Psychobabble

MYTH 18

You can heal your body

It makes intuitive sense to most of us that what goes on in our minds is going to affect what occurs in our bodies. After all, we use mind power to change our bodies all the time, albeit via the millions of pulsing signals we send out through the central nervous system in order to activate muscles and stimulate organs. It’s definitely a miracle of sorts when you think about it, but admittedly not one likely to make the front page of Time magazine. Also, illness inevitably makes us feel rubbish, and because we associate physical decline and discomfort with low mood and anxiety, we are easily conned into miscalling the direction of cause and effect.

However, these days we are also actively encouraged to believe ...