The integral vision of health

The current guidelines in the field of health defend the need for a holistic view of the human being , proposing a broader intervention model that unifies and integrates all the variables that constitute our reality. There have been important changes both in the conception we have about health and in the understanding of the disease.

The new medicine opts for an integral vision of the disease , which observes the person in a global way, taking into account its physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual dimension. The human being is no longer considered the result of a mere biological function.

Today we are aware that we can produce changes in our body and manage our own health. This may be the main advance in current therapies that make a real difference with traditional medicine, more mechanistic and material, and where the patient exercises a merely passive role.

Providing a good strategy of intervention implicitly contemplates all the aspects that constituted and covered the reality of the oncological patient , from the purely physiological and mechanical dimension to other more personal and subtle dimensions.

Effective therapy can not be offered without deepening the patient's psychic reality .

Beyond the borders of the physical body

For many years conventional medicine relied on an exclusively biomedical model defending a perspective of health and exclusively biological disease that left aside psychological, emotional and social aspects in their evaluations and therapeutic measures.

Between psyche and body there is an intimate connection that we must keep in mind at all times, both to understand the underlying causes of the disease and to awaken the healing potential of the sick person.

Anyone who maintains a merely functional and mechanical vision of himself will see nothing but a breakdown in his organism, but the disease can offer us valuable information that allows us to have a greater understanding of how we find ourselves psychologically and emotionally, of how we are treating and taking care of our organism and ourselves and also of how we feel about our existence and the life we ​​lead. The disease is not an isolated phenomenon that concerns only the reality of the physical body. Many times, it exposes us and reveals the existence of a lack of coherence between what we do, what we feel and think. A kind of disagreement and contradiction with ourselves that ends up leading to a loss of balance that demands us, as an immediate and urgent measure, a time of withdrawal where we can reorder our values ​​and real needs more in line with our inner feelings. The disease could then become a useful element to help us rescue our abandoned authenticity. Illness can become your teacher.

It is known that a high percentage of cancers are due to our behavior patterns. Cancer could be avoided if we managed to modify many of our behavioral habits and we came to understand the fundamental concepts around health.

The medical profession is learning that you can not understand

the disease unless the person is understood

that has it, because the body and the mind are a unit that

it is maintained through the mediation of nerves and molecules.

Dr. Bernie Siegel

Currently, the treatment of cancer includes mind-body therapies with an effectiveness and unquestionable validity. Many healing procedures through mental activity such as meditation, relaxation, visualization, hypnosis, bioinformation or the use of bioenergy therapies are being incorporated into traditional medical treatments.

The human mind, our thinking, is capable of producing biochemical changes in the brain for or against our well-being. The mind and the body constitute a unique and essential whole. Between what happens in the mind, such as thoughts, feelings, emotions, and what happens in the organism, there is no separation. Our state of mind can change the state of our body through the central nervous system, the endocrine system and the immune system.

Of course the influence is in both directions. The body influences our mental states in the same way that mental states influence the body. Our thinking is the product of an electromagnetic wave that at the same time is transformed into chemical energy that at the same time is transformed into mechanical energy that allows a physical response. At the same time, all mechanical action is accompanied by a chemical reaction that produces a thought and generates a specific mental state. It is not possible to separate the psyche from the soma.

Cortisol, known as " the stress hormone " is produced by our adrenal glands when we face a situation that puts our physical integrity or mental health at risk, and is responsible for regulating blood pressure and the immune system.. It is known that high levels of cortisol can block the production and action of cytokines (proteins that act as mediators in immunological activity) and as a consequence weaken our defenses.

Recent research in the field of psycho-neuroendocrine-immunology (PNEI), a new specialty of medicine focused on the analysis of the interrelationships between the psyche and the nervous, endocrine and immune systems, has made important advances in this regard.

Positive thoughts and emotions activate and strengthen areas of the brain related to the immune system. Mind, brain and body interact with each other at the molecular, cellular and organic levels , and can also impact on our health.