Multiple Sclerosis mind or Mind-Body techniques for MS??

Is this a good idea or just an imaginary idea?

Our minds have an amazing ability to focus the energy from our bodies to enhance how well our bodies respond to what we instruct them to do. When we focus our bodies on doing something specific, like taking a step, walking, standing up or even with reducing how we respond to 

ms stress, our bodies listen and respond to the brain's instructions that are sent to that part of the body.

This is why whenever a clinical trial or study is performed on a new technique or with testing a new prescription drug that the researchers and doctors alike are always trying to avoid the "placebo effect". 

The "placebo effect" is where the power of suggestion is so strong to our minds that if we suggest that something can help our bodies to heal, repair or respond in a particular way that (even if a sugar tablet or sugar water is given in place of the drug or technique being tested) - many people will respond to the positive suggestion and improve -- sometimes in an amazing way -- even if they start out with a very severe health condition.

As the medical community is finding out more about the amazing abilities of the mind in reducing symptoms of different diseases, more of the doctors, who use complimentary medicine in their practices, are turning to using more mind focusing techniques  or Mind-Body techniques to help reduce the ms symptoms that their MS patients are experiencing.

Several of the Mind-Body techniques can help those of us that have been given the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis to find relief to quite a few of the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis.

Mind-Body techniques, which have been used effectively for reducing Multiple Sclerosis symptoms, can include any of the following:

* ms guided imagery

* ms visualization

*  ms meditation 

* tone therapy - this is where a piece of music is played that uses tones that have been found to help to relax the mind.  This technique can be used with many types of meditation, since chanting is one form of tone therapy.

* music therapy - where relaxing music is used to help free the mind of distractions and help it to relax to make it easier to focus the mind on specific parts of the body, to allow healing energy to flow throughout our bodies.

* ms stress reduced through ms breath therapy

* ms tai chi (includes focusing the mind and relaxing while doing slower sets of movements, which help to relax the body, and rebalance energy patterns throughout the body, without doing exercise that are too strenuous for the body to handle.

This allows the body to relax and replenish without adding to ms fatigue, which is often already present in the majority of cases of Multiple Sclerosis.

* Yoga for ms - includes much of these techniques 

* qui gong for ms - this method of exercise also helps to gently work the muscles to help them to stay more limber, flexible and not as tight as they often can become for those that often experience ms spasms, ms twitches or ms tremors.

There have actually been a few documented cases where persons with one of several severe health conditions actually used different techniques to focus the mind on visualizing the different parts of the body repairing itself with amazing results.

Our bodies respond much better to us helping to create a healing environment for our bodies to focus its energies on allowing our body to relax, replenish and repair itself.  To the western mind set, this is a foreign concept, but in quite a few countries throughout the world, this idea is emerging as a way to help us to work with our bodies to promote healing, rather than to fight against our bodies and try to force our bodies into doing what we want them to in ways that we think that "it has to be done".

If we learn to listen more to our bodies, they give us clues as to what is going on internally, that often we don't have any other way of evaluating or viewing these bodily processes while they are occurring. 

Who knows -- maybe there will arrive a period of time where our whole view on human health and how to help our bodies to become healthier instead of sicker may one day become something that is not such a foreign concept, but rather a natural occurrence for those of us with more of the current chronic conditions, like Multiple Sclerosis.