A Healthy perspective to Disease
Journey from illness to wellness is about journey from limitation and sense of lack towards ‘freedom to choose’ and experiencing wellbeing with inner sense of abundance. Dr.Ameeta Thacker
Health has been defined and conceived in different ways from times immemorial .Though It is a positive concept yet abstract and quite subjective. Each one perceives and lives through their own understanding of the state of health and disease .It is quite relative and an individualistic experience. From etymological perspective health means ‘a being whole; sound or well’. WHO defines health as a ‘state of complete physical mental and social wellbeing not merely absence of disease or infirmity. While different cultures have different ways and facets of explaining the term health, there is Sanskrit word for health called as ‘Swasthaya’ which means ‘being centered in own Self’. In the Indian context Self means – Sat chitananda – being in bliss of consciousness - a true sense of well being. Any deviation from this state of well being is called as disease. This brings it closest to the deeper meaning of health with respect to Self – and whole of human being in its true essence.
Wellbeing is our birth right and privilege that we forget to choose as we grow through our lives We only pay attention to when we fall prey to disease and disturbing situations within body or outside of us.
In today’s times Health has been measured most of the times in terms of ‘absence of a disease’ with the criteria of the clinical investigations within normal range. Modern man is concerned more about his investigation reports showing everything in the so called ‘Normal range’. Any abnormality in the investigations can urge him to prompt action towards medical treatment in contrast to the signs of little nudges of the state of uneasiness and disharmony in his body functions , day to day affairs, work place or interpersonal relationships.
Perceiving and Living healthy these days looks like saying there is ‘no thorn there’ but the presence of the flower in its entirety with its leaves and thorn is by itself different experience altogether .
With the evolution of human species, perspective to health and disease too evolved ; along with that also evolved side –by –side different forms of intervention of restoring to health and elimination of disease.
Something that started from primitive times- healing with forces of nature (aborigines)evolved through Weird practices of warding off evil (the then perceived cause of disease and dogmatic approach of religion) which further went through the process of healing through Worshipping and Prayers ; with the modern times came to rescue through more scientific ways of healing.
Medical world then opened up new dimension to healing and health though it got polarized and started focusing on the physical aspects of the disease – i.e. derangement of human biology and physiology so to say . As a result of which dealing with the mental health got separated and remained limited to the stream of psychologists and psychiatrists.
Scientific approach led to in depth study of the ‘cause of the derangement of the health’. Over the centuries focus shifted on understanding the cause of the symptom and removing them rather than understanding -what is health? Or what is state of well being in a true sense?
At a subtler level it emphasized on removing negativity from a being rather than exploring Positivity within a being. So over a period of time efforts went towards finding the cause of the diseases ranging from Malnutrition , lack of hygiene , various infectious agents (virus ,bacteria ,fungi etc) ,dysfunction in metabolism , genetic inheritance and in recent times blaming it on lifestyle conditions . Soon from the then weird holistic approach to disease , medical interventions started developing reductionist approach as science and spirituality parted ways through advances in technology and industrialization ,while psychology became one of the subject separate from the human body .
In the recent years with the advent of technology mankind has more or less got closer to mastering the intervention at the level of physical body health .However the range of diseases in modern times likes of lifestyle disorders , cancer , autoimmune disorders , have once again started bringing a lot of attention on the holistic dimension - i.e. Derangement of mind body link in the inception of disease. A recent study in the emerging scientific discipline of Psycho Neuro Endocrine Immunology (PNI) validates the mind body link in the development of the disease and brings to full circle the understanding of health and disease in a holistic way.
While mainstream medicine is still getting stuck on the reductionist approach focusing on the ailing part of the human body the New age alternative therapies which has wide range of different kinds of esoteric healing practices , hypnotherapy , homeopathy etc have been reliable fallback for a quite large segment of population who are dejected by the vagaries of the modern medicine world.
It has been possible to merge science and spirit; and come to confluence point of physiology psychology and underlying mystical element of soul or the spirit or the vital force or the consciousness in one individualized unit of human system with some of these alternative esoteric healing modalities.
Interestingly Hippocrates the father of modern Medicine had always drawn attention towards mind body medicine back way back 400BC. He wrote –Natural forces within us are the true healers of the disease. Around mid twentieth century student of Freud, Chicago psychiatrist Franz Alexander developed a form of medicine based on psychoanalysis which led to the formal development of the mind body field called as psychosomatic medicine .He stated that –“The fact that the mind rules the body is, in spite of its neglect by biology and medicine, the most fundamental fact which we know about the process of life”.
Practically speaking 95 % of illnesses are now considered as Psychosomatic. Awareness of population is shifting towards healthy lifestyle free from stress .Researchers in PNI have investigated that the Key to health lies not in avoidance of stress but Coping with the stress . Distress is the’ inner reaction to stress’ which results out of inadequate coping mechanisms to stress.
Health and disease are thereby now considered as the states based on the inner abilities to cope with stress .Each one has individual coping mechanisms of stress based on our personality traits which are influenced by the child hood programming and genetic inheritance .The blue print of how we feel ,cope up with our feelings, thoughts and behave in a certain manner is anchored in our personality traits While our personality is largely result of how our inherent nature is interacting and influenced by our environmental inputs. As one grows their coping mechanisms indicate the way they are unconsciously or consciously choosing state of health or disease.
Disease is a state of dis- ease and disharmony within. It arises in the state of dis -integrity of one’s thought feeling emotions and actions. It is outcome of one ‘s coping strategies to the external and internal situations ,however ultimately Free will and Choice to get well and bounce back to state of health enables one to transform the ‘dis-ease within’ to a state of ‘ease and well being’ – the state of health .So to say Dis- ease states become indicators of prevailing disintegrity between mind and body and the ineffective coping mechanisms as a survival strategy .Hence addressing disease at a mind body level restores to holistic state of well being.
A healthy perspective to disease is a choice that one can take to transform into state of health and use it to one’s advantage. Disease can be perceived as stepping stones to health just as failures are considered as a stepping stone to success.
Negation of dis-ease or killing and suppressing the symptoms of the disease may deprive one from the Awareness and acknowledgement of their coping abilities ,thereby depriving them of chance to come to terms with it and live a more fuller and wholesome life.
Disease actually speaks about what their mind cannot speak and where the soul or spirit remains unaware and expresses at the level of Body as well as through different distressing situations .There have been quite a few amazing case studies where undoing and unlearning of the conflicts and awareness with acceptance of it has reversed diseased conditions.
A Lady diagnosed with PCOD and diagnosed with primary infertility went through all possible modern medicine treatments till she allowed herself to open up and acknowledge her emotional conflict vis-a –vis being a woman and on acceptance of it is now a mother of two lovely children.
Another case of girl not having breathing space with her father and pent up helplessness and hostility with the situations all along came up with bad attack of asthma. After having worked through the connecting thread of events stemming from childhood incidents she could find herself and breathing space free from all the distressing emotions.
A healthy perspective to disease can open up to metaphysical perspective of disease which can make way for a whole new paradigm of health and its overall impact on the health of the society at large.
