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Page 4
At first, you try to relax--which is difficult for most without practice and some training (to be in another article to come)---and after five or so minutes you hear a short "beep."
"That's it," your trainer encourages. "Now just make the tone make the stay on for longer and longer periods." You wonder what it is that you are doing to make the machine (and hence your heart rate) responsive, and you might even ask. Most do. Your trainer will typically say, "Just keep relaxing...you'll see." And see, you will. In no time, maybe one or two one-hour sessions you'll be able to forthrightly turn on the tone and keep it on for as long as you like. But what have you really done? You have accomplished something that was thought a mere 40 years ago, and before, to be impossible: you have learned instrumental control over an autonomic (read: automatic) response. Not unlike working for a paycheck, you have learned how to perform a response in order to achieve something. What is unusual is that you have learned to exert voluntary control over an involuntary system. You can do this for blood pressure, temperature for the body as a whole or specific body parts such as the hands and feet, general arousal--or the opposite: relaxation (via the galvanic skin response), muscle tension for general musculature or specific muscles (e.g. tension headaches), brain waves and many, many more physiologic, autonomic responses. Now the real leap: Can humans train their immune system and prevent or lessen disease? They can train their heart rate, blood pressure, gastrointestinal motility, muscle tension, vasodilatation, temperature, brain waves, and so on. Most clinicians and researchers who are involved in some way with Psycho-Immunology say yes. The research is in its beginning stages and effort and time will tell. The prognosis is excellent. Please check out the link section, there are some new ones which deal with Psycho-Immunology. Next article: The Psychosomatic World--You're sick, but instead of medicine or surgery, your doctor tells you it's all in your mind. Can there be such a thing? You bet! It's called Psychosomatic Disease and its responsible for much of what ails us much of the time. Here's hoping you feel good today and even better tomorrow.
The copyright of the article Psycho-Immunology: Patient Heal Thyself. - Page 4 in Health Psychology is owned by Dr. Bob Orndoff. Permission to republish Psycho-Immunology: Patient Heal Thyself. - Page 4 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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