been proven wrong, or been questioned anew. It is amazing to contemplate the myths we embraced, the mystery that continues to unfold, and the masterpiece it reveals.
You may not understand the science of cell division and differentiation, or what drives it. It may be hard to grasp how it affects your health and well-being, and it might seem absurd that you have any control over it at all. It's weird to contemplate one's own thoughts, and to speculate on their origins, nature, and power.
Physicists, biologists, physicians, philosophers, and quantum theorists are hard at work trying to figure out exactly what it is that makes us who we are...while our bodies are mysteriously, silently, and predictably doing what they do best: making us who we are.
If this doesn't astound you, try this: study the sky at night. Watch for the first signs of spring. Feel the pulse beating in your own wrist.
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