With the mind-body connection being explored more frequently in health care, it is a common misconception that the study of the mind-body connection is relatively new. Would it surprise you to learn that this field of study began in the early 20th century? Even that is not entirely true. The mind-body connection was proposed by the Greek philosopher Galen in the second century, but Walter Cannon, a professor of physiology at Harvard during the twentieth century, sparked interest in the connection between emotions and physiology in his work with animals and The digestion. He discovered that animals under emotional stress such as anger, fear and anxiety caused the stomach to completely shut down its digestive functions.
Dr. Cannon’s most influential research paper in this area, Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear and anger, was published in 1915. In this article, he discusses the physiological results of the fight or flight response. In the last nearly 100 years, we have learned that not only does digestion stop when fight or flight is activated, but all non-essential physiological activities stop.
The fight or flight response has one purpose and one purpose only… to keep you alive. Whether you fight with all your might to stay alive, or choose to run as fast as you can to escape danger, your body mobilizes all of its resources to help you do just that. After all, staying alive is of great interest. What the body does is shut down all non-essential activities and redirect everything to what your body needs to stay alive. You don’t need digestion or sexual desire to fight for your life. You need more blood in your extremities. While your heart rate and blood pressure increase to get blood moving to supply energy to your arms and legs, your body stops digesting food.
This is great for the short term. The problem is that our society is under so much stress that the fight or flight response is active in much of daily life. The body gets stuck in fight or flight. Digestion doesn’t kick in, so you have indigestion, and your blood pressure doesn’t go down, so your doctor wants you to take blood pressure-lowering medication.
Psychoneurinimmunology is concerned with the physiological outcome of emotions. Mind-body psychology is about teaching people strategies to get the body back into its normal way of functioning. Mind-body psychology teaches various strategies to combat stress, including managing your thoughts and emotions, as well as meditation. Today, these strategies are frequently discussed as research in this field continues.
