I’m Peter Winslow, a life coach based in Scottsdale AZ. Whether you believe it or not, no matter what condition you are in, it turns out that every individual has the ability to improve their health by tapping into the body’s built-in healing resources.
I’d like to share some recent scientific studies that corroborate this statement. Here are just a few:
1. Through the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, eighty-two high school students in Kosovo participated in a randomized-controlled study which concluded that “…all students had experienced post-traumatic stress, flashbacks, nightmares, and symptoms of withdrawal and numbing in the war-torn area of Kosovo where 90% of the homes were burned and bombed and 20% of the children lost one or both parents.”
The small group settings used healing techniques including meditation, guided imagery, breathing exercises and biofeedback as well as self-expression through words, drawings, and movement. Following the program, the number of students having symptoms indicating post-traumatic stress disorder was significantly reduced from 18% to 100%.
2. Johns Hopkins Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (“CAM”) reported in a survey the following statistics relating to the use of complementary and alternative therapies (referred to as “CAM”):
• 40% of Americans use some form of complimentary or alternative therapy for chronic conditions
• CAM was most frequently used for pain control, and nearly 50% reported using CAM because their prescribed medications were ineffective
• More than half of these patients used dietary supplements or herbal therapies, and almost two-thirds of the patients found CAM to be helpful
• 30% to 70% of cancer patients who are inadequately treated by their physicians turn to CAM in the hope of curing or alleviating their pain
3. The Johns Hopkins Medicine and Digestive Center reports the following excerpts from a summary of integrative psychotherapy:
“We know that our minds can quickly jump to worst-case scenarios, worry, and self-defeating behaviors. We can feel overwhelmed… these thought patterns can lead to illness … as patients come to understand what triggers their pain, anxiousness… old patterns lose their hold… enabling changes… to move beyond prior limitations of thought and attitude.”
Also supporting the use of complementary and alternative therapies is a study of 23,000 adults by the National Institute of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
4. A study on Aging by Harvard Psychologist Ellen Langer concluded that thoughts about how old you are affect how old or young you feel and how your body responds, as reported in Newsweek. Subjects were put into an environment to simulate living 20 years ago; the participants actually felt as if their age had been turned back two decades. Outside observers noted that the subjects appeared to be younger and healthier than they were before the experiment.
I trust you find these conclusions to have relevance in your own life, and give you confidence that no matter what your condition, you really can improve the situation.
–Peter Winslow, life coach
