Joan Borysenko
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By: Da Capo Press
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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Healing
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9
Average rating: 4.0 of 5
Minding your thoughts can mend your body 4 out of 5 stars.
29 of 29 people found this review helpful.
MINDING THE BODY, MENDING THE MIND by Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., was recommended to me when I was trying to adjust to a new work environment. I found it tremendously informative and helpful in a number of ways.
Borysenko is the cofounder of the Mind/Body Clinic at New England Deaconess Hospital at the Harvard Medical School and has her doctorate in anatomy and cellular biology from Harvard. This book reflects her experience in the relatively new medical field of psychoneuroimmunology, which studies how the mind interacts with the body for illness and for healing.
The book is specifically about meditation and can be used as a how-to for self instruction in the practice. What I liked about it is that it provides a physiological case for the helpfulness of meditation while it teaches the reader how to use what Borysenko has pioneered in medical circles, that meditation and controlled relaxation have a positive impact on general health and, sometimes, on specific illnesses.
Borysenko explains how our bodies become conditioned to stress and respond accordingly with anxiety symptoms and that, through meditation practice, individuals can recondition themselves not to feel the physical manifestations of stress, which are so taxing to general health.
Borysenko's medical credentials are meaningful to me, and her ability to illustrate how the brain and the body are interdependent was helpful to me, as we are taught in our culture to keep the two separate and devalue our ability to impact our health through our mental reactions and proactiveness.
Even if one doesn't use the book to learn to meditate, Borysenko has a great deal to offer in terms of quality of life to her readers. The book really helps the reader to recognize harmful mental patterns and stop them, to exercise cognitive control, so that stress is diffused before the anxiety is felt in the body. She writes about "awfulizing," obsessing over something stressful, second-guessing ourselves, etc., and how to stop it through positive thought that is healing, rather than stress-making. The chapter called "Mind Traps" is especially helpful in this regard, and I find myself using her tips to diffuse tension AND improve the situation.
I strongly recommend this book, even for those who aren't interested in meditation. Borysenko provides evidence on how positive thought processes can be achieved and how they can make a difference. This book is considered a classic in the field, and it deserves the esteem that has made it so.
Editorial Review:
Based on Dr. Borysenko’s groundbreaking work nearly twenty years ago at the Mind/Body Clinic in Boston, Minding the Body, Mending the Mind continues to be a classic in the field, with time-tested tips on how to take control of your own physical and emotional wellbeing. The clinic’s dramatic success with thousands of patients-with conditions ranging from allergies to cancer-offers vivid proof of the effectiveness of the mind/body approach to health and its power to transform your life. Here are tips on how to elicit the mind’s powerful relaxation response to boost your immune system, cope with chronic pain, and alleviate symptoms of a host of stress-related illnesses. Updated with the recent developments in the field, the new edition is a must-have for anyone interested in taking an active role in healing himself or herself.
