Mind Over Medicine
{5/5} “If you’re lonely, you’re stuck in a toxic relationship, you’re full of resentment for people who have hurt you, you’re cheating on your partner, you’re selling your soul at work, or you feel spiritually bankrupt, no amount of veggies, gym visits, 12-step programs, or vitamins is going to cut it. Radical self-care also involves things like setting boundaries, living in alignment with your truth, surrounding yourself with love and a sense of connection, and spending time doing what you love.”
Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself by Lissa Rankin, M.D., published in 2013
This may be the most controversial book that I’ve reviewed here. Nevertheless I encourage everyone to read it, especially if you have a chronic health problem — it may be that the root cause of your problem is mental rather than physical.
Rankin begins by talking about the placebo effect. She makes you think about it in a way that you probably haven’t thought about it before. If you read this first chapter, you’re guaranteed to want to read the rest of the book.
She talks about various things besides physical health that are important — such as healthy relationships, a meaningful way to spend your day, a fully expressed creative life, a healthy financial life, a healthy environment, and a healthy mental and emotional life.
She talks about what can trigger stress, including loneliness and various things in the workplace. She shows that happy and optimistic people live longer, and that meditation lowers blood pressure.
Rankin suggests a 6-step process for healing yourself:
- believe you can heal yourself
- find the right support
- listen to your body and intuition
- diagnose the root causes of your illness
- write the prescription for yourself
- surrender attachment to outcomes
She gives lots of help for going through this process in the book, but also encourages you to go through it with someone who’s trained in helping people deal with emotional issues. She uses herself as an example — she went through this process, and she shows you what she did to overcome her own chronic issues.
Here’s one more quotation: “When the pain of staying put exceeds the fear of the unknown, you leap.”