10 Empirical Ways to Heal Your Mind Through Your Body
Below are listed ten approaches believed to heal and improve the body and thereby heal and improve the mind.
1. Body psychotherapy
The body can be integrated as a central tool in psychotherapy by connecting bodily experiences to emotional and subjective experiences.
Body psychotherapy mainly uses body awareness of external and internal bodily sensations to accept and re-frame their meaning.
These mental health interventions can be beneficial not only for healing from trauma but also for wellbeing (Hefferon, 2013).
2. Exercise psychotherapy
Exercise can be used as a means to achieve psychotherapeutic goals, acknowledging that blending psychological and physical strategies can be more effective than using a standalone treatment.
This might include improving energy levels in clients with depression, reducing anxiety, or improving mastery and self-efficacy (Hefferon, 2013).
3. Somatic Experiencing (SE®)
SE® was developed by Dr. Peter Levine to regulate interrupted neuromuscular patterns due to trauma.
It consists of bringing awareness to physical sensations and reactions associated with a traumatic experience, helping clients describe physical patterns to integrate unconscious memories consciously.
Although there is limited empirical research, a systematic review including four studies on SE® suggests its effectiveness in improving post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms (Almeida, Gomez de Melo, & Cordeiro de Sousa, 2019).
4. Tension and trauma releasing exercises
Recently renamed as Self-induced Unclassified Therapeutic Tremor (SUTT), this method uses physical exercises to evoke natural tremor responses in the body to release tension associated with stress or trauma (Berceli, Salmon, Bonifas, & Ndefo, 2014).
Proposed by Dr. David Berceli, SUTT argues that although neuromuscular tremors are an innate response to events perceived as threatening, humans have learned to suppress them.
A pilot study (Berceli, et al. 2014) and a case study (Heath & Beattie, 2019) report that people experienced increased wellbeing and decreased stress at post-intervention measurements and follow-up.
5. Yoga
Yoga is considered an ancient Eastern discipline integrating mind, body, and spirit through practices, typically including physical postures, breathing techniques, and meditation.
Yoga Chikitsa, or Yoga Therapy, refers to the use of yoga for improving ill-health conditions.
From a Western perspective, yoga has been used as an add-on therapy for improving symptoms of depression (Cramer, Lauche, Langhorst, & Dobos, 2013), anxiety (Cramer et al., 2018), PTSD (Nguyen-Feng, Clark, & Butler 2019), cancer (Cramer, Lange, Klose, Paul, & Dobos, 2012), and schizophrenia (Vancampfort et al., 2012).
Yoga benefits also relate to health and wellbeing outcomes in the general population (Hendriks, de Jong, & Cramer, 2017).
6. Dance therapy
Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) refers to “the therapeutic use of movement aiming to further the emotional cognitive, physical, spiritual and social integration of the individual” (European Association of Dance Movement Therapy, 2020, paragraph 1).
DMT seeks to understand and create new meanings from patterns of behavior by recognizing and exploring sensations, emotions, and stories emerging from the movement.
It is facilitated by a registered therapist, and it can be done individually or in a group setting (European Association of Dance Movement Therapy, 2020).
Studies suggest dance therapy‘s effectiveness in improving ill health and trauma in clients with schizophrenia (Xia & Grant, 2009) and cancer (Bradt, Shim, & Goodill, 2015).
7. Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR)
Initially developed by Edmund Jacobson in the 1920s, PMR seeks to decrease anxiety levels by gradually contracting and relaxing muscle groups to reduce physical tension and physiological activation (Hefferon, 2013).
A systematic review with meta-analysis of relaxation intervention including 10 studies on PMR suggests this can be an efficacious treatment for anxiety in different clinical settings (Manzoni, Pagnini, Castelnuovo, & Molinari, 2008).
8. Deep breathing
Intentional breath regulation to increase pulmonary capacity while reducing the rate of breathing cycles has been acknowledged as an effective method to improve both physical and mental health.
By consciously engaging the diaphragm, the practice of slow-paced deep breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system and inhibits the sympathetic nervous system, invoking a relaxation response and decreasing stress (Saoji, Raghavendra, & Manjunath, 2019).
Studies show that deep-breathing exercises can lower depressive and anxiety symptoms (Jerath, Crawford, Barnes, & Harden, 2015) and foster emotional wellbeing (Zaccaro et al., 2018).
9. Qigong and tai chi
Sharing the same philosophical roots, tai chi and qigong focus on the cultivation and enhancement of qi or life energy.
Along with yoga, they are considered meditative movement practices, and they include slow-paced and flow-like physical movements, as well as sitting, standing, or movement meditation; body shaking; and breathing techniques.
Underpinned by traditional Chinese medicine, they suggest that combining self-awareness with movement, meditation, and breath can promote mind–body balance and self-healing (Jahnke, Larkey, Rogers, Etnier, & Lin, 2010).
Several reviews have explored the effects of tai chi and qigong on different ill-health conditions such as cancer (Lee, Chen, Sancier, & Ernst, 2007), hypertension (Lee, Pittler, Guo, & Ernst, 2007), and cardiovascular disease (Lee, Pittler, Taylor-Piliae, & Ernst, 2007).
What our readers think
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