Health Education and Mind/Body Medicine

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Health Education and Mind/Body Medicine

• By Holly Avey, M.P.H.
• Health Educator
• Office of Health Promotion
• Grady Health System, Atlanta, GA
• Doctoral Student
• Department of Health Promotion and Behavior
• University of Georgia, Athens, GA

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What is Mind/Body Medicine?

• What is going on
• inside our minds,
• our hearts, and our spirits
• may have tremendous impact
• on what happens to our bodies.
• Mind/Body Health by Hafen, Karren, Frandsen,
  Smith, 1996

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Related Fields

• Psychosomatic medicine
• Health psychology
• Behavioral medicine
• Psychoneuroimmunology

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Key Findings

• Thoughts and emotions create physiological
  responses.

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Key Findings

• Overstimulation of neurotransmitters can lead to
  reactive inhibition from tissue fatigue.

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Key Findings

• Allostatic Load - the body loses its ability
• to adapt and adjust.
• Prolonged response (stuck in on position)
• Inadequate response (stuck in off position)
• Lack of adaptation (always turning on off)

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Implications for Disease Immune System

• Prolonged response
• allergies, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome,
  rheumatoid arthritis
• Inadequate response
• colds, flu, dental caries, herpes, ulcers,
  cancer, HIV

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Implications for Disease Cardiovascular System

• Prolonged response
• hypertension, hypercholesterolemia
• Lack of adaptation
• arrhythmias

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Implications for Disease Endocrine System

• Prolonged response
• diabetes

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Implications for Disease Nervous System

• Inadequate response to pain
• headaches, back aches, fibromyalgia

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Implications for Disease Gastrointestinal System

• Lack of adaptation
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Ulcers

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Implications for Disease Reproductive System

• Lack of adaptation
• menstrual irregularities
• Prolonged response
• decreased fertility

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Population-Based Long-Term Implications for
Disease

• Health disparities
• measures of chronic stress?
• Successful aging
• optimism and good coping skills

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Mind/Body Research Public Health Perspective

• Education
• Public vs. individual perspective - underlying
  societal causes
• Multi-disciplinary/ multi-dimensional research

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Barriers to Mind/BodyHealth Education

• Ignorance of mind/body research and treatments
• Fear of addressing mental health issues
• Segregation of existing programs into disease
  categories
• Funding by disease categories

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Medical Disease Model ?
Prevention vs. Biopsychosocial-
spiritual Health Model ? Promotion
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Where Do We Go From Here?

• Include mind/body research in Health Education
  curricula
• Challenge the disease prevention model in program
  conception development
• Identify interested parties organize
• Advocate for new different funding opportunities

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Useful Resources

• Journal Articles
• Books
• Organizations/ Websites
• Funding Opportunities