Disease: Let us choose to be mindful

Shazana Anjum

Persistent, unrealistic fear and the inconvenience that the illness brings are enough to make us slip into  one of the pitfalls that hinder our body’s ability to self-heal.Emotions cannot be denied rather  accepted as a  natural response to the threatening situations but lasting  emotions have a great influence on our body’s response to treatment.As confusion clouds and fear overcomes an attempt to think rationally, The mind gets preoccupied with the thought of getting rid of illness, causing illness anxiety.This emotional distress of worry, guilt and hurt  makes preexisting pain increase or linger that could contribute further or even worsen the physical pain in different areas of the body.

What we perceive of illness, that’s  the illness perception is shown to predict the clinical outcome in patients with severe diseases.Therefore the emotions we carry while we are on treatment  is sure to have an impact on the recovery.

Histories of illness, death with illness, media , family experiences, stigma around the illness, all these determine how health anxiety manifests. we have always perceived illness as the major cause of suffering or bringing detrimental health issue. That’s how our minds are programmed to conceive of illness Little do we realize that its our body thriving and working to help us live. We have seen people not getting over life after being completely shattered by illness but the world also holds countless beautiful stories of people whose life changed for better after illness even the stories of survivors of deadly disease. Its how we want our story to be . Instead of feeling overwhelmed by waves of difficult emotions,Wouldn’t it be more productive to be mindful of disease rather than being consumed by the fear of it?

 wouldn’t it be better to realize that anyone can die at any minute, in this unpredictable world many people are possibly walking around with something dangerous inside of them and no one knows how anything will end. Therefore, why believe in what can never be known and become incapacitated by the fear of it?

Rationally thinking Illness is often a Negative behaviour developed over time stemmed from poor attitude, bad habit. If we don’t get sign if our body is doing fine inside how would we be able to predict whether our body is responding great or poor to our life style. So this alone should convince us to take sickness as an alarm to see within ourself as our body screams for attention. Reconcile those wake up calls as being the result of taking something for granted. Whether its injury, loss or any chronic illness these signs are a shattering moment of reality that can capture the nearness or severity of the problem.Too often we look back and wish we could take those early signs more seriously or find a solution to persisting problems, wake up call can feel like life’s sudden way of bringing an issue to higher consciousness.

The fact that we have already categorized some diseases as deadly shows our failure to recognize our remarkable innate ability to heal. If only we would know the incredible regeneration capacity of the human body we wouldn’t be consumed by fear of illness.

Though We know nothing in the world can come close or superior to art of western medicine to alleviate symptoms but would treating only symptoms without treating the root cause of illness bring us healthier life? Several lines of evidence indicate that realistic modification of diet and lifestyle can not only prevent but reverse most chronic illnesses. Human body is far more than just a physical body,  by understanding our emotions and managing emotional triggers we can take charge of our illness and  help our body great to achieve balance and well being.

Life continues to change in miraculous ways and sometimes the illness can be the change. Even though we are never free from change but we are always free to decide how to respond.Take charge of your own life to have greater awareness about how things are connected.