Just relax!
For hundreds of years, Western medicine has regarded the mind and body as completely independent substances, to the point that a statement like "it's all in your head" meant a person's tendency to "invent" diseases for himself. Relatively recently, it has become generally accepted that many diseases of the internal organs (according to some data, from a third to a half) really originate in the head, including as a result of the so-called latent depression. True, the treatment of bodily ailments with the help of auto-training and similar methods is rarely used, and according to many of those specialists who are not enthusiasts of this method, it smacks of quackery.
Now scientists from several Boston medical centers, led by Professors Herbert Benson and Towia Libermann, have established that the state of mind affects the body at the deepest level, changing the activity of genes in the cells of our body.
More than 35 years ago, scientists first described a state of relaxation triggered by a number of techniques, including meditation, deep breathing and prayer.
Over time, publications began to appear in scientific journals, according to which relaxation not only suppresses the symptoms of psychological disorders, such as anxiety, but also affects physiological parameters, including heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen consumption and brain activity. But despite the universal recognition that the state of relaxation is the opposite of the fight/flight response triggered by adrenaline, the mechanism underlying this effect remained unknown.
The aim of the work, published in the open access journal PLoS One, was to verify the correctness of the assumption that a wide range of relaxation reaction effects is based on a change in gene expression. As part of the first stage of the work, the authors compared the gene expression profiles of 19 people who have been practicing various relaxation techniques for a long time with the gene expression profiles of 19 people who have never resorted to such techniques. At the second stage, the members of the control group underwent an 8-week training program in order to find out possible changes in gene expression as a result of initiation into relaxation practices.
According to the results of both stages of the study, the state of relaxation changes the expression of genes involved in processes such as inflammation, programmed cell death and neutralization of free radicals – by-products of normal metabolism, inadequate neutralization of which leads to damage to cells and tissues. To confirm the results, both stages were repeated with the participation of 6 people practicing various relaxation methods and 5 people of the control group. The observed changes in gene expression were significantly similar to the previously obtained results.
According to the authors, changes in the activity of the same genes were previously observed in conditions such as post-traumatic stress, but the changes observed during relaxation have an opposite direction and are more pronounced in people who have been practicing relaxation methods for a long time.
People have been using various relaxation techniques for thousands of years. The authors found that changes in gene activity do not depend on the type of relaxation (yoga, deep breathing, prayer repetition). They are currently investigating whether similar changes are observed in patients using relaxation techniques in the complex treatment of stress-induced disorders.
The authors emphasize that gene expression varies significantly even in healthy people, which greatly complicates the analysis of small variations and identification of significant changes and "noise". They claim that the modern bioinformatic approaches they use make it possible to identify the function of each of the studied genes and create hypotheses for further verification in laboratory experiments and clinical trials.
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of Massachusetts General Hospital
09.07.2008