The Alternative to Medication

"...Peptides provide our body's most basic communication network. To study the molecules' specific function, Pert and colleagues at NIMH began taking wafer thin slices of rat brains and, using radioactive molecules, mapping peptide receptors in the brain. Dense clusters appeared in parts of the brain long associated with emotion. According to Pert, the hippocampus, a small, almond-shaped structure that is crucial in memory, is the brain's emotional gateway. Almost every variety of peptide receptor is found there, she notes. The frontal cortex and another brain structure, the amygdala, are also densely populated with peptide receptors. Since emotions are regulated by neuropeptides, and the brain's memory centers are filled with receptors for these peptides, it's likely that emotion and memory are intertwined. However, the peptide network reaches into all the organs, glands, spinal cord, and tissues of the body." — Impertinent ideas. (alternative medicine pioneer Candace Pert); Neimark, Jill Psychology Today 11-21-1997

In short, our emotions are stored throughout the body.

For wherever neuropeptides created by our feelings go, so too goes the memory for that feeling.

Thus it is possible to access emotional memory anywhere in the network which makes up the body-mind.

This is how meditation, chiropractic therapy, therapeutic touch (Reiki) and other forms of healing — even the simple activity such as walking - work.

Often our minds do not truly need psycho-pharmaceutical drugs — at least, not for the rest of our lives.

The side effects of those drugs show us their true nature, of becoming too much of a good thing.

Thus, Professor Pert's research implies that even AIDS is a body-mind threat, and that an interdisciplinary outlook towards disease is the optimal one.

However, I would caution against the strategy implied in the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?" when Amanda throws away her anti-anxiety medication.

Tapering off medication is essential to gaining control over the body-mind. This involves reducing medication over a period of time i.e. over a period of four months from full dose to 3/4 of the dose over the first month of weaning to 1/2 of the dose during the second month to 1/4 the dose during the third month, to 1/8th the dose during the fourth.

No one needs to go through the process alone, given the number of cognitive behavior therapy groups out there to help a person by providing emotional support.

Even so, a few people may view daily exercise, a multivitamin supplement, salmon oil capsules and wholesome food as useful on the long run for what ails them.

The challenge is in adopting such a strategy to maintain positive mental health.