Tag Archives: health coaching

What Patients and Healthcare Providers Should Know About Placebo Effect

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By Georgianna Donadio, MSc, DC, PhD

What Patients and Healthcare Providers Should Know About The Placebo Effect Given the way the health sciences have been taught in nursing and medical schools, it is perfectly understandable for physicians and nurses trained more than 25 years ago to think the placebo effect didn’t make sense and was perhaps a popular explanation for sudden healing – or a “spontaneous remission.” It is a leap for many to understand how a person think or believe something and that simple act of belief could heal them. That’s why the National Institute of Whole Health is using this article to explore what health coaches and nurses should know about our reality and the placebo effect of belief.

Researching Placebo Effect

Up until the last twenty or so years, research scientists did not have a grasp on how the brain and our emotions worked to create our reality. The subject of emotion has been and still is very much “uncharted waters” in behavioral science. However, what is well documented today is how the various brain waves function and portions of the brain control and stimulate thoughts, beliefs and feelings.

The “beta waves” are the brain waves that allow us to focus on the words in this blog and comprehend, in the moment, what is intellectually being communicated. These waves are produced in the frontal lobe, which is the seat of intellectual functioning. Thinking, analyzing, reasoning and so forth occur in this part of the brain.

The “alpha waves” which are the slower brain waves originate in the mid-brain and are the brain waves that allow us access to our unconscious thinking or what some refer to as the soul. All thought processes, be it from the beta wave or alpha wave region of the brain, are actually chemical reactions that produce specific proteins which communicate with our immune cell membranes and other cell membranes of our body.

Thoughts Are Powerful

The specific thoughts we think and the region of the brain they originate in have an identifiable chemistry that has been shown to create dramatic changes in our physical bodies. In Dr. Paul Pearsall’s groundbreaking book “The Hearts Code,” he tells many amazing mind/body stories.

One in particular is a striking example of how powerful thoughts and images are. This story is about a schizophrenic patient who demonstrated completely different disease states depending on the personality she was exhibiting. Ultra sounds, cat-scans, lab tests all confirmed that one of her personalities had a massive cancerous tumor and yet when she went into a different personality state all of her previous pathology disappeared as well.

Our brains are the ultimate manifestors of matter. The chair you are sitting on was a thought before if became that chair. Thoughts are “things” – and thoughts in action are what manifest reality. A previous blog discussed a woman who was cured of her stiffness after the sham surgery. Her mind manifested a different set of thoughts through her hope and expectations for the outcome of the surgery. Her brain waves and proteins created positive chemistry, which communicated with her immune system through its cell membranes. The results – she became healthier and could “stride across the room.”

The idea of mind over matter is a powerful one. This science, and our understanding of its amazing chemistry, is in its infancy stage. In the future we will take the possibility of healing ourselves with thought and imagery for granted just as we now do about people having an organ transplant – which was unheard of not that long ago.

In the meantime, we can all improve our health coaching and nursing success by encouraging our clients and patients to improve their “self-speak,” reinforcing their bodies and minds with positive words, thoughts and images.

 

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NIWH Whole Health Educators™ Empowering Better Health

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It’s no secret that we Americans have reached an all-time level of being “unhealthy,” thanks to an ever-increasing stress-filled lifestyle. Despite widespread campaigns aimed at helping people stop smoking, eat better and exercise, the vast majority of Americans does not get regular exercise and are not eating enough fruits and vegetables. There is a clear need to empower others to take control of their health and wellness.

There has been an explosion in obesity that is cited as high as 63%, along with climbing rates of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other diseases associated with lifestyle and behavior choices. As far back as 1996, Harvard Medical School published a 7-year study which confirms up to 70% of all cancer, heart disease, stroke and mature onset diabetes are preventable with lifestyle and behavior changes. And yet, the health of the wealthiest nation in the world continues to decline. These factors underline the importance of a Whole Person based accredited health coaching program.

A Need For Real Health Education

Core factors for this epidemic amongst Americans can be found in a recent government study. The Institute of Medicine published a major study identifying that ninety million Americans are “health illiterate.” This does not mean, in this internet dominant society, that people do not have access to or are not receiving enough health and wellness information. It means that the majority of us do not know how to interpret or use the health information we receive to control or improve our health and wellness or prevent chronic disease. This reveals the need for more Whole Health Educators (TM), Advocates, and Coaches to bridge the gap.

Think of the last time you read the results of a new study in a magazine and realized you did not know how to use that information to support or improve your health. In fact, data presented to the American College of Health Care Executives identifies “lack of information as the number one root cause of death.” Yet, experts like Susan Edgman-Levatin, Executive Director, John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital, acknowledges “It’s no secret that traditional methods of patient education are hopelessly ineffective.”

NIWH Has An Answer

Addressing this problem, as far back as 1977, the National Institute of Whole Health in Boston, Massachusetts, in cooperation with physicians, nurses and online health educators, began research and development on an extraordinary, whole-person focused model of health education. The product of these 30 years of development in Boston area hospitals, the Whole Health Education® accredited health program, has today found its way into the medical mainstream.

These specialized health educators, Whole Health Educators ™, are uniquely trained to maintain a respectful presence and mindful listening skills as well as evidence-based, integrated health sciences to demystify for their clients the five major factors of health that influence how well we are or how sick we become. By providing “the big picture of health”®, an integrated understanding of how these five aspects can cause health or disease, the patient or client can possess the knowledge and tools to make necessary lifestyle changes and behavioral choices that are personally right for them. Identifying the root cause and effect of a chronic condition can free an individual to make changes they may not have previously considered.

You Are The Solution

There’s something that students and alumni of NIWH’s accredited health program have already discovered. If you are looking for work with purpose and integrity and are a health care professional, or entry-level candidate, who desires to serve others by providing evidence-based health information, and a natural, spiritual outlook on healing, this program may be of interest to you. NIWH offers Holistic Nurse Certification and Health Coach Certification. Program are offered through distance learning as well as optional in-person weekend classes, conducted at a Harvard affiliate hospital in the Boston area, which includes nationally recognized health experts and outstanding core facility members. For more information visit www.niwh.org or call 888-354-HEAL (4325)

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