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Writer's pictureDr Mish Grubisa

What is Mind Body Medicine?

Updated: Mar 4, 2023



Mind-body medicine is the fastest growing evidence based areas of healthcare. Based on the latest research in pain science, it focuses on intervention strategies that promote health and wellbeing from a multi-modal approach.


According to Moss et al. (2003) mind-body medicine is a revolutionary 21st century approach to managing one’s health that includes combining a an array of behavioural and lifestyle interventions such as cognitive - behavioural therapies, breath-work, hypnosis, guided visualisation, meditation and biofeedback alongside anti inflammatory dietary detoxification protocols, yoga, physical therapy and movement strategies to support total health and wellbeing.


The foundational principles of mind-body medicine


1) Focus on healing core issues of the whole person versus treating symptoms,

2) Collaboration between the healthcare provider and the client,

3) Partnership among multidisciplinary healthcare providers for the individual client,

4) Empowering clients in their healing and treatment decision-making, and

5) Biopsychosocial Model of health which incorporates the physical, emotional, social, environmental, mental, behavioural, and spiritual elements to healing.


Assessment, diagnosis, and treatment interventions focus on the whole patient in totality of mind, body, and spirit with the philosophy that we are more than the sum of our parts.


Mind-body medicine employs the use of a partnership among medical and healthcare practitioners and results in an integrated care team addressing client health and disease.


This integrated team often includes support from many specialties, for example, physicians, nurses, various mind-body medicine specialists, massage therapists, physical therapists, nutritionists, and even wellness mentors, counsellors, chiropractors, and yoga teachers, etc. (Moss et al., 2003).


Many studies have demonstrated that these practices can improve both physical and mental health and can reverse the negative health effects of chronic pain, illness and dis-ease by decreasing levels of stress hormones in the body.


What can Mind Body Medicin help with?


Mind-body approaches may be helpful in addressing many different physical and emotional medical conditions, including:


  • Chronic pain conditions

  • Back Pain and Sciatica

  • Neck pain, Headaches and Jaw / TMJ disorders

  • Stress and Anxiety

  • Depression

  • Insomnia

  • Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue

  • Cancer

  • Coronary artery disease

  • Hypertension

  • Atrial fibrillation and other arrhythmias

  • Gastrointestinal conditions

  • Gastroesophageal reflux, irritable bowel syndrome

  • Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis

  • Menopause symptoms, hormone imbalances

  • Polycystic ovary syndrome, infertility

  • Multiple sclerosis

  • Psoriasis and Eczma

  • Rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune conditions


Getting to the root cause


While mind-body medicine practices help treat core clinical imbalances and promote healing of many different types of diseases, they also promote resilience and can help you to for example unleash your best thinking, bring your best selves to the care of others, establish clarity and calm during chaos and help you live a happier and more fulfilled life.


There are multiple ways to learn mind-body skills. We offer educational programs, individual skills building during office visits, and refer to community resources as well. Please talk with our integrative physician about which approaches may be best for you.


Stress and Inflammation is linked to every disease we know of so I invite you to consider:

What might you want to try? How might you incorporate some mind-body medicine techniques into your self-care routine? What else might you want to learn about mind-body medicine?


There is hope


If you’ve tried everything to cure yourself of your pain, illness, anxiety, or fatigue and want to create a life that really nourishes YOU…it’s time to let go of the fight.


If you are curious to find out more about mind body medicine and how we can support you on your healing journey, feel free to connect by booking yourself a Holistic Counselling appointment now by visiting; https://www.karrathawellnesscentre.com.au/team


References:


Moss, D., McGrady, A., Davies T.C., and Wickramasekera, I., (Ed.). (2003). Handbook of mind-body medicine for primary care. Sage Publications.


Gilbert, M. D. (2003). Weaving medicine back together: Mind-body medicine in the twenty-first century. Journal of Alternative and complementary Medicine, 9(4), 563-570.







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