Positive Emotions Cure Serious Illnesses - Norman Cousins

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

It is well known that negative emotions negatively affect the immune system. Published in 1976, Norman Cousins' autobiography, Anatomy of an illness (as perceived by the patient), exploded the world. In it, relying on his own experience of healing, the author claims that a positive emotional state can cure even a serious illness.

In 1964, the energetic editor of The Saturday Review, Norman Cousins, suddenly felt an intense ache all over his body. The temperature rose sharply. After a week, it became difficult for him to move, turn his neck, raise his arms. He went to the hospital where he was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis. Ankylosing spondylitis belongs to the group of rheumatic diseases. It most commonly affects young men. The inflammatory process develops in the joint capsules and associated ligaments and tendons, affecting mainly the intervertebral and sacroiliac joints. As a result, the person experiences pain and poor mobility of the affected joints. The disease can lead to severe deformity of the spine.

His health deteriorated rapidly. Every day, Cousins' body became more and more motionless, with great difficulty he moved his legs and arms, he could hardly turn in bed. Thickening and hardness appeared under the skin, which meant that the entire body was affected by the disease. The moment came when Norman could not open his jaw to eat.

Fear, longing, resentment, injustice of fate seized him. He stopped smiling and lay for days with his face turned to the wall of the hospital ward. His attending physician, Dr. Hitzig, supported Norman as best he could, bringing in the best specialists for consultations, but the disease progressed. In the end, the doctor frankly told Norman that out of five hundred such patients, only one was recovering.

After this terrible news, Norman did not sleep all night. His only desire was to survive. He thought that until now the doctors were taking care of him, doing their best, but that did not help. So I have to act on my own and find my own healing path, Norman decided. He recalled how one day during a conversation, Dr. Hitzig said that if a person's endocrine system is working at full capacity, then his body can successfully fight any disease. So, in women during pregnancy, all manifestations of painful symptoms decrease, because during this period the endocrine glands are maximally activated to help the body cope with the additional load. Hitzig said that, according to scientific studies, the depletion of the endocrine system is most often caused by fear, nervous experiences, despondency, and prolonged depression. In response to these negative emotions, the adrenal glands release special hormones - adrenaline and norepinephrine. They enter the bloodstream and, spreading throughout the body, destroy cells and contribute to disease. But if negative emotions, thought Cousins, are the cause of many diseases, then, probably, positive emotions, on the contrary, have a beneficial effect on the endocrine system. Can't they lead to recovery?

In search of an answer to this question, Cousins turned to the Bible and read: “A cheerful heart is wholesome as a medicine, but a dull spirit dries up bones” (Prophecies of King Solomon 17/22). Then he studied the works of famous philosophers and scientists and found out that they attached great importance to positive emotions. And in the first place among them they put laughter. The physician-physician Robert Barton, who lived four centuries ago, wrote: “Laughter cleanses the blood, rejuvenates the body, helps in any business.” Immanuel Kant believed that laughter gives a feeling of health, activates all vital processes in the body. Sigmund Freud saw humor as a unique manifestation of the human psyche, and laughter as an equally unique remedy. The English philosopher and physician William Osler called laughter the music of life. He advised by all means to laugh at least for ten minutes in order to relieve physical and mental fatigue at the end of the day.

Cousins' contemporary William Frey proved by his experiments that laughter has a beneficial effect on the breathing process and on the muscle tone of the body. From the books, Cousins also learned that there is a special substance in the human brain, similar in structure and effect to morphine. It is released only during laughter and is a kind of `` internal anesthesia '' for the body.

In Cousins' head, motionless, bedridden, tormented by the incessant pain, a plan began to emerge for what might make him laugh. Despite the protests of doctors, he was discharged from the hospital. He was transferred to a hotel room, and only Dr. Hitzig remained with him, who supported his idea. Cousins took large doses of Linus Pauling's vitamins. A movie projector and the best comedies with the participation of the Marx pothers and the show Candid Camera were delivered to the room. Cousins felt incredibly happy when he discovered that after the first ten minutes of unbridled laughter, he was able to sleep peacefully for two hours without pain. After the pain relieving effect of laughter had ended, the nurse turned on the movie projector again. And then she began to read humorous stories to Cousins.

The terrible pains ceased tormenting Norman after several days of almost continuous laughter. The anesthetic effect of laughter has been proven. Now it was necessary to find out whether laughter could activate the endocrine system in the same way and thereby stop the inflammatory process that was engulfing the entire body. Therefore, Cousins' blood tests were taken immediately before and immediately after the “session” of laughter.

The test results showed that the inflammation subsided. Cousins felt elated: the old adage “Laughter is the best medicine” really worked. Among other things, Cousins realized the advantage of being discharged from the hospital. Nobody bothered him to force him to eat, swallow a bunch of drugs, inject him or undergo another painful examination by people in white coats with an equally concerned and sympathetic expression on his face. Cousins enjoyed the serenity and tranquility, and was confident that it also contributed to the improvement of his condition.

The laughter therapy program continued: Cousins laughed every day for at least six hours like a man possessed. His eyes were swollen from tears, but they were healing tears of laughter. He soon stopped taking anti-inflammatory drugs and sleeping pills altogether. A month later, Cousins was able to move his thumbs for the first time without pain. He could not believe his eyes: the thickenings and knots on the body began to decrease. After another month, he was able to move in bed, and it was an incredibly wonderful feeling. He soon recovered so much from his illness that he was able to return to work. It was an incredible miracle for Cousins and for everyone who knew about his struggle with death. True, for many months he could not raise his hand to get a book from the top shelf. Sometimes, when walking fast, knees trembled and legs gave way. Nevertheless, the mobility of all joints increased from year to year. The pains disappeared, only discomfort in the knees and in the shoulder remained. Cousins started playing tennis. He could ride a horse without fear of falling and held the movie camera firmly in his hands. He played Bach's favorite fugues, and his fingers flew masterly over the keys, and his neck easily turned in all directions, contrary to all the experts' predictions about the complete immobility of his spine.

Later telling many people about his experience of defeating an incurable disease, Cousins said that he did not die just because he really wanted to live. True desire has tremendous power. She is able to pull a person out of those limits of the idea of their own capabilities, which we all usually limit ourselves to. In other words, we can do much more than we think, both physiologically and spiritually. Fear, despair, panic, a sense of one's own powerlessness, which inevitably accompany any illness, paralyze a person's vitality. Desire mobilizes the reserves of the body and spirit as much as possible, helps to achieve what seems impossible. In addition, desire must be accompanied by active action. Laughter became such a means of action for Cousins. Laughter not only provides a person lying motionless in bed with a kind of training, a kind of jogging, but also makes it possible to enjoy life, despite the illness. And positive emotions are the best medicine for any ailment.

Ten years later, Cousins met by chance one of the doctors who sentenced him to death. The doctor was completely stunned to see the former patient alive and well. He held out his hand to say hello, and Cousins squeezed it hard enough to make him winced in pain. The strength of this handshake was more eloquent than any words.

Cousins had his own theory that every person contains a healing energy that most of us just don't know how to use. As a teenager, when he entered a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, Cousins noticed that optimistic patients tend to recover and be discharged, while pessimists do not.

In 1983, Cousins suffered myocardial infarction and congestive heart failure. Usually this combination leads to panic and death. Cousins refused to panic and die.

Until his last years, he taught at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine (UCLA). He was probably the only teacher without a medical education. He taught young doctors to activate the healing fighting spirit in every patient.