Techniques

Today we have a very special episode. I’m celebrating the publication of my new book: Healing Mindset. It’s a guide to the mind-body connection for people with autoimmune disease. The mind-body connection isn’t just an idea. There’s an entire field of science called psychoneuroimmunology that studies this connection. How we feel in our body affects how we feel in our minds, and our thoughts and feelings impact our physical health. Today, we’ll be talking about specific mind-body techniques, science-based benefits, and how to harness this connection for autoimmune health. My partner for this episode is Donna Jackson Nakazawa. Many of you know her as one of my most popular podcast guests. She’s an award-winning science journalist, author of 7 books, a fellow autoimmune warrior, and an expert on the mind-body connection. Today, we’re trading places. She will be the host and I will be the guest!

Releasing a burden we’ve been carrying too long can lighten both body and soul. Yet this can be one of the hardest things to do, even when we want to do it. Why is letting go so hard? Are there things we can do to make it easier? In this episode, we talk about fostering a letting go mindset, goals for letting go, techniques for doing that successfully, and knowing when NOT to let go. My guest is Courtney Carver, the woman behind the website Be More with Less and the author of the book Soulful Simplicity. She’s one of the leading voices in the minimalist community, but today we’re not talking about letting go of material things. Courtney has a lot of wisdom to share about letting go in general. 

In the research, they call it expressive writing or art therapy. At home, we call it journaling. This simple practice is an amazing stress management and self-awareness tool. It helps release emotions that are difficult to let go, gain clarity to make difficult decisions, uncover hidden parts of yourself, express gratitude, discover playfulness, and simply honor and accept where you are in the moment. You don’t have to be a writer or an artist to keep a journal and gain these benefits. In this podcast, we’ll be focusing on using creative journals for autoimmune health. My guest is Olwen Wilson, a woman with autoimmune disease herself who also teaches the art of journaling.

We hear a lot about the mind-body connection, but what are its uses and what are its limits? Are there techniques we can use to minimize pain and manage it better? How does the stress response increase pain’s intensity? How does guarding against pain add a second layer of tension that can make pain worse? Vidyamala Burch has lived with chronic pain for over 40 years. Learning how to survive and thrive started as a personal goal and later became her professional mission. She’s an author, educator, and cofounder of Breathworks, a non-profit organization that teaches Mindfulness-Based Pain Management to individuals and organizations around the world.

When I was at rock bottom with rheumatoid arthritis and experiencing excruciating pain on a daily basis, I started keeping a gratitude journal. That might seem like a strange time do this, but I deeply needed to focus on something beyond the pain and suffering that had become my entire world. And it helped! It didn’t alleviate my pain, but it did reduce my suffering, because it helped me remember there were still good things in my life. It turns out I’m not alone in feeling these benefits. Research is showing that gratitude can improve both mental and physical health. In this podcast, my guest is Dr. Fuschia Sirois, an expert in the field of gratitude and chronic illness. We discuss the research, alongside practical steps for making gratitude part of our daily lives.

Our homes can have a powerful effect on our lives. Not only do they reflect our interests and daily responsibilities, they also impact how we feel physically, mentally, and emotionally. Decluttering can be a cathartic experience with benefits that resonate beyond material things. We learn the practice of letting go. We reflect on what we value most. We make space for change. We let more light in. Autoimmune disease is often a wake-up call for this type of priority-setting, and decluttering can be a way to de-stress and support our health. My guest Courtney Carver has multiple sclerosis herself, which inspired her decade-long journey into simple living. Today, we share practical tips for decluttering everything from our homes, to our emails, to our hearts and minds.

This is one of my favorite mind-body techniques. When I feel stuck in fear, anger, or grief with no way to move forward, this technique transforms those feelings into peace. Does that sound too good to be true? That’s why I love this technique – it’s that powerful for me. Autoimmune disease and suffering often go hand-in-hand, physically, mentally and emotionally. The Work of Byron Katie is a process for questioning stressful thoughts and the feelings they feed. In this podcast, I offer myself up as a guinea pig with Katie as my guide. At the time of this recording, I wasn’t in remission and feeling frustrated because I was “doing everything right”. Can you relate? Listen to our conversation, and learn how to apply this technique in your own life.

Hypnotherapy is a therapeutic technique that uses the power of positive suggestion to bring about subconscious change to our thoughts, feelings and behavior. In this podcast, we talk about its application to life with autoimmune disease, and how it might be an effective tool to help us manage our stress and even alleviate chronic symptoms. My guest is clinical hypnotherapist, Kerry Jeffery, who also has autoimmune disease herself.

Emotional Freedom Technique, otherwise known as EFT, is a simple technique designed to release emotional blocks to healing. What does that mean? The idea is that no matter what challenges we are experiencing, including autoimmune disease, there is always an emotional component. This doesn’t mean our symptoms are “all in our head.” But it does mean that repressed emotions can increase autoimmune flares and interfere with our ability to reduce and reverse our symptoms. Autoimmune health is about so much more than just food. In this podcast, EFT expert Dr. Anne Merkel describes how it works and guides us through a sample session.

Curious about the impact meditation can have in your life? Do you believe that you can’t meditate? Or that there’s one right way to do it? In this podcast, I interview four people with autoimmune disease, each sharing a different form of meditation and the impact it’s had on their health. At the end of the podcast, I share how meditation has worked in my own life since my rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis in 2012.