Napoleon Hill once said: “what the mind can conceive and believe, the body can achieve”. Personal experience has shown that this is not just an expression! The connection or link with thoughts in your mind to every single cell within your body is truly capable of producing miraculous effects. Consider for a moment, the placebo effect, which is a measurable improvement in one’s physical or emotional health that cannot be attributed to medical treatment because the patient only received a “sugar pill” or some other inert (innocuous) form of treatment. In other words, the patients get better, even though the treatment does absolutely nothing! On average, the placebo effect alone will cure or provide measurable relief in 30% to 40% of all patients being treated regardless of what type of problem is being treated. For example, if you treated 100 people for arthritis pain, and you gave everyone a little sugar pill and told them that this was the latest medication for arthritis, about 30 to 40 people out of this group would have measurable improvement in their condition. The funny thing is that some people will even report side effects from the “medication” such as vomiting, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, constipation, diarrhea, headaches, etc., which cannot be caused by a tiny sugar pill. There are specific problems such as depression, where the placebo effect is exceptionally strong, curing around 80% of all those treated. Psychologist Irving Kirsch, at the University of Connecticut, believes that the effectiveness of Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and similar drugs may be attributed almost entirely to the placebo effect. There have been studies conducted on “pain relief” where placebo was shown to be 55% more effective than morphine. How can this be?

The placebo effect suggests that a person's beliefs and hopes about a treatment, combined with their level of suggestibility, may have a significant biochemical effect on the body. Sensory experience and thoughts can affect neurochemistry. The body's neurochemical system affects and is affected by other biochemical systems, including the hormonal and immune systems. Thus, it is consistent with current knowledge that a person's hopeful attitude and beliefs may be very important to their overall physical well being and recovery from injury or illness. For those that are interested, the field of “Psychoneuroimmunology” or PNI studies the effect that our thoughts have on our bodies. My personal belief, as well as many other psychologists, immunologists, neurobiologists and scientific health researches is that our individual thoughts, beliefs and emotions directly affect our physical bodies. We believe that thoughts and emotions fueled by individual belief, which are all generated in the brain, send powerful bioelectric-biochemical messages through our nervous system thus stimulating our immune system, releasing powerful hormones. Thus it may be that through a conviction of thought, we can physically change every cell within our body. Consider for a moment, that scientific animal research has shown that white blood cells have specialized receptor sites for neuropeptides, which are the chemicals of thought and instruct their behavior. Most of us are familiar with the fact that white blood cells make up our immune system army. They are the soldiers that lead the fight against deadly diseases, virus invasions, bacterial infections and so on. Now, let us put “two and two together”. If these cells have receptor sites for “thought chemicals” that will instruct their behavior, then it is literally our minds that control our bodies, right down to the cellular level. You are probably wondering what you can do with this information and how far this belief thing can go. The short answer is nobody knows, because “the sky is the limit”. Consider this for a moment. In 1957 psychologist Bruno Klopfor published an article titled, “Psychological Variables in Human Cancer” published in the Journal of Prospective Techniques.

Mr. Wright had highly advanced stages of lymphatic cancer. His lymph nodes were swollen with tumors the size of baseballs. His spleen and his liver, the bodies main filtration system, were so enlarged, that they drained 2 full quarts of milky fluid out of them each day. The doctors pronounced his case terminal, said that everything had been tried and gave up on his chances for survival. Interestingly, Mr. Wright heard about a new experimental drug called krebiozen for the treatment of cancer. Unfortunately, the drug was only available to cancer patients who had a minimum of a three-month life expectancy and Mr. Wright was not expected to live this long. Mr. Wright desperately begged and pleaded with his doctor for this drug until he finally gave in and agreed. The doctor injected him with the drug on a Friday but did not expect Mr. Wright to survive through the weekend. Unbelievably, on Monday, Mr. Wright was feeling absolutely wonderful. According to the doctors, “the tumors had melted like snowballs on a hot stove”. Just 10-days after Mr. Wright’s first krebiozen injection, he was released from the hospital and pronounced cancer free!

Unfortunately, this story does not finish with this happy ending. A few months later, the American Medical Association published a nationwide study on krebiozen announcing that it did not work and was completely worthless in the treatment of cancer. Mr. Wright, being extremely interested in the drug, read the study and his cancer suddenly returned, and he died just two days later! This amazing story shows us how profoundly we can enhance and/or inhibit the very biological functions that keep us alive simply by embracing and believing in either positive or negative expectations. When Mr. Wright believed that he was given the cure for cancer, his baseball size tumors melted away and completely disappeared in just 10-days. How could an ineffective drug produce such a miraculous result? The only logical answer is that it was not the drug! It was the interaction of his mind, body and spirit harmonizing with his belief!  Similarly, even though he was pronounced cancer free by his doctors, when he found out that the drug did not work, his cancer returned aggressively and he died shortly after reading the AMA report. Never underestimate the power of your thoughts and beliefs to transform yourself. As you progress in Qigong training, you will receive instructions in a wide range of techniques for harnessing these truly awesome powers of mind, body and spirit.

Sifu Dan Ferrera is the senior Qigong instructor and sole proprietor of the Michigan Institute of Qigong Healing & Wellness, LLC headquartered at the World Class Institute of Martial Arts in Livonia Michigan. Email: LivoniaQigong@Yahoo.com

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