#7 The Science Behind the Biology of Belief

 

Doctor Gabrielle Duebendorfer with the second in her series.

 

The Biology of Belief – The Influence of Emotions and Beliefs on Health

Dr. Sarno describes in his book “The Divided Mind” how 80% of his patients

with musculo-skeletal pain get complete relief by understanding and

accepting the normal physiological process of the mind substituting physical

pain or other symptoms to prevent stronger underlying emotions from

emerging into consciousness. The mind subconsciously needs to suppress

strong rage, deep sadness or other emotional pain as it perceives them

as more threatening to survival than actual physical pain. Accepting this

understanding of the mind’s tendency to use pain as a distraction for self-
preservation as a normal physiological reaction plays a large role in the

disappearance of pain in Dr. Sarno’s practice because it undermines the

brain’s unconscious strategy.

Now this might sound quite unbelievable but there is more and more

evidence emerging that is supporting his theory and results. Dr. Lipton, in

his book “The Biology of Belief”, explains that beliefs formed in childhood

influence our stress responses in the body as they were unconsciously

embedded at the cellular level. There are actual perception proteins on the

cell membrane surface of each cell that evaluate whether the environment is

perceived as safe or threatening, which then cause the whole organism to go

either into defense or growth mode. If reinforced over time this is actually

laid down as particular pathways in the nervous system that replay whenever

these particular beliefs are triggered.

Recent research as shared on Science Friday has confirmed for the first

time that recalling particular memories activates very specific neurons

that contain that memory. The good thing is that they also were able to

show that these memories are plastic, i.e. can be reshaped by introducing

a new memory. By activating its opposite and holding both together, both

memories get woven together into new possibilities. This has tremendous

potential on how we can resolve conditioning from the past.

If this past conditioning to suppress emotions to keep us safe is not

addressed, the body’s response to this continued internal stress will

eventually cause physical and/or psychological disease as the body has no

way of actually fighting or fleeing from this threat. Dr Mate, in his book

“When the Body Says No”, explains how in most of us emotional competence

has been compromised by having learned to repress intense emotions in

order to avoid shame and rejection, which would have threatened our

survival as infants and young children. When a potent trigger activates

these memories, this learned helplessness prevents one from extricating

oneself out of the situation even if it were entirely possible.

This compromised emotional competence has caused us to loose our gut

feeling of our inherent warning system that something might be out of

balance. As a result, in response to some unconsciously perceived threat

based on past conditioning, the body mounts a stress response with the full

chemical and nervous system activation while the mind is unaware of it. This

has huge impact on the PNI system – a complex system that connects our

psyche, nervous system, immune system and hormonal system through nerve

connections as well as constant biochemical cross talk – that is designed to

ensure our survival.

When stimulated by continued stress over a prolonged period of time all

organ systems in the body are affected and start breaking down, causing

symptoms and pain – perhaps a more effective way of the body saying NO

if we are beginning to listen to it. Inflammatory bowel disease and reflux,

chronic musculo-skeletal or nerve pain, hypertension and artherosclerosis,

osteoporosis, anxiety and depression, allergic reactions are just a few

of the diseases that can arise as a response. If these cries for help are

suppressed with surgery or pharmaceutical or natural drugs, the symptoms

will just show up somewhere else. In fact the term “symptom imperative”

is well-know in psycho somatic medicine, where there is one symptom at a

time alternating in different pathologies, i.e. joint pain alternating with more

severe episodes of anxiety.

Luckily we now know that these conditioned behaviors based on cellular,

nervous and muscular memory, can be changed. There are many different

approaches to bring these unconscious beliefs and emotions into the

conscious mind and rewire nerve circuitry. Dr. Sorno encourages patients

to consciously undermine the mind’s unconscious protective methods

by imparting knowledge about the process, systematically examining

contributing beliefs/emotions and focusing on them instead of on the

physical pain and how to manage it.

Dr Lipton focuses on re-establishing self-regulation by feeling and

expressing emotions effectively, learning to differentiate psychological

reactions that are based in the present from those based on past

conditioning , and increasing awareness of genuine needs rather than

repressing them.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programs teach people to be present

with what is and relax regardless what situation you find yourself in.

Integrative Restoration (iRest) takes it one step further and includes

meditative inquiry into these underlying unconscious beliefs and emotions as

well as actively nourishing that underlying, unchanging sense of well-being.

There are many more somatic based methods that recognize that traumatic

memories are stored in particular muscle tension patterns. They primarily

encourage development of feeling safe in the body again and focus more

on relaxing body sensing/releasing techniques. Some of them also include

more body sensing oriented inquiry in to the underlying emotions/beliefs –

i.e. Trauma Release Exercises, Trauma Yoga, Integrative Restoration (iRest),

Trauma Resiliency Process, Somatic Experiencing, yoga therapy

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