I came across this in a story about
a tennis player who had altered his diet and was doing well:
Is Djokovic better because the gluten allergy was affecting him phsyically or is he better because he improved his diet in general? It's a chicken and egg question. Though as a Cornell nutrition professor told The Wall Street Journal, the effects of the new diet could be more mental than anything.
"If you believe in a cause of your disorder, it becomes the cause," David Levitsky told the newspaper . "We see this in many different studies. If you believe it, you change your behavior in the direction of being cured."
I think I'm about to decide the cause of any disorders I have is a shortage of KFC, rum and coke, and time spent eating papaya in Maui. Oh yes, ice cream.
In a more serious vein, I am a great believer in the power of the mind over matter. Around about 1978 I heard Wayne Dyer speak on the subject and decided I didn't need to have Colds any longer. Gave up on them. Gave myself permission to have an off day without a Cold. And, I've not had a cold since. I can't tell you anything more than that. Dyer convinced me it was in my power to give up on Colds. I did, and I have.
This was probably reinforced by having psoriasis when I was 16. I went to the doctor, was diagnosed, given a prescription for something, and told I'd have psoriaisis, off and on, for the rest of my life, and when I did I was to use the prescription. I remember clear as a bell getting off the elevator, standing there in the medical building with the prescription in my hand and the pharmacy across the lobby, thinking, "I'm not going to do this for the rest of my life! Forget it." I crumpled the prescription up, threw it in the garbage beside the elevator. By the next day the Psoriasis was clearing up, it went away, and has never been back. It may have been a misdiagnosis, it may have been luck, but it left me convinced my mind could control my health. Not big stuff like PCa --- at least my belief system doesn't extend that far.
Sheldon AKA Sleepless