Have you ever wondered about the intricate connection between your mind and body?
I want to introduce you to Dr. Candace Pert, a revolutionary neuropharmacologist who turned the scientific world upside down with her groundbreaking research. In this blog post, we delve into Dr. Pert's fascinating discoveries and explore the power of the mind-body connection. Let’s uncover the secret behind wellness and understand how our thoughts and emotions are far more powerful than we ever imagined.
Dr. Candace Pert's journey began in the early 70s when she embarked on a mission to uncover the opiate receptor for her doctoral dissertation at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Leading a laboratory at the National Institutes of Health for 15 years, she published over 200 scientific articles shedding light on the discovery of neuropeptides. These findings created a paradigm shift, bridging the gap between immunology, endocrinology, neurophysiology, psychology, and biology.
Challenging Traditional Perspectives
For centuries, Western thought taught us that consciousness, thoughts, and emotions were mere by-products of the physical brain, unrelated to our health. We've often heard the dismissive phrase, "It's all in your head," undermining the validity of individual complaints. However, Dr. Pert challenges this notion, proposing that it's all in our "mind-body system" and it ALL matters. She advocates for a shift in perception regarding psychosomatic illness, emphasizing the mind-body phenomenon that influences our well-being.
Uniting Neuroscience, Immunology, and Endocrinology
Dr. Pert's pioneering work paved the way for the interdisciplinary branch of science known as Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI). By uniting neuroscience, immunology, and endocrinology, PNI revolutionized the understanding of how information-carrying molecules called neuropeptides create a multidirectional communication network. Pert's scientific language, using peptides and receptors as information substances, legitimized the field and birthed the term "mind-body medicine."
The Biochemical Basis of Awareness
With Pert's research as a foundation, we gain a newfound understanding of the power of our minds and emotions on our health. Our brain and body form an integrated system at a molecular level, incapable of being treated separately without affecting the other. This new science reveals that we are one system, and our subconscious mind resides within our bodies. Our emotions and feelings act as the bridge connecting the mind and body, influencing our overall well-being.
The Cartesian Split and Western Medicine
How did modern medicine veer so far from the mind-body connection recognized by indigenous cultures for millennia? We can attribute this to the "Cartesian Split" brought about by Rene Descartes, a 17th-century philosopher. Descartes drew a clear line between body and mind, focusing solely on the physical body for dissection studies. This separation between the physical and non-material aspects of human existence set the foundation for Western Medicine's divergence from the mind-body connection.
Dr. Candace Pert’s Eight Part Program
Pert suggests a program of eight ways to use this information in her book to stay healthy, or to heal if a disease state is already present.
Acknowledge and claim all your feelings because they are the entrance point into the mindbody communication network.
Become conscious. Educate yourself about these processes and become aware of how your mindbody system operates to maintain wellness.
Learn to access the Psychosomatic Network in order to enter the bodymind’s conversation and redirect it when necessary. Use an awareness of the past experiences and conditioning that are stored in the receptors on your cells, to release them at an emotional level. Help for this process can include psychotherapy, personal growth seminars, guided visualization, meditation, hypnotherapy, prayer etc.
Explore your dreams. Dreams are one of the bodymind’s methods of exchanging information for growth and healing. “Capturing that dream and re-experiencing the emotions can be very healing, as you either integrate the information for growth or decide to take actions toward forgiveness and letting go…Your dreams relate not just to your mind, but to your body as well. Dreams can be your own early-warning system, letting you know if a medical condition is developing and helping to bring your attention to the problem area. The body may be discussing this condition with the mind, and you can get in on the conversation by consciously recalling the dream…once you make the decision to pay attention to your dreams, they will start to speak to you, and you will understand them with ever-greater fluency over time, with practice."
Get in touch with your body. “Your body is your subconscious mind and you can’t heal it by talk alone.” We can access our minds and our emotions through the physical body. Use Acupuncture or bodywork or movement therapy to heal stuck emotions. Take a walk, run, have a massage or acu-treatment, get a few hugs and see how you feel. Using touch, acupuncture, massage, physical manipulation of various types can release stored or blocked emotions by clearing internal pathways. Many healers or practitioners of eastern healing systems can see blocked energy in the body and are trained to release it at a physical level. All injuries and traumas are stored in the tissues of the body. Pert concludes, “…almost every other culture but ours recognizes the role played by some kind of emotional catharsis or energy release in healing.”
Reduce stress. In Pert’s opinion, the most effective way to reduce stress is to learn to meditate and practice it regularly.
Exercise. Modern lifestyles encourage a sedentary lifestyle. The body was made for moving. Pert suggests trying yoga.
Eat wisely. “Eating, because of its survival value, has been widely interpreted by evolution to be a highly emotional event.” Our gastrointestinal tracts are densely lined with peptides and receptors which busily process information rife with emotional content. Here is also where our “gut feelings” happen. Pert also tells us that she considers sugar to be an addictive substance.
Avoid substance abuse. These addictive substances bind to our receptors, blocking the natural flow of our own peptides. For example, alcohol binds to what is known as the GABA receptor. Using alcohol to excess floods our GABA receptors, eventually causing them to decrease in sensitivity and/or number, making recovery more difficult over time. This same kind of action applies to marijuana, tobacco, cocaine and even sugar. If we can learn to communicate with our bodyminds, we can tap into our body’s own language to better understand and facilitate healing.
Conclusion:
Dr. Candace Pert's remarkable research has unveiled the profound influence our thoughts, emotions, and consciousness have on our well-being. As we embrace the power of the mind-body connection, we begin to understand that holistic health is an integrated approach, where the mind and body cannot be separated. It's time to acknowledge the impact of emotions on our health and strive for balance between mind, body, and spirit.
Are you ready to embark on a journey of self-discovery and harness the potential within you?
Take the first step towards a holistic approach to wellness by incoroporating mindbody practices into your health plan. Meditation, Mindfulness, Breathwork and Acupuncture are all fantastic bridgegaps for the mind and body to better communicate with one another. Acupuncture, specifically can serve as a powerful tool to naturally down-regulate an over-heightened nervous system, reconnect the body and mind, and communicate to the brain and body that you are safe to let go of pain and chronic symptoms and get back into a state of homeostasis.
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