Introduction
Medical research of the past years has shown that the mind and body are one thing, an idea that has been confirmed by current medical research. This research is aimed at helping individuals understand how their bodies and minds are related and how they work together to ensure their well-being. In his book, “Healing and the Mind,” Moyers interviews people who are concerned and are taking a new look into the meaning of sickness and health, mainly the therapists, patients, physicians, and scientists. Moyers’s investigation was mainly directed towards patients with stress and depression.
On the other hand, John Santrock, in his book, “Human Adjustment,” emphasizes how people can regulate their own selves so that they can be able to manage the everyday challenges and stress of life. His major emphasis was on how individuals can acquire knowledge and understand the strategies and resources that we need to develop in order to manage our daily lives’ challenges and stress. Relaxation techniques are tools that an individual can use to manage his or her stress. They, therefore, assist in slowing down the body and cooling the mind to ensure long-term health.
It can be observed from the above information that Moyers book “Healing and the Mind,” Santrock’s book, “Human Adjustment,” and the study and practice of relaxation are all related in the sense that all of them emphasizes individual health and especially how one can improve his or her health through the elimination of stress. In addition, they develop each other’s ideas in the process of healing.
In this essay, therefore, I am going to discuss how our thoughts and feelings can influence our health and how we can get healing through collaboration with our body that is according to Moyers. This discussion will also focus on how the three studies are related and how they work together in ensuring an individual’s well-being.
Main Body
Scientific research has shown that the way we feel can actually affect our health. For example, a feeling of sickness leads to the real experience of sickness. The same research has shown that individuals who have the ability to connect their body and mind can enjoy optimum health. It also shows that laughter and fun are very powerful healing techniques. It has also been observed that happiness and joy help in relieving physical illness and distress. How an individual identifies him or herself affects our behavior and emotional adjustment.
Too much thinking influences individual health. Spending several hours thinking about difficult thoughts such as making some important decisions affects an individual negatively, while happiness, excitement, and positive thinking affect an individual positively. The attitudes that we develop in mind towards our health affect our health. The events that occur in our lives are because of the words and the thoughts that we have.
Collaboration between the body and the mind helps in facilitating our healing process. For example, engaging in musical activities where body movement and relaxation are involved, the process of healing is very effective. In most cases, music acts as a tool for relieving stress, uniting people, meditation and healing.
Moyers, in his studies, explores a model of medical care based on the thought that emotional states play an important role in an individual’s vulnerability to disease (Moyer 205). Moyer investigates the role played by individual thoughts and emotions in one’s health and in illness, i.e., its main focus is on the role played by the mind in illness and on recovery. In his visit to different patients suffering from cancer and stress, he explores a new field of psycho-neuro-immunology, which mainly focuses on the significance of the attitudes to immune system functioning of an individual, has on the patient.
His study reflects on the conversion of heart diseases through meditation and reduction of stress exercises, walking, and having a diet rich in vegetables. Moyers also studies therapeutic massage, acupuncture, chi gong, and manipulation of vital energy to improve an individual with muscular and chronic neurological diseases. In other words, healing and the mind reflect on the practice of the mind/body medication and how it can be used in the treatment of chronic diseases, stress, and neonatal problems.
Like Moyers, Santrock carries out research science on psychology, which emphasizes the knowledge that individuals can relate to in trying to improve their own adjustments. “Human adjustment” by Santrock is mainly designed to help students cope well with the challenges they face in their daily lives as it provides a number of opportunities for individual self-evaluation and strategies for self-adjustment
Relaxation techniques are tools that are used to manage stress and encourage long-term health by slowing the body and cooling the mind. The cooling and the slowing of the mind and the body are required when body and mind are pressed on to the limit in an attempt to heal both mentally and physically. A study by the mind/body medical institute showed that over three-quarters of all medical visits are disorders related to stress. Relaxation techniques help in creating awareness of the body and then meditating to attach the body to the mind (Moyer 288).
The study and practice of relaxation techniques observe how femininity and masculinity relate, levels of stress, depressive symptomatology, and how new students joining colleges can adopt strategies to deal with these issues. The result of the study shows that the focus for masculinity is on the coping strategies for problems while the focus of femininity is on coping with emotions. The level of depression in an individual is determined by the level of family and college stress and the respective ways of coping with them. Student adjustment to university life may be facilitated with their understanding of the relationship between masculinity and femininity, levels of depressive symptomatology, and the levels of stress that they experience.
Relaxation techniques mainly involve sporting activities. Individuals with anxiety do not perform well in sports due to a lack of concentration. Individuals in such situations have to cope with stress related to competition. There are two different types of stress that an individual may suffer, acute stress and chronic stress. In most cases, the relaxation techniques act to lessen acute stress; nevertheless, there are some relaxation techniques that can act to ease both acute and chronic stress (Santrock 114).
The two most common available relaxation techniques are progressive relaxation and imaginal relaxation. Progressive relaxation mainly works on the muscle. It involves deep breathing, which in most cases accompanies the tensing and relaxing of the muscles. Imaginal relaxation, on the other hand, deals with mental processes. Most people involved in the study of relaxation techniques, e.g., the golfers, engaged in jamming, explanation, positive self-talk, breathing exercises, reappraising, following schedule, and physical relaxation as coping strategies when dealing with competition stress (Santrock 135).
Golf performance can be enhanced through imagination, motivation, and mastery. The coping strategies for the golfers, however, are emotion-focused, golf course strategies, cognitive strategies, avoidance coping, efforts relaxation strategies, and of course, coping.
Conclusion
Both the mind and the body do really play very important roles in the process of healing. Healing and the mind, human adjustment, and relaxation techniques are all focused on the healing process of problems related to stress and depression. For the healing process to be effective, individuals need to develop some adjustments so that they can be able to efficiently cope with the stress and other challenges in life.
For example, students who are joining college need to develop adjustments so that they can be able to cope with the college challenges and stress that are commonly experienced in colleges by new students. This process of adjustment is enhanced by relaxation techniques, which have been designed to help cope with stress. Our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and attitudes do affect our health, and therefore when undergoing the process of healing, we should consider how we think about our health, how we feel, and how we perceive the sickness. For example, most women who adopt feelings of lack of control, fear, and insecurity find themselves exposed to genetic problems.
The attitudes in our minds towards our health also affect our well-being. For example, when a mother views her child as sickly and tired, then the child will have a negative attitude towards her health and will always see herself as sickling. How we think influences our health such that when a person takes time thinking about something, he or she will feel some pain in the stomach and may end up developing stomach ulcers. It is therefore very important that we develop positive attitudes towards our health and try to adjust ourselves to cope with the everyday stress and challenges of life.
Works Cited
Bill Moyer. Healing and the Mind. New York: Broadway Books, 1995. 1-369. ISBN: 0385476876.
John W. Santrock. Human Adjustment. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. 1-537. ISBN: 007-359584-5.