Or is it? We often hear that some things are ‘just in the mind’. The body, on the other hand, is separate – a physical thing. From this point of view it sounds downright wacky to think that beliefs can change biology. In David Morris’ words: “this way of thinking… makes as much sense as filling up the gas tank with Earl Grey tea”.
Yet as ideas go, the separation of mind and body seems to be quite new. Just a few hundred years ago René Descartes famously said, “I think therefore I am.” He imagined thinking without a body, so concluded the mind and body were separate. Since Descartes we speak of some things as ‘just in the mind’, while our bodies are complex machines that can be fixed with an orthopedic surgeon’s tools, or drugs that latch to cells with ‘lock and key’ mechanisms.
But if you think about it… Descartes proposal violates common sense. If bodies and minds are separate then:
- How could alcohol, which acts on your body, change your mind?
- How could antidepressant drugs – physical things – improve your mood?
- How come being in physical pain can make you depressed?
The only way to explain these everyday experiences is to see a strong connection between body and mind. Yet for some reason Descartes’ view on this matter went almost unchallenged. This could be because souls were fading away as science was replacing religion, while medicine was making advances by taking the body to be a machine. The main objection to this view of Descartes came from Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, who asked simple common sense questions about the obvious connection between thoughts and biology. René evaded her questions.
Current science explains exactly how minds and bodies connect. To name just a few ways: thinking positive thoughts activates reward mechanisms in the brain and increases the amount of dopamine and endorphins in your body. Endorphins play a role in stress related conditions which account for up to a third of visits to family doctors, as well as heart disease, and obesity.
Placebo surgery even shows how your beliefs affect the machinery of your body. Dr. Bruce Moseley is the team doctor for the Houston Rockets. He found 180 patients who had knee arthritis and who had not responded to high doses of drugs for six months. He gave half of them ‘real’ knee surgery and the other half placebo surgery. The ‘real’ surgery involved anaesthetic and cutting the skin, then performing keyhole surgery to repair damaged cartilage, and remove fragments of loose bone. The ‘placebo’ surgery involved anaesthetic and a small incision in the knees, but no cartilage or bone was repaired. The placebo surgery worked as well as the ‘real’ surgery! There have been over 50 placebo controlled surgery trials and in over half of them the placebo surgery worked as well as the ‘real’ surgery. This does not show that surgery doesn’t work, or that it is fake. It just shows that surgery works at least partly because of placebo effects.
Dan Moerman sums it up nicely: “Does this mean that we might double our gas mileage if we wished for it hard enough? Well, no. But people are not machines, and we shouldn’t treat them as such.”
Think about it.