Benefits of a mind-body approach

Have a headache? Stop and take stock. Did you just battle traffic, skip lunch to meet a tricky deadline, or quarrel with your spouse? Could these situations be contributing to your pain? How can you ease these hassles next time? And before you pop that aspirin, what about trying some deep breathing, or exercise, or meditation?

Paying attention to and exerting some control over your emotional and mental states—anxiety, anger, pessimism, and depression—may help you stay healthy, reduce the severity or frequency of symptoms, or recover more rapidly from illness.

How do mind-body therapies prevent disease?

Learn more about the impact of stressMind-body therapies and practices can help prevent stress. This is extremely important because research clearly shows that prolonged stress contributes to serious diseases such as high blood pressure, heart irregularities, anxiety, insomnia, persistent fatigue, digestive disorders, mental health issues, diminished fertility, and diabetes.

Stress also suppresses your immune system, which makes you more likely to get new diseases and experience reoccurrences of previous diseases.