I was at a dinner party once, back when these were a common occurrence, listening to some of the mothers in the group. They were discussing all the tasks they had finished that day before coming to dinner—grocery shopping, running errands, preparing for the week ahead and more. The conversation turned to stress and stress reduction, and eventually about meditation as a solution. I shared with the group that meditation is effective in reducing stress and anxiety and that it helped me slow down my thoughts, and that when I meditated my day was more productive. One of the women was in pure disbelief. “You believe in all this stuff, being a doctor?” She asked.
The “stuff” she was referring to is the connection between our emotions and physical health. Hormones such as serotonin, dopamine, cortisol, estrogen, testosterone and more affect the human body. They’re regulated by an endocrine gland in the brain called the pituitary gland, which is influenced by the limbic system that is also in the brain. The limbic system is the part of the brain responsible for emotions and memory, and it regulates your response to emotional stimuli.
Emotional health indirectly influences our physical health from the limbic system to our pituitary gland to our peripheral endocrine glands such as the ovary, thyroid, adrenal glands and many more. When you spend time jumping from one task to the other, trying to meet deadlines and not enjoying what you’re doing, you’re in a state of stress. Stress keeps your body prepared and ready for possible life-threatening events: this is known as the flight-or-fight response.
Recently, I saw a patient who fractured her wrist playing tennis. She was under the impression that since she had osteoporosis, she could never play tennis again or participate in any physical activities for fear of breaking another bone. During the visit, I tried to convince her that weight-bearing activities such as tennis is part of the treatment for osteoporosis. Her fear of breaking another bone was an imminent threat to her, and she was mentally preparing her body for this future event. As a result, she couldn’t accept any information that would interfere in her preparation for this future crisis. She left that visit believing she had a serious condition that required drastic lifestyle changes. She returned several weeks later for another visit. After the first few minutes of the visit, I shared my observations about her fear of vulnerability and how it affected the decisions she had made in her life. She thought for a few seconds, and then asked if I really thought she could play tennis again.
Her thoughts were focused on the fracture she had in the past and her desire to prevent another fracture in the future. My observation jolted her thoughts to her current state, allowing her to consider her situation in a different light.
Everyone has thousands of thoughts that run through the mind daily. Most of which tend to be repetitive. Some researchers postulate that more than 80% of our thoughts can be negative in nature. There is no consensus on the number of thoughts our mind experiences in a day, but it ranges from 6,000 to 70,000 depending on how a thought is calculated and whether we’re including those during sleep.
Meditation helps focus the mind’s attention on one thing and reduces the number of thoughts that go through the mind. Reducing the number of thoughts allows for clarity of the mind. It’s much like having a workspace free of clutter. The decrease in the number of thoughts we are addressing every minute, improves focus and concentration. Reduction of thoughts calms the mind enough to reduce stress and anxiety.
As a physician, my patients prove to me how a calm mind can improve healing. A mind that is in tune with its current state gains perspective on its physical health. Resting the mind is good for the body, and taking the time to meditate helps keep the stresses of day-to-day life in perspective.
Rajina Ranadiva, M.D., is a board certified internal medicine physician with the St. Joseph’s Medical Group. She is also the medical director of the Petaluma Post-Acute Rehab. She can be reached at (707) 763-0802.
