mindfulness healing book thing?
May 1, 2018 8:58 AM Subscribe
While I know there are specific healing-oriented-style meditations and apps you can use, I was wondering if there was a practical non-woo book in the "healing your body with your mind" area that you guys might recommend (if such a thing exists). Seems like even ones that profess to root themselves somewhere near science are mostly woo and pseudoscience. Maybe such a guide does not exist? but figured I'd ask.
Thanks once again, mefiters. : )
Response by poster: Good suggestion lizifer. I've read chunks of it, and also took Kabat-Zinn's MBSR class. ;) The book is giant and unwieldy, kinda too full of anecdotes, I found. When you parse his stuff down, it is indeed useful, and the class was the best info I could find so far on various types of meditation that is as you say, pretty woo-free. Still, I'm looking for anything else that might be additionally useful in that realm, specifically regarding healing the body.
posted by bitterkitten at 9:05 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by bitterkitten at 9:05 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
The author of The Relaxation Response basically took transcendental meditation and scienced it. Here's an article about him.
posted by FencingGal at 9:20 AM on May 1, 2018
posted by FencingGal at 9:20 AM on May 1, 2018
Years and years ago, I read a book by Dr. Andrew Weil that discusses the mind-body connection, called Health and Healing. I also read something by him on spontaneous healing. It's been so long that I can't remember if what I read was a chapter/part in Health and Healing, or if it was the entire actual book he wrote about it called (oddly enough ;-) ) Spontaneous Healing
In any case I would recommend both of those books. As I remember, they were both had a pretty low woo-factor, and in the first, he discusses different kinds of treatments/health care approaches, with a strong focus on the mind-body connection.
Interesting to me was that he is an MD who trained as a botanist, which he mentions in the context of evaluating herbal remedies -- in particular, when making the point that often the whole plant of traditional medicine can be more effective, and certainly less toxic, than the modern medicine approach of trying to isolate and concentrate a single active ingredient from a source.
posted by leticia at 10:18 AM on May 1, 2018
In any case I would recommend both of those books. As I remember, they were both had a pretty low woo-factor, and in the first, he discusses different kinds of treatments/health care approaches, with a strong focus on the mind-body connection.
Interesting to me was that he is an MD who trained as a botanist, which he mentions in the context of evaluating herbal remedies -- in particular, when making the point that often the whole plant of traditional medicine can be more effective, and certainly less toxic, than the modern medicine approach of trying to isolate and concentrate a single active ingredient from a source.
posted by leticia at 10:18 AM on May 1, 2018
It's not so much a "howto," but you might be interested in Robert Sapolsky's Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
posted by rhizome at 10:31 AM on May 1, 2018
posted by rhizome at 10:31 AM on May 1, 2018
Best answer: Dr Phil Blustein is a real, non-woo gastroenterologist (he performed a number of colonoscopies on me). His website includes his book Mindfulness Medication for free.
posted by angiep at 11:11 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by angiep at 11:11 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: The Art and Science of Mindfulness by Shauna Shapiro and Linda Carlson covers the current state of research in this field. Shapiro and Carlson are both academics and this text is a well thought out and accessible discussion of mindfulness and its mental and physical effects.
posted by Altomentis at 10:25 PM on May 1, 2018
posted by Altomentis at 10:25 PM on May 1, 2018
I can't remember if Conquering Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Other Repetitive Strain Injuries: A Self-Care Program even alludes to mindfulness explicitly, but in practice the kind of stretching it teaches is extremely mindful (and effective!)
posted by callmejay at 9:39 AM on May 2, 2018
posted by callmejay at 9:39 AM on May 2, 2018
Best answer: If you're looking for books which explain why meditation might change the body or be part of a physical healing process, here are some books/articles on mind-body theory that I have enjoyed:
Meaning, Medicine and the Placebo Effect is written by a medical anthropologist and is an exploration of how culture affects our response to medicine.
The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force is a discussion of why thoughts can drive physical changes in the body, written by a UCLA psychiatrist researcher who is best known for his work with thought-based treatments for OCD (see also his books "Brain Lock" and "You Are Not Your Brain").
The Brain That Changes Itself is a popular book full of stories about neuroplasticity, written by an MD who is also a hell of a storyteller. (See also the follow-up: The Brain's Way of Healing)
Clinical Behavioral Medicine, written by a Stanford researcher in the late 1980s, covers placebo, hypnosis, qualities that make people more vulnerable to chronic stress.
Zen and the Brain is written by a neuroscientist who meditates. Dry, enormous and rigorous, but if you are looking to understand how meditation in particular affects the brain it's definitely worth a look.
The journalist Steve Silberman has written some excellent pieces on placebo, including this interview with the researcher Irving Kirsch and this amazing 2009 article titled Placebos are getting more effective.
And some that I haven't read but which look good: Cure: A Journey into the science of mind over body, written by a science journalist with a PhD in genetics and microbiology; Placebo Effects by Fabrizio Benedetti, who is both an MD and a professor in neurophysiology, and who is one of the world's premier researchers in placebo; and Hypnosis and meditation, toward an integrated science of consciousness, put out by Oxford and edited by a neuroscientist at McGill.
You could also look up psychoneuroimmunology, Irving Kirsch, Amir Raz, Ted Kaptchuk and the Harvard center where they study placebo, or mindfulness-related research on PubMed.
posted by hungrytiger at 3:19 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Meaning, Medicine and the Placebo Effect is written by a medical anthropologist and is an exploration of how culture affects our response to medicine.
The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force is a discussion of why thoughts can drive physical changes in the body, written by a UCLA psychiatrist researcher who is best known for his work with thought-based treatments for OCD (see also his books "Brain Lock" and "You Are Not Your Brain").
The Brain That Changes Itself is a popular book full of stories about neuroplasticity, written by an MD who is also a hell of a storyteller. (See also the follow-up: The Brain's Way of Healing)
Clinical Behavioral Medicine, written by a Stanford researcher in the late 1980s, covers placebo, hypnosis, qualities that make people more vulnerable to chronic stress.
Zen and the Brain is written by a neuroscientist who meditates. Dry, enormous and rigorous, but if you are looking to understand how meditation in particular affects the brain it's definitely worth a look.
The journalist Steve Silberman has written some excellent pieces on placebo, including this interview with the researcher Irving Kirsch and this amazing 2009 article titled Placebos are getting more effective.
And some that I haven't read but which look good: Cure: A Journey into the science of mind over body, written by a science journalist with a PhD in genetics and microbiology; Placebo Effects by Fabrizio Benedetti, who is both an MD and a professor in neurophysiology, and who is one of the world's premier researchers in placebo; and Hypnosis and meditation, toward an integrated science of consciousness, put out by Oxford and edited by a neuroscientist at McGill.
You could also look up psychoneuroimmunology, Irving Kirsch, Amir Raz, Ted Kaptchuk and the Harvard center where they study placebo, or mindfulness-related research on PubMed.
posted by hungrytiger at 3:19 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: If you're looking for books which are more "how-to", Guided Imagery for Self-Healing is written by a doctor, and I've heard positive things about Staying Well With Guided Imagery, too. Depending on what you're working on, there are a lot of worthy-looking books about yoga for PTSD/chronic pain too.
(Personally, while I like to read about the science, I prefer to get the how-to from people who specialize in meditation -- like this app from wonk and former zen monk Shinzen Young.)
posted by hungrytiger at 3:35 PM on May 2, 2018
(Personally, while I like to read about the science, I prefer to get the how-to from people who specialize in meditation -- like this app from wonk and former zen monk Shinzen Young.)
posted by hungrytiger at 3:35 PM on May 2, 2018
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posted by lizifer at 9:01 AM on May 1, 2018 [2 favorites]