Relaxation and Meditation Techniques: A Complete Stress-proofing System

4 a very poor self-image.’

As we shall see in the final chapter on the healing power of the mind, an enormous amount of help to cancer patients has been derived by the simple measure of deep relaxation and positive mental imagery. Stress is undoubtedly a major factor in much chronic and acute illness and, if this is so, then any intelligent individual should be able to work out that reversing the stressful input will help considerably towards restoring health. Even more obvious is the fact that by becoming aware of these facts, and by reducing and eliminating stress factors, together with a general stress-proofing programme, prevention of ill health will be greatly enhanced.

There is a school of thought which holds that the attitude and psychological patterns of the individual will determine what patterns disease takes. Examples of this work taken from ‘Specific Relations of Attitude to Psychological Change’ by P. T. and F. K. Graham, University of Wisconsin Medical School, 1961, are as follows:

(The full list is to be found in Health for the Whole Person, Westview Press, Boulder Co., 1981.)

There is another dimension to the way in which stress influences health, to be found in the research conducted over the past 40 years by Prof. Irvin Korr, into dysfunction of spinal regions as part of the ‘organizer’ of the processes of disease. Stress of a psychological or emotional nature can produce marked changes in the musculoskeletal system, profoundly influencing the overall functioning of the body. All emotional changes are mirrored in the soft tissues. Attitudes such as anger or fear, as well as moods such as excitement or depression, produce muscular postures and patterns. There is also a close link between habitual posture and psychological attitudes and states.

Many postures and defensive tensions arise from anxiety and stress. If this is continued and repeated, restrictions and alterations will take place in the soft tissues. If unreleased, these become self-perpetuating and the source of pain and further stress. The ability to relax is frequently lost and the consequent drain on nervous energy is marked.

Have you ever focused sunlight through a magnifying glass to obtain a pin-point of heat? If, in this metaphor, stress, in all its myriad forms, is represented by the light of the sun, then the focusing mechanism (the lens) is represented by the nervous system. Attention must be given to both aspects of this phenomenon, the stress factors, and how to avoid or minimize them, the body systems which deal with stress and, in particular, the nervous system, which to a large extent determines how the body will cope with it. No two people react to stress in the same way. Even under identical conditions, reactions and effects will vary. While it is important to know what stress is, and how the body reacts to it in general, attention should also be paid to the individual receiving the stress, the unique characteristics of whom will determine the end result.

Why does one person develop an ulcer, another diabetes and yet another high blood pressure? All these conditions might be the apparent result of similar stress patterns. It is obvious, therefore, that the stress factors do not themselves determine the response of the body. The unique make-up and history of the individual is the determining factor in deciding just what aspect of the body will adapt or react in response to any stimulus or stress. Disease, in the final analysis, is the failure on the part of the body to adapt to or cope with the demands placed upon it by the total environment in which it lives. This includes demands of a stressful nature, whether internally generated or externally applied.

What is it that determines which aspect of the body will break down under prolonged stress? There are inherited tendencies, of course, and these must be borne in mind. As already mentioned, there is another key ‘organizer’ within the body, to which the osteopathic profession, in particular, pays much attention. This is the nervous system and the role played by the nervous system and spinal dysfunction in affecting the way in which particular patterns of ill health are manifested. Professor Korr has established: