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One way that emotional healing could possibly have real positive effects on symptoms is if the symptoms are remnants from a real disease that have passed.

As an analogy. When you’re stretching your muscles, you’re generally not actually elongating any part of your body, instead you’re teaching your nervous system that it’s safe to move your muscles in the range you’re stretching into.

Most people get to experience acute back pain in their life, and will notice how this can cause your entire back to freeze up, even well past the point of where the actual thing that caused the pain has been healed. This is the nervous system protecting your back from hurting itself. Making it a necessary part of rehabilitation to do stretches to show your body that the range of motion is safe again.

In the same kind of way, actively working on mentally overcoming symptoms that were your body’s reaction to real disease or trauma that has since passed, can have very real effects.

This could be in the form of meditation, therapy or even faith healing(!) [0]

[0] see derren brown talk about his experiences doing faith healing as a skeptic https://youtu.be/CCzzaDwUuDk time stamp 22 minutes 18 seconds

The analogy about muscle streching is wrong.

There's a fair bit of evidence now than most of stretching is, indeed, actually about training the body not to reflexively contract to fight the stretch.

> Due to neurological safeguards against injury such as the Golgi tendon reflex, it is normally impossible for adults to stretch most muscle groups to their fullest length without training due to the activation of muscle antagonists as the muscle reaches the limit of its normal range of motion. [1]

> First, they end up mostly agreeing with a body of previous research suggesting that increased range of motion following a prolonged stretching program is mainly the result of increased tolerance to the sensation of stretching, rather than actually loosening the muscle-tendon unit. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretching

[2] https://www.runnersworld.com/health-injuries/a20811349/does-...

I developed a chest/heartbeat reflex with my chest muscles after some intense anxiety/panic times. It made my heartbeat painful and very noticeable.

I had to do a lot of exposure and conscious challenging of the reflex in order to remove the anxiety connected to the reflex. I had to show my body my heart wouldn't stop if I played around with my chest muscles.

I still am working on this, but I am much better.

I am impressed with how much my body went along with my initial impression that my heart was at risk, developing this very strong defensive reaction!

Thanks for sharing your experience. Could please describe more about subconscious emotional healing techniques? How did you learn about it and is it a solitary practice or one that is guided by a professional?

I am curious too.

Me three

Everyone curious about this is welcome to email me (address in profile).

If you don't hear from me, hit me up again; I'm intending to prepare a doc that explains the approach I've used. I don't want it to be too long, but I just need to find the time to do make it adequate.

But if you can't wait for me to do that, reading/watching content by Bruce Lipton is a good start.

Uurgh, dude - it's not the emotional healing that puts scientifically-minded people off, it's Bruce Lipton's language.

"The subconscious mind is operating at a vibrational frequency of theta". What? That's the kind of nonsense I get from the stoners down in my local pub.

If his techniques work, they work, and I'm happy for you that you have improved your life. I, however, find such language so off-putting that I can't imagine ever trying anything like this

Are you actually in need of this kind of help in the first place? If not, why not just ignore it and move on, rather than posting drive-by bile like this as your one-and-only contribution to the entire thread?

His presentation style is not for everyone, sure. Nobody’s is. He talks in pictures and metaphors, which for many people is the most effective way to receive information.

Not you? No worries!

But consider that you’re only talking about persuasiveness of language/presentation for yourself, not science.

The very quote you picked out to mock is perfectly valid science.

I feel like I'm in need of this kind of help. I have a lot of physical and emotional issues, which I'm pretty sure are related. However, that kind of language does put me off. I'd prefer if someone just uses normal language to communicate.

So if you know someone who communicates the same ideas in a different way, I'd really appreciate it.

You're welcome to contact me for my own doc once I prepare it. I'd welcome your feedback and help in making it valuable to you.

For what it's worth, I come from a mainstream scientific background, and my own view on this subject is not heavily based on Lipton's.

Whoa whoa, steady on. I was interested in what you said, googled Bruce Lipton, and it was obvious to me why people who see themselves as 'scientifically-minded' would dismiss it. My comment was an attempt to demonstrate why

You said "Apparently it doesn't occur to a lot of people that if mind and body are one and the same, mind activity must surely be deeply interconnected to physiology". People aren't rejecting the logic, they're reacting against the language, because it sounds like the language of a group that are an out-group for science-y people

> it was obvious to me why people who see themselves as 'scientifically-minded' would dismiss it

Most people who reflexively dismiss the mind+body link haven't heard of Lipton.

Rejection of this concept is the default for conventionally-minded people in western society, because we've been conditioned over generations to see the mind and body as separate entities (likely due, ironically enough, to religion), and consequently it's a largely unquestioned assumption in medical orthodoxy.

People who are enthusiasts for modern science (i.e., devotees of Richard Dawkins, staunch atheists, etc), seem particularly resistant to questioning this orthodoxy.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. My own worldview is not heavily based on Lipton's. I just suggested it to give people something to start out on, in case it takes me some time to write my own doc.

Like everyone else here, you're welcome to contact me for a copy. I'd welcome your constructive feedback.

"We know the virus is changing quite a lot. That's important for diagnosing (new cases) and for treatment. We need to know how the virus (is changing) to keep up with our enemy." [0]

In 2014, while Liberia battled it's new enemy, the Ebola virus, I battled mine - Debilitating Anxiety. It had brought me to my knees, and I was angry and fed up. Two months before reading that quote, I had been thinking about "lasting change", "radical self-transformation", but just didn't know how to go about it. Change! change! change! That's all i thought about.

I was following the news on the Ebola crises when i read the article and saw the quote. It got me thinking, and i immediately knew what i had to do to change myself. I knew viruses evolved, but i had never deeply thought about how it worked. Like me, this 'nasty' organism simply wanted to survive. I guessed that to change itself, it had to have low level access to the workings of it's internal structures. What if i could also do that? The more i thought i about it, the more i got convinced that it was a path worth exploring. And that's i began hacking my body through yoga and meditation.

It was a very solitary practice for me as most of the people around me ( mostly religious christian folks ) considered it wired and 'demonic'. I did a lot of googling, and read books ("The body keeps the score" included) and I am happy that i had the insight to be patient and give it time. I don't know if my healing and transformation would have happened faster if i had seen a professional, but on hindsight I think my relationships, physical well being, mental health and career are in a better place now because i gave it time.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-31019097

EDITED spelling mistakes

Here is one I know and have practiced that has helped me:

https://thecompletionprocess.com/

I worked with a practitioner I found on the site.

Here is a another that seems similar: https://www.human20.co/the-art-of-conscious-change - I haven't tried it though.

Biodanza is a system created by a Chilean psychiatrist that has worked wonders for me. It's a subconscious emotional healing technique where the process is experienced with a group of people and a person who facilitates the experience.

> as there's a general attitude among scientifically-minded people that the notion of a link between emotions/thoughts and physiology is absurd

I am surprised to hear that's the case, and also it absolutely does not match my experience of the scientifically minded people I know, all of whom are familiar with both the placebo effect and the term psychosomatic.

> all of whom are familiar with both the placebo effect and the term psychosomatic

Sure, but those concepts are more often regarded with dismissiveness in the context I'm talking about.

Try proposing to such a person that chronic auto-immune illness, that has resisted treatment by conventional medicine, could be remedied via non-mainstream subconscious healing techniques.

It's notable that zealots end up tying themselves in knots over these topics. In attacking homeopathy (which, to be clear, I’m not into), Science Based Medicine [1] goes as far as claiming that the placebo effect doesn't bring about any actual physiological improvement, but rather just brings about a feeling of wellbeing.

This seems to contradict the way in which it the concept is used in mainstream medical trials.

It also presumes that "feeling good" and physiological healing are unrelated concepts, which would be surprising from an evolutionary perspective.

But hey what do I know? I'm no doctor, just a poor shmo trying to make sense of it all while trying whatever means possible to get well.

[1] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-myths-debunked/

I don't know anything about the folks behind that website, but a quick survey of the literature would lead me to expect a scientific consensus that the placebo effect is absolutely physiologically real.

Just to pick one particularly interesting study from way back in 1978, Levine, Gordon, and Fields [1] reported in the Lancet that naxolone (better known now as Narcan) can actually block placebo pain relief (in this case, in the context of dental surgery), implying that the placebo analgesia is mediated by actual physiological release of neurotransmitters (in this case, endorphins).

[1] https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(78)92762-9

Yep, indeed.

This isn't the place for an extended discussion/debate about this stuff, as I've long learned that it's driven far more by ideology and ego than actual science.

But I've heard it said by a leading proponent of mind-body health hypotheses and practices, that there's a pattern the debate so often seems to follow when discussing this stuff with materialist hardliners:

You start by suggesting that physiological illnesses can be (at last partially) treated with emotion-based therapies, and they scoff, "that's preposterous".

You then carefully explain it using known, established science, to do with factors like cortisol, the fight/flight response, priority resource allocation, etc.

They then respond "well of course, everyone knows that, there's nothing novel about this at all".

Yet after many years of people talking about, actual practice of this kind of treatment is still confined to the fringes and beyond.

The SBM folks are actually pretty good. The person who started SBM also has a podcast (The Skeptics Guide to the Universe) which is also interesting.

The point that they make constantly is that there are too many shysters selling sham treatments, that when studied turn out no better than the placebo baseline.

I do think it's pretty well established at this point that stress causes inflammation [1]. Chronic inflammation looks like it wrecks havoc on the body and can turn up as all sorts of symptoms. Addressing the psychological issues that are causing the stress absolutely should help. Where the skeptics get caught up, and I believe rightly so, is when practitioners start talking about woo or chi.

[1] https://www.everydayhealth.com/wellness/united-states-of-str...

I've been using some of this stuff for a while now, and it has been helpful. But I get where you're coming from with "chi" (well, I usually see it spelled "qi", which is just a common way to romanize the original Chinese sound). I've had to get somewhat comfortable with the word.

The way I think about it is that we are missing a bunch of words for things that we don't have a very good handle on. We could spend a ton of time analyzing and categorizing, and come up with dozens of new words with satisfyingly precise meaning. Or we could (ab)use qi to mean whatever we want it to mean in a particularly context, and be horribly sloppy about it. From a theoretical mindset, the former is obviously superior; it's the only way to ensure you're making forward progress in understanding. But from a practical perspective, lots of people who aren't hung up on definitions are improving their lives every (well, most) days.

And that's not coincidental. It turns out that one of the biggest barriers to progress (in "life cultivation", but also elsewhere) is insisting on fully understanding every single thing before making use of it. It's a good way to avoid looking at the uncomfortable parts of yourself - just keep insisting "I don't get it. What exactly do you mean by '... sentence involving qi....'?"

We don't do that with power tools or computers. We have to take things on faith somewhere. Which is not to say you can't screw up by being too loose about it. There are plenty of people who say deep-sounding and nonsensical things while everyone nods wisely and knowingly. (But not all of those listeners are fooling themselves, either. Some are ignoring the details of the gibberish and are instead mapping it to what they think the person is trying to say based on what they know to be true from examining themselves.) And because of the imprecise language used, you're limited in what you can use to distinguish people who really have something to say from idiots parroting nonsense. Look at outcomes, if you can.

So it doesn't bother me too much when people say speed instead of velocity, or qi instead of the 100 different things it might mean: energy, blood, nerve impulses, the flow of cause and effect, change, rate of change, acceleration of change,... If someone has something to say but no shared words to say it with, I can't blame them for using a placeholder.

All that being said, 99% of what you'll read that mentions qi is really and truly nonsense. The imprecision is too good a place to hide bullshit, and there is an overwhelming quantity of bullshit to be hidden.

Anyone who is scientifically minded enough to have spent some time learning biology and human anatomy has probably heard of hormones such as adrenaline and have felt their effects on the body. Under stress we sweat, feel jittery or flighty, get dry mouth, have trouble speaking clearly, and more.

Casually speaking, it might seem easy to wave off such body changes in response to emotion as a temporary thing. That would be premature. Cortisol is another hormone associated with stress and people with stressful lives show elevated cortisol levels which may be related to weight gain and obesity [1].

[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2009.76

My partner is also heavily burdened by emotional trauma that has resulted in asthma, stomach issues, urinary tract infections (where every urinary analysis finds some other obscure bacteria, not common anywhere).

The emotional trauma, constant tension, lack of meaning, depression, inability to learn anything, or learning very slowly, bad autobiographical memory, all symptoms listed in the article.

I truly believe if she were to do something about the mind that stuff would get better. And I'm a very hard-science guy that reads Cochrane and doubts everything. Although, problem is that CBT does not work for her, talking with professionals does not work too.

Obviously, the issues are that the bodies immune system is weakened from some stress that should not be there.

The article also mentions that CBT does little for this kind of trauma. There are more effective treatments. They're listed towards the end.

I would honestly be surprised if this kind of link didn't have at least some measurable impact, physiology is hardly decoupled (in the coding sense). It's been well established that poor mental health (loss of will to live) correlates strongly with early mortality, even when controlling for obvious variables. Though establishing the causality on that is challenging.

There are lots of strange physiological links that aren't necessarily logical, due to the imperfect nature of natural selection (it strives for the local optima and "good enough," over the global optima). For instance it's well documented that consciously smiling improves mood, even though the causality is "backwards."

> natural selection (it strives for the local optima and "good enough," over the global optima)

It might also optimize for the community rather than the individual, I suppose.

Sounds interesting. I also have some minor but unsettling symptoms which I think could be related to such things. Would you mind sharing what kind of symptoms you experience?

It ended up as something resembling "chronic fatigue syndrome". That very concept is controversial, as is the notion that it has any underlying emotional cause, so I don't frequent CFS communities or talk about it in those terms much, but it does seem to be in that sphere of illnesses.

Defining symptoms have included chronic muscle tension/pain, slow digestion, immune system dysfunction, enlarged/painful lymph nodes, unrefreshing sleep, always feeling under-oxygenated/undernourished even when having a very healthy diet, a constant sense feeling "tired and wired", or "spinning the wheels"; i.e., at-once feeling exhausted, but also like your body/mind is working at full speed, but not being able to get much forward momentum in life.

What are the techniques you've used? Any information available online?

My reply here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21342725

You're basically describing the past 10 years of medical mystery for me, especially this:

"unrefreshing sleep, always feeling under-oxygenated/undernourished even when having a very healthy diet, a constant sense feeling "tired and wired", or "spinning the wheels"; i.e., at-once feeling exhausted, but also like your body/mind is working at full speed, but not being able to get much forward momentum in life."

Completely, utterly on point. Thank you!

How do you feel 'undernourished'?

Hard to explain, but I guess Bilbo Baggins said it best: "like butter scraped over too much bread."

I exercise (primarily weights and yoga, plus cardio here and there) 3-4 times per week, eat incredibly healthy (lots of greens and lean proteins), get enough sleep (7-9 hours). My blood pressure, weight, and BMI are great. I have sleep apnea and am allergic to wheat but have treated those as best I can (the former is difficult, the latter is quite simple).

And yet, I feel sort of "removed." Constantly fatigued. Kind of like being in caffeine withdrawal (and no, that's not it). Don't feel as strong as my exercise and age (late 20's) would have you think. Always dehydrated. Very little "vitality."

Around the same time period, I was "floxxed" by Cipro, and got Mono. My best explanation is that it has something to do with one or both, but no doctor has ever figured it out. By all accounts, I'm very healthy. I just constantly feel like shit.

Have you tried any antivirals against EBV?

That's very interesting. I know someone who has had very similar symptoms for years; they come and go. Doctors have been unable to diagnose/fix it. Started with getting mono years ago.

From these comments, it seems actually not that uncommon. Yet given the vagueness of the symptoms / inability to diagnose accurately, it doesn't really have a name and is not considered seriously by the medical profession.

I share most of these symptoms, for years.

chronic muscle pain (and believe me, pain means pain, like a knife in your articulations), immune system dysfunction (asthma, arthritis), enlarged lymph nodes, unrefreshing sleep, tired and wired.

Current solution : see the doctors often (it makes me feel safe), tai chi twice a week + chi kung routine every day. When I'll be in better shape, I'll start swimming and running again. But the more you spend on yourself, the less you spend on family which is quite a dilemma. I eat vegetables and much less meat but can't stay away from sugar :-). I don't drink coffee/alcohol, I don't smoke (so the usual quick fix don't apply for me).

Believe me : don't ever get in that kind of problems. Every day is like half a day : you don't enjoy your life and it's borderline depression/burn out for months.

> But the more you spend on yourself, the less you spend on family which is quite a dilemma.

Can you include your family in your workouts.

Ask kids to do chi kung [1] (i.e. standing almost still for 20 minutes in a row), just try :-)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhan_zhuang

A couple of years of solid therapy led my therapist to suggest EMDR... A couple of test sessions established that I responded to a vibrating stimulus (hand held paddles) (as opposed to actual eye movement or audio tones) and five distinct sessions over the past few months have made changes in my emotional state and baseline thinking that I would never have believed possible.

(Yes, some extreme trauma uncovered and at least partially resolved, that I won't elaborate on here.)

I still consciously think the EMDR technique is "magic", as I am otherwise a very staunch hard science person, but I swear by its effectiveness now, and if I feel like I'm experiencing any further emotional blocks or 'knee jerk' reactions, I'll do it again in a heartbeat.

Forty years of much of the symptoms in the book, and nearly destroying my 17 year marriage, is easing to an amazing degree, and I feel like I actually have a life now.

Have you read John Sarno?