On a trivial note, a lot of alternative medicine (not talking herbalisms here that can actually have chemical effects good or bad sometimes) boils down to:
A - avoiding sledgehammertastic chemical/surgical interventionism with all the attendant side effects and risks thereof for things that you can actually get better from on your own, and
B - ritualistically dealing with anxiety and expectation in a way that deeply seats these changes, which actually often matters for the human immune system and musculoskeletal system etc since the same organ system that runs all our autonomic functions bizarrely also does the thinking. The placebo effect is real, it matters, and can probably be enhanced in effectiveness over and above the 'oh I took a pill didn't I?" that you see in clinical trials.
I've seen evidence both personal and scientific for shamanistic and meditative interventions doing all kinds of great things for people's autonomic nervous systems from changing base inflammatory levels to enhancing the ability to maintain temperature control in extreme climates. I've seen actual biochemical evidence at a talk at the university that a good chunk of the cardiovactular benefit of exercise might come not from the metabolic effects but from it changing one's mood and this then feeding into changes in the inflammatory pathway.
I've seen actual biochemical evidence at a talk at the university that a good chunk of the cardiovactular benefit of exercise might come not from the metabolic effects but from it changing one's mood and this then feeding into changes in the inflammatory pathway.
How does the biochemistry of mood changes feeding into the inflammatory pathway work?
This thread is for:
- Perfectly natural and functional ideas that came from a spiritual, religious, occultist, parapsychologist etc. source (perhaps with some "baggage")
- Techniques that are bit difficult to explain and may be seen by the gullible as magic, but they actually seem to do something, even if that something is just a novel way to trick the brain.
Both things that are actually useful and "stage tricks" are accepted in this thread.