Читать книгу Trust Your Gut - Gregory Plotnikoff - Страница 8

We approach the treatment of gut issues from the premise that the mind and body are all part of an integrated system. We know both from our own clinical experience and from research data that the mind-body relationship is interactive in both directions, and we must always look at health from a 360-degree perspective. Otherwise, we miss some of the most important cues and clues to our wellness. In fact, both the latest neuroscience of the gut and the ancient wisdom of Asian medicine agree that the gut is the focal point of human energy and the seat of the emotions. Indeed, scientists are increasingly referring to the gut as the second brain. Although your gut appears to be the cause of all your problems, it is actually the center of hope for relief from your symptoms.

Western philosophy and science—starting from the days of Plato and Aristotle—have seen the mind and rational thought as part of some higher reality, whereas the body and emotions are of lesser importance. Classical philosophers taught that reason must control the emotions and that the mind must rise above bodily concerns. Centuries later, French philosopher René Descartes formalized the split by declaring the mind and body to be two metaphysically different kinds of realities. This led to centuries of scientific exploration of the body with little regard to the mind. Although few scientists believe in such dualities anymore, the study of the mind still lags far behind the study of the body. That's because it's much easier to study the body. You can see it, measure it, touch it, and x-ray it. You can do none of those things with a mind.

The problem is that our mind is subjective, but science is only looking for objective truth that can be measured. That's how behaviorism, the theory that all behavior is based on conditioning, became the dominant movement in psychology in the 20th century—it removed the mind as an object of study and focused only on behavior. This started to change by the 1970s when pioneering scientists integrated the study of psychology, neurology, and immunology—termed psychoneuroimmunology—to create the new science of mind-body interactions. It is still a very new and developing science, and we are among the first wave of health professionals to apply this new knowledge to solve chronic gastric distress. The results we've had are astounding.

Instead of talking about the body and mind as two separate entities, we talk about the body/mind. Each person is a unified system and should be approached as such. This shift in perspective was possible due to the technical advances in imaging that allow scientists to measure the brain's functional activity in living people. The most surprising insight is that our brain does not distinguish between what is physical and what is psychological. It creates the same neurohormonal responses either way. This new perspective allows a completely different way of looking at the problem of gastric distress. More important, it makes it possible to find new solutions.

The Western approach to disease and illness uses a lot of violent metaphors that suggest health care is a huge battle. Doctors fight disease, they wage war on cancer, and patients struggle valiantly to conquer the disease. The medical arsenal includes lasers, radiation, chemicals, and pills. One of the primary goals is to kill pain.

Surprisingly, in other cultures, such as that of Japan, not a single word associated with care is related with violence. In Japanese, the key actions that health professionals take are expressed with words conveying comfort, harmony, and balance. We have pain killers, and they have pain calmers or suppressors.

The Western “us versus them” strategy works well for a lot of illnesses, such as when you need an antibiotic to kill bacteria or chemotherapy to kill cancer cells. But this approach falls short for many gut sufferers. You probably believe that your gut is a problem to be attacked, because that is how you have been taught to think about illness. But as you can see from the title of our book, we have a totally different approach: we don't want you to fight your gut; we want you to trust it.

The main theme of this book—and the key to solving your gut distress—is that your gut is not your enemy; on the contrary, it is the center of your body/mind system. It is your core. Your chronic gut problems are signs that your system is out of balance. To restore that balance and become centered, you must learn to listen to what your gut is telling you. Just as heat sensations tell you to take your hand off the stove, and the bad smell of spoiled milk tells you not to drink it, the various symptoms of gut distress are messages that need to be deciphered and acted upon. Instead of killing the pain with a pill, we want you to observe the pain and try to understand what it is telling you.

Your gut is not your enemy; on the contrary, it is the center of your body/mind system. It is your core. Your chronic gut problems are signs that your system is out of balance.

Think about it. If you killed the pain in your hand when it was on the stove, it would become severely burned. If you killed the ability to smell, you could get sick or even worse from eating spoiled food. So why try to kill the pain and discomfort in your gut? It doesn't make the problem go away. It only allows you to forget about it. Your body is trying to tell you something, and the best thing to do is to listen to it.

Think of all the pills and remedies you have taken over the years. They haven't brought lasting relief. They may have even created other health problems. It's time to quit fighting and start listening. Your gut is not your enemy. Your gut is part of you. You don't need pills, you need skills to help you observe and respond effectively.

It may feel like your gut is holding you hostage and is trying to sabotage your life. Yet no matter how hard you fight, you don't seem to win. It's like those old Chinese handcuffs you might have played with as a child. The woven bamboo tube slips over both of your index fingers, and the harder you try to pull them out, the tighter the cuff gets. The solution is to quit struggling and relax. Then it slips off very easily. That's very similar to our strategy. We propose to teach you a nonviolent approach to centering your body/mind system.

Your symptoms are messages from the body to rely on, rather than to ignore or medicate.

Trust Your Gut is the first book to address intestinal distress from this perspective—a viewpoint that sees the gut as a vital messenger to heed and trust, rather than as an enemy to fear. Your symptoms are messages from the body to rely on, rather than to ignore or medicate. We focus on those functional relationships between the brain and the gut—including the neural and hormonal interactions—as well as the interactions with each patient's inner and outer environments. Because we know that everything is connected, we must pay attention to all aspects of a person's life to pinpoint possible areas where the system isn't functioning properly.