The body knows how to heal itself. As I describe in Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself, our bodies are beautifully equipped with natural self-repair mechanisms that fight cancer, prevent infection, repair wounds, protect us from infectious agents and foreign bodies, and even affect how our genes express themselves! But here’s what most people don’t know. These natural self-repair mechanisms get deactivated when your body is full of stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine in “fight-or-flight” mode.
Makes sense. When your amygdala, the not-so-smart part of your brain that reacts to threats by tripping off the “fight-or-flight” stress response, signals the warning alarm, your body focuses all its attention on fighting and fleeing. Blood flow is shunted to your large muscle groups, your heart rate increases, your blood pressure goes up, and your body is on red alert. When your amygdala thinks you’re about to get eaten by a mountain lion, the body isn’t worried about preventive maintenance and the body’s self-repair operations halt until the threat is over.
But in modern day life, our warning alarms are ringing at least 50 times per day, flooding our bodies with cortisol and putting us at risk of illness. Your amygdala can’t tell the difference between a real threat to life and limb, like getting chased by a mountain lion, and a perceived threat, like fear of losing your job, worry that your loved one will leave you, or even anger that someone spilled red wine on your white carpet. (Are you at risk? Read here for 10 Signs That You Have WAY Too Much Cortisol).
The good news is that it’s easy to shift the body into the opposite of the stress response into the relaxation response, and when this happens, your cortisol levels drop and your body’s self-repair mechanisms get back to work doing what they do best – healing you. All of the following techniques have been scientifically proven to activate relaxation responses and return your self-repair mechanisms back to optimal operation.