The Connection (2014) - full transcript

NARRATOR:
We're in the midst

of a chronic illness epidemic.

Sicknesses like cancer,
heart disease and diabetes

are sweeping the world.

There's a one-in-two chance

you'll end up with
a chronic illness.

It's likely you know someone or
you are someone who is sick.

Diseases our grandparents
have never heard of

are becoming common.

Mental illness.

Autoimmune disease.



Metabolic syndrome.

These are modern sicknesses.

They're not infectious,
but they are spreading fast.

I think we've been seeing a
stress epidemic in our society

for decades now,

and it seems to be
only accelerating

as the pace of modern life
is increasing.

It was always obvious
to the ancient wisdom traditions

that mind and body
were interconnected.

But somewhere along the line
we sort of created a dichotomy

as if they were separate.

We came to believe

that everything could be cured

by drugs and surgeries,



whereas, to this day,
they can't.

When we talk about much of
mind-body phenomena,

we're talking about
the non-physical mind

affecting the physical body.

That's not allowed for

in the Western
scientific paradigm.

And we now understand
these concepts

that were rejected
by academic medicine.

So, this is something
that actually has

enormous implications.

Modern science has shown us

that the mind has the power
to heal.

We should use that capacity.

I was 24 when I got my first
break in journalism.

My life became focused
on deadlines

and chasing stories

that took me away from
my family and friends.

Then everything changed.

I was diagnosed with
an autoimmune disease.

One doctor warned
I could end up in a wheelchair

or with organ failure.

Over the next six years
I spent $30,000

on numerous specialist doctors,
constant tests,

drugs and alternative
therapies.

I was flat with fatigue
and riddled with arthritis.

No-one could tell me
why my immune system

was attacking my own body.

But there was one thing
I did know.

The more I was stressed,
the worse I felt.

I knew there had to be
a connection.

On my journey
to getting better

I travelled the world
to find answers,

meeting some of
the leading experts

at the frontier of science,

and tracking down people
with remarkable stories of
recovery.

This is the film I wanted
to see when I got sick.

In the older days

there was no separation
of mind and body.

In fact, throughout the world,

many cultures
have never separated them -

in the East, for example.

But our scientific approaches

were so awesome

that they overwhelmed
any mind-body approaches

or any mind-body potentials.

In Western science, unless
you see it, it isn't real.

Unless you can measure it,
it isn't real.

And that's what allowed
the huge advances

in modern medicine and science -

the ability to do
these amazing things

that we can do with cures today.

And we now understand
these concepts

that were rejected
by academic medicine

because we didn't
understand them.

We understand them now
in the language of science.

And now where we're at
is we can take these principles

and apply them to clinical care,
to the next phase,

the next new frontier,
which is integrative medicine.

The body is always responding

to whatever the mind
tells it to do.

So when the mind's tense,
the body's tense.

When the mind's happy,
the body's happy.

So the body
is always responding,

not just in ways in terms of
our physical tensions,

like the tensions
of the muscles,

but even right down to
the very core of our souls,

even what's happening
in the level of our DNA.

And what's really
been interesting

in the last five, 10 years
is really understanding

that it really is
a lot of two-way connections.

And there's a lot of molecules
that we always have thought of

as just in the body,
and we're recognising

that they actually also
play roles in the brain,

and that the brain
can also influence the body

at even a very cellular level.

All these terms, I think,
are approaching the same idea,

that the mind is not separate
from the body.

In fact, my belief
is that the only way

you can really separate
mind and body is verbally -

that they're two aspects of
the same underlying reality,

or two poles of the same thing.

Here's what we know about the
mind-body connection.

You may be familiar
with the idea

that your brain is like
a central message centre,

sending and receiving
electrical and chemical
signals

all over your body.

And now scientists
are starting to understand

that the communication
between your brain and body

is far more significant
than they once realised.

For example,

over 60 neurotransmitter
and hormonal receptors

have been found on the surface
of immune cells

designed for fighting disease.

Your brain
has a direct connection

to your body's first line
of defence,

and those cells can talk back.

In another major breakthrough,

scientists have discovered
around 80 million neurons

in your gut.

They're calling it
the second brain

because while it talks
to the brain

it can also act
completely independently

and influence behaviour.

So rather than there being
a mind in your head,

it's more like your mind
is all through your body.

But the easiest way
to understand

how your mind affects
your health

is by looking at stress.

So if we think that we're...

Imagine ourselves walking
through a jungle,

and out comes a tiger,
and it's a very hungry tiger.

We activate
the fight-or-flight response.

We've got to fight with
the tiger or we've got to fly,

get out of danger really fast.

So if we think about
this stress

or fight-or-flight response
as an activation response,

like a turbo charge of energy,

the body going into a different
gear, then it makes sense.

So the heart rate,
the blood pressure,

the blood vessels to the muscles
open up

to get all of this extra fuel,

sugars and fats are pumping
into the bloodstream,

the respiratory drive
kicks in in the brain.

We start to sweat to keep
ourselves cool

while we're exerting ourselves.

Our blood gets thick and sticky

and will clot faster
than normal,

and the body pumps out
inflammatory chemicals

to activate our immune cells

and to start mobilising
for tissue repair.

The attention centre
in the brain

lights up like a Christmas tree.

This is a major physiological,
neurological,

immunological,
metabolic change in our system.

And it's designed to help us
to adapt

to a clearly perceived
present-moment threat

in the environment.

And it's the kind of thing
that's there to save our life,

not to make us sick.

Unfortunately, 99% of the tigers
we're running from

are the ones that are actually
in our minds,

not the ones
that are really there.

And when we do that over
the long term,

it produces an effect that's
called allostatic load.

It's a physiological
wear and tear

that we place on our system.

It's like getting the car

and just absolutely
flogging it like crazy.

And if you asked your mechanic,

are your repair bills
going to go up?

He'd say, "If you drive
your car like that,

"your repair bills will go up

"and your parts
will wear out faster."

It's pretty much like that
with our bodies.

My name's Craig Duncan.
I'm from Sydney, Australia.

I'm a nonsmoker, nondrinker.

I'm active and exercise
most days of the week,

and have for a long period
of time.

I'm a vegetarian as well.

I was working for a professional
soccer team,

in charge of the sports science.

I was under enormous stress,

and I had been for
a long, long time.

A lot of it's self-imposed -

just rushing around
at a million miles an hour.

I was frustrated and unhappy
in what I was doing,

and that was difficult.

I was struggling to sleep,
or sleep well.

And I just...

Even though I might be
healthy on the outside,

exercising and that,
it all became too much.

I was at the gym
and I was lifting weights,

and at the time I didn't know
anything had really gone amiss.

It wasn't till that afternoon
that I went for a run

and got chest pain.

And again, didn't think
too much of it.

But in the next couple of days
I continued to try and run,

and the chest pain
got more and more,

and pain down my arm
and in the jaw -

the classical
heart attack symptoms.

And that's when I realised
that I had a real problem.

When I went into emergency,

even though the emergency ward
was packed,

they took me straight in.

And when they did some tests,

it was obvious that I'd had
a heart attack.

I had a spontaneous coronary
artery dissection,

and when I looked up
the literature,

there had only been
150 cases reported,

and most people die.

And that's...that's frightening.

I had no risk factors.

My cholesterol was normal and
my blood pressure was normal.

I'd recently had an ECG.
That was OK.

Never had chest pain.

Didn't have any family history
of heart disease.

But yeah,
I was under a lot of stress,

and I think that contributed.

There's no doubt about that.

If I let my stress and my
emotions get out of control

and am not in control
of my life,

there's no doubt
it could happen again.

And I really am not ready
to not be here.

CRAIG HASSED: If you help a
person to manage stress better

then you significantly
reduce the risk

of a person having further
cardiac events

in the progression
of heart disease.

These are all
reversible effects

if we learn how to recognise

the inappropriate activation
of that response

and learn to switch it off
when it's not actually required.

Then these effects

will start to reverse themselves
right through the body,

and interestingly
in the brain as well.

HERBERT BENSON: And I think
the major breakthrough

was recognising
that the body has a capacity

opposite to the stress response.

That's what we've called
the relaxation response.

We did an experiment

in which we took people
who meditated,

and we found there were dramatic
physiologic changes.

And the essence
of those changes

are a decreased metabolism
in the body,

a quieting of the body.

There's decreased heart rate,
decreased rate of breathing,

slower brain waves.

So here was a reaction

exactly opposite
to the stress response.

This now was science.

Here was something
measurable, predictable

and reproducible.

CRAIG DUNCAN: If you do not
have your mind

in some sort of balance

it doesn't matter
how healthy your body is.

I really had to use
breathing techniques

and different forms of
meditation that have helped me

to just stay calm.

That's it.

But I suppose
the overriding thing

that's helped me to stay healthy
and to decrease the stress,

I have to pray regularly.

If I'm praying, for me,
it brings a calmness.

It centres me.

HERBERT BENSON:
The two basic features

of evoking
the relaxation response

are repetition

and the disregard of other
thoughts when they come to mind.

And what those two things do

is break the train
of everyday thinking.

And often that everyday thinking
is what's stressful.

It's not a real sabre-tooth
tiger in front of you.

It's your fear
of losing your job,

it's your fear of illness
or what have you.

Then we return to
the literatures of the world

to see whether these two steps

that are breaking the train
of everyday thinking

had been described before.

And every single culture
of humankind

that had a history
had these two steps.

There's a commonality.

So if a person argues,
"My technique, my religion,

"is better for bringing
this forth than another,"

it's foolish, because
it's a bodily response.

Just as there are scores of
techniques that are stressful -

same fight-or-flight response -

so there are scores
of approaches

that evoke
the relaxation response.

One way scientists teach people

to evoke
the relaxation response

is to train people to meditate

by focusing their attention
on just one thing.

With practice
they become inwardly aware

and focused on
the present moment.

And now, with the development

of modern brain imaging
technology,

researchers are starting
to understand

the biological mechanisms
underpinning the practice.

While to an outsider

it looks like a person
meditating isn't doing much,

it turns out there's a lot
happening in their brain.

The really wonderful thing
about MRI

is that it lets us look
at the human brain

in a way
that we couldn't before.

Most of the work that we've done
centres on how meditation

can change the actual structure
of the brain.

So the research shows that

a part of the brain called
the amygdala gets turned down.

And the amygdala is important

for the fight-or-flight
response.

So when you see
something scary,

for instance, if you're walking
in the woods

and you suddenly see a snake
out of the corner of your eye,

your amygdala's going to alert
you and say,

"Oh!" and make you jump.

And that part of the brain

seems to get quieter
as you meditate.

And so this is consistent with
a sense of decreased arousal

and greater feelings of peace.

Brain imaging technology
is relatively new

in the context
of scientific discovery,

and it's early days
for mind-body research.

But Dr Sara Lazar's Harvard
study on meditating people

has interesting parallels with
studies recently done on mice

at the National Centre
for Biological Sciences.

Researchers took normal mice

and stressed them out
for two hours a day.

When they measured their brains

they found the amygdala
got bigger.

After 10 days,
they left the mice alone,

but two weeks later

they observed they were still
acting anxiously.

They measured
their brains again,

and although their stressors
had been removed,

they found the mice's amygdala
were still large.

This is the opposite
of what we're seeing

with people who meditate.

Their life is exactly the same
as it's always been.

So they still have
a stressful job,

all the difficult people in life
are still being difficult,

but their amygdala
has gotten smaller

and they're reporting
less stress.

So it shows in both cases

that it's not so much
the environment

but your reaction
to the environment,

and how you're relating
to the events

and the people in your life.

And so it's not about
changing your life,

it's about changing your
relationship to your life.

My name is Jason Wachob.

I live here in Brooklyn,
New York.

My back pain probably started

in 1996,

when I was playing basketball
at Columbia.

After I paid off the mountain of
college debt that I accrued,

I got into start-ups.

I love being an entrepreneur
and I love start-ups,

but there's also the pressure

that you're constantly
trying to grow,

and you're never growing
fast enough.

And you're trying
to raise capital

and you're trying to make money
and you have investors

and you're trying to
pick up business.

And it's a frenetic pace,
and that can be stressful.

I think I internalise stress.

At least, that's what
my wife says.

So I'm not a yeller
or a screamer.

People think I'm very
even-keeled,

which I think I am,
but I think I internalise it.

I think most...a lot of people
internalise stress,

and stress manifests itself.

And I think one of the ways
it manifested itself for me,

at this time of my life,
was through my back.

I would wake up without pain,

and as soon as I got out of the
bed, within five or ten minutes,

I would have shooting pain.

I could not walk
more than a block

without keeling over in pain.

It started to wear me down,
I think.

And then you're stressed
about the pain,

so it's kind of a vicious cycle
that you catch yourself in.

I went to see two different
doctors, specialists,

and both of them told me
I needed back surgery.

However,
the second doctor said,

"You may want to practise yoga.
That may help."

He said...
It was like an afterthought.

So as a last-ditch effort,
I started to practise yoga.

The work that I do

revolves around the clinic that
I started 34 years ago now

called the Mindfulness-Based
Stress Reduction Clinic,

or MBSR.

I was having lunch with a bunch
of dermatologists,

and they were talking about
some of their patients

giving up on their treatments
in the dermatology clinic,

particularly patients
with the skin disease psoriasis.

And the treatment for it

was a course of ultraviolet
light therapy.

We did a small randomised trial

that compared people just
getting the light treatment

with people meditating

while they were getting
the light treatment

and it turned out the
meditators' skin cleared

at about four times the rate
of the non-meditators.

And I didn't believe it.
It was such a powerful finding.

So we replicated it
and tried to make

a little bit more
rigorous study design,

and lo and behold, again
the meditators were healing

four times as fast
as the non-meditators.

And it is a beautiful example
of the mind-body connection,

because you're doing something
with your mind

and something is happening
in the skin.

So it just doesn't get
any better than that.

I think yoga is the perfect
blend of mental and physical

if you're doing it right.

You're moving, and you're really
paying attention to your breath.

And for me that's just magical
because yoga turns into

meditation in motion,
essentially.

I basically twice a day,
every day,

for about 15 or 20 minutes
in the morning and the evening

I would do these four or five
poses religiously every day.

Like, I would just find a spot,

and maybe do a third time
or a fourth time,

do what I needed to do.

And it just started to work.

After a week
I started to feel better,

and after three or four weeks

I could literally start to feel
my spine sort of move

and work itself out.

And then I started to
take classes,

and, you know, there's a great
instructor here, Tara Stiles,

who I started to go
to her class,

and she helped me, like,
take it to another level.

And the back pain's gone
and it hasn't come back.

Through practising with them,
everything went away,

and to me it's just...
it's just magical.

Like, I am sold on yoga
and its healing power.

JON KABAT-ZINN: I mean, that's
one of the beauties of yoga.

You get down on the floor
and start working with your body

in a kind of a way,
systematically,

over a period of time,

and it's, like,
you feel so good.

It's like
you didn't even realise.

And it's not like callisthenics

and it's not like, you know,
intense aerobic activity,

although it could be.

But there's just this sense of,
again, integration,

that you are at one
with your body,

and isn't it amazing
what it actually does?

So a question
I frequently get is,

"Well, you know, meditation or
yoga, it's about attention.

"But what about other activities

"that require
a lot of attention?"

So, for instance,
like rock climbing

or playing
a musical instrument.

When we look at brain activity
during meditation,

we find that many parts
of the brain

actually get turned off
during meditation.

Some areas are more active,

but mostly there's a lot of
turning off.

The focus is really inward.

So when you're running,
people are wearing headphones,

you know, or they zone out.

Whereas with the yoga
and the meditation

you're really paying attention
very closely

to what's going on inside,

and you really get
really in tune

with your body
and with your mind.

You really notice things

that you didn't even notice
were there before.

The deep structure
of these meditative -

and I would include yogic -
practices,

they've been around

for thousands and thousands
of years.

It's not the next fad.

If they have value, they've had
value for a very long time.

That's why they've survived.

And they really have to do with
how we live our lives.

So it's not like, "Oh, something
else should come along

"that will make this
irrelevant."

This is about as relevant
as you can get,

as long as the breath is moving
in and out of your body.

I think it's vital
that people understand

the power
of the mind-body reaction.

And it's best understood by most

by recognising
you have within yourself

a capacity that's opposite
to the stress response.

And to the extent that stress
is causing any disorder,

be it the brain, the body,
the liver, what have you,

to that extent, by reversing
stress's activity

through the relaxation response,
you can treat that.

Does that mean you give up drugs
or surgeries?

Of course not.

But you've got to bring this in

to that same level
of respectability,

because now
we're scientifically proven.

When you think about
your emotions,

you may notice you don't
feel them in your brain.

You feel them in your body.

Your face may flush.
Your heart may race.

Your stomach may flutter.

These feelings are a result of
chemicals and hormones
released

when your brain is in a certain
emotional state.

And now some researchers are
starting to link these states

to health outcomes.

We know happy people

live up to 10 years longer

than unhappy people.

If you're optimistic,

You have about half the risk

of getting heart disease

than if you're
more pessimistic.

In one landmark study
of 2,000 middle-aged men

who worked at the Western
Electric Company in the 1950s,

those who had been
emotionally depressed

at the start of the study

were twice as likely
to have died from cancer

20 years later.

While you might be thinking
this is explained

by happier people
being more inclined

to make healthier life choices,

this research made allowances
for smoking habits,

alcohol intake,
weight and cholesterol.

Even age, job status

and family history of cancer

were factored into the results.

Findings like this

are demonstrated
in thousands of studies

published in peer-reviewed
academic journals.

My name's Ann Salerno.

I'm a paediatric nephrologist,
which is a physician

who takes care of children
with kidney disease,

and I live in Hopkinton,
Massachusetts.

I was married at 33 years old,
and about a year later

we actively started trying
to have children.

And after a year of trying,

really felt like there
was some barrier

and that we should look into
going to a fertility specialist.

All my testing was normal.

All the signals were happening
at the right time,

and still nothing happened.

About a year into my journey,

one of our chickens was killed
by a coyote in the backyard,

and the other four chickens
stopped laying eggs.

It was really
just a wake-up call that...

Look at this simple animal model
of a chicken,

and how them feeling that there
was danger and feeling stressed

had affected their fertility
and their ability to ovulate.

The doctors that I had been to
had not really attended to

how this infertility treatment
and journey

had been affecting me
emotionally.

I didn't realise
it was happening,

but I started feeling more
and more depressed.

WOMAN:
Women with infertility

become very depressed
and very anxious.

And we actually
published a paper

that showed that women
with infertility

were twice as depressed as
women who were fertile.

So depression is really common
in the infertile population.

You know, you throw away
the birth control,

you try for a few months,
you don't get pregnant,

you start to get anxious
and depressed about it.

So even if the physical problem

that caused the infertility
at the beginning

goes away or gets treated,

the angst about not getting
pregnant can then kick in

and independently contribute
to the infertility.

CRAIG HASSED: Emotions have
a profound effect on the body,

for better or for worse.

We shouldn't be one-dimensional
about emotion,

thinking there's only one
positive emotion,

and that's smiling and laughing,

and if we're doing anything
else, like feeling sad,

then that's a negative emotion.

We do have, like a piano,
if you like...

We've got a whole lot
of octaves.

We've got a whole range
of emotions.

And so there might be times

when it's quite appropriate
to feel sad,

and if we express that sadness

in a way that we feel
comfortable with

then that's not
a negative emotion,

that's a natural human emotion.

It's really when the emotions,
what's on the inside,

gets out of step
with what's on the outside,

and then we start to
wrestle with emotions,

we start to wallow in emotions.

We get caught up in negativity,
caught up in self-criticism,

caught up in anger,

so that it lasts and lasts
way after its use-by date.

And that has a long-term and
cumulative effect on the body

that's not particularly healthy.

MAN: It's a sobering thought,
but it's true.

Depressed people don't
live as long.

That's true with
heart disease as well.

If you're depressed
and you have heart disease,

you're not going to live as long

as if you're not depressed
and have heart disease.

So it's a major risk factor

with the major medical illnesses
that kill us.

People who are depressed
feel hopeless,

helpless and worthless,

they may not exercise as well,
they don't sleep as well.

CRAIG HASSED: So the mind has
its direct effects on the body

by what we think -
that mind-body relationship -

but we also should consider

how the mind affects our health
via indirect means.

So that is, the mind decides
what we eat,

whether we exercise,
how we live.

And so the state of the mind has
profound effects on the body,

both in the short term
and the long term.

DAVID SPIEGEL: And depression
is something

we can do something about.

So it's a predictor
of cancer outcome

that we can have an effect on,

and potentially affect
disease outcome as well.

We published an article

in the 'Journal
of Clinical Oncology'

showing that the course
of depression

over a period of a year
for women with breast cancer

predicts survival time.

So the women whose depression
was getting better

lived substantially longer

than the ones whose depression
was getting worse.

And it wasn't just two months

after we studied their
depression,

it was seven years later.

And this prediction
was independent

of all the standard
risk factors -

oestrogen receptor status,
progesterone receptor status,

time from initial diagnosis
to relapse,

all of which are powerful
predictors of outcome.

This depression prediction
was independent of that.

Study after study has shown

that people who are lonely
and depressed and isolated

and three to ten times
more likely

to get sick and die prematurely

than those who have a sense of
love and connection and support.

And I don't know any single
factor in medicine -

not smoking, not cholesterol,
not blood pressure -

that affects our lives
and our survival to that degree.

ALICE DOMAR: If you look at
the data

that I've clocked in
in my career

on the impact of the mind-body
program on fertility rates

in infertility patients,

and the fact the program costs
a few hundred dollars

and pretty much doubles
pregnancy rates,

yes, if you had a pill
that did that,

every infertility patient
in the country would take it.

ANN SALERNO: I learned about

Ali Domar's mind-body program
for infertility,

and it sounded like
exactly what I needed.

Just going to the first meeting

and seeing all these women
in the room

that looked like
they were normal,

and just looking around the room
and saying, like,

"I'm not alone. I'm not a freak.

"I'm just, you know,

"another woman that has a
struggle like the rest of them."

And that was just
extremely powerful

in terms of just turning
my mood around

and helping me to feel more
optimistic about my life

regardless of whether
I got pregnant or not.

After a period of using
the mind-body techniques

that I had learned,

I felt that I would proceed to
the IVF treatment.

We ended up getting
just one embryo,

and that embryo took
on the first try.

And I did conceive,
I got pregnant,

and ultimately delivered
my first child,

my baby boy, Luke,
who's now almost two years old.

ALICE DOMAR: Most of my research

is actually looking at the
impact of the mind-body program

on infertility patients.

And we found the women
who did the mind-body program,

in addition to having

much fewer physical
or psychological symptoms,

had a 55% take-home baby rate

compared to a 20% take-home baby
rate in the control group.

So 55%, 20%.

The research shows that
if a woman feels stressed

she continues to meet
the demands of her family,

her home and her job,
and she lets go of her friends,

which is the thing you need
the most when you're stressed.

And I think there's
an expression

that a crisis shared
is half the burden.

And so I think that's why social
support is so important.

In the 1960s

a US town called Roseto

was an anomaly in America.

No-one under 55 had died
of a heart attack

or showed any signs
of heart disease.

The local death rate
for men over 65

was half the national average.

A team of researchers
led by Dr Stewart Wolf

considered whether this
was because of their diet,

location, family history
or exercise habits,

but on the surface

nothing was different
from the rest of America.

In fact, the town was made up
of Italian immigrants

who worked in quarries
and factories,

smoked unfiltered cigars

and had dinner tables
laden with rich Italian food.

Rosetans of the 1960s still
held onto their old-world
ways.

It was normal to find
three generations

under the same roof.

80% of men in the town

were members of at least
one community group.

They would gather in each
other's kitchens,

play cards and simply talk.

The conclusion?

Rosetans were nourished
by each other.

Over the next decade

the multi-generational homes
broke up.

And by 1971,
when opulent houses,

expensive cars
and swimming pools appeared,

the first person under the age
of 55 died of a heart attack.

By the 1980s

the rate of fatal heart attacks
in Roseto

was the same
as the rest of the country.

DEAN ORNISH: Many people
don't have an extended family

that they see regularly.

They don't have two or three
generations of people

who live in
the neighbourhood together.

They don't have a church or
synagogue they go to regularly,

a job they've been at
for many years.

We all know that these things
affect the quality of our lives,

but they actually affect
our survival

and to a much larger degree
than we had once realised.

And so what we've learned

is that it's not enough
to focus on the behaviour,

it's not enough
just to give people information,

we have to work at
this deeper level.

The number one most commonly
prescribed prescription drugs

in the US
and probably most of the world

have been antidepressants
for the last 10 years,

because there are a lot of
depressed people out there.

Now, a sceptic might say,
"Oh, come on, give me a break.

"You mean sitting around
talking about my feelings will

"somehow help me live longer
if I've got cancer? Please."

It's so easy to make fun
of these ideas,

how we're just so touchy-feely,
you know.

But we are
touchy-feely creatures,

we are creatures of community.

That's how we've survived
as a species,

is by learning how to care
and love and nurture each other.

And we ignore those ideas
at our own peril.

ANN: I just felt a contentment

that I had never felt before
in my life.

It was a feeling like
if I never accomplished anything

or never did anything special
for the rest of my life,

that it was OK.

And...um, about five months ago

I found out that I was
naturally pregnant,

which was very much a surprise,

and that, uh, you know,
it happened

the way it was, you know...

..I always thought
it was supposed to happen.

But I think a lot of that
has to do with, you know...

..sort of that you no longer
have that inner stress,

that inner angst.

It's definitely another miracle
in our lives.

I think that as a physician

I never was taught to appreciate

sort of, um, how a patient
is coping with an illness

or coping with an ailment

and how that interplays
with their therapy

or their success
in their therapy.

It just wasn't even mentioned.

There are now

more than 10,000
peer-reviewed academic papers

looking at the science
of mind-body medicine,

with more research
being published daily,

and with it comes
the molecular underpinnings

of emotions and disease

proving a mind-body connection.

And yet in most conventional
medical centres

the mind is not a component
in a treatment plan.

Millions of people are being
turned away from doctors'
rooms

with potentially curable
chronic illnesses.

Hi. My name's Scott.

I was diagnosed with melanoma
in 2000.

I think, looking back,

I was a bit of a worrying
sort of person -

not so much worried about myself

or where I'm gonna be
in 10 years...

..but I think I just worried
about stuff.

You know, a bit of
a perfectionist by nature and...

I don't know,
I just probably obsessed a bit

about my life, and how this
worked and how that worked

and whether that was
a good way to do things

and things like that.

My doctor never gave me
a prognosis.

But I did ask him.

You know, I said,
"How unwell am I?"

And... I think I said,
"How serious is this?"

And my doctor said, "It doesn't
get any more serious."

My doctor was happy
to call me a terminal patient.

You know, I was unwell.

I had stage IV melanoma,

and people with stage IV
melanoma didn't get better.

And my doctor said,

"Well, look, you can have
chemotherapy if you like,

"but it's only got
a 5-10% success rate."

He said, "But that's all
I've got for you."

They offered me chemotherapy
as a palliative treatment

and that's all they had for me.

I never looked to myself.

You know, I just...looked
to the medical system

and whacked a drip in my arm

and sat there and said,
"She'll be right, mate."

Like, that's the mentality
that I had.

But I wasn't right,
because it kept coming back.

I think there's an art
in how you approach a patient.

The words that a doctor uses
have great power.

I've written also about
what I call 'medical hexing',

which is the negative side
of this,

that many patients have been

told by doctors
in one way or another

that they're not gonna
get better.

Often, doctors haven't,
you know, meant to do that,

and they may even be unconscious
of the things that they've said,

but I think this is an area
that needs correction,

that doctors need to be aware
of how powerful their words are

and to use them, you know,
to promote healing

rather than hinder it.

DAVID SPIEGEL:
Medicine used to be a trade.

It used to be that you would
apprentice yourself to a doctor

and roam around with -
mostly then - him, not her

and learn the craft.

At the beginning
of the last century

there was a report called
the Flexner Report

in the United States

that said, you know,
medicine should be a science,

and so people started

going to formal medical schools
after university.

But, I think, in an odd way,

we solved one problem
and created another

because
the old general practitioners,

they understood the importance
of emotional support

as well as whatever medication
or surgery you gave.

So the oldest adage of medicine
is that our job is

to cure rarely, relieve
suffering, and comfort always,

and in the Flexner era
we rewrote that job description

to be that our job was
to cure always,

relieve suffering
if you had the time,

and let someone else
do the comforting.

MAN: We've started to look at
the doctor-patient interaction

and then, even more broadly,

this ritual or theatre, even,
of healing.

What is it that we do
when we prescribe a medicine,

or see a patient about a surgery
or even conduct surgery?

What is in that environment

and how does it affect
a patient's brain?

There's a couple of trials
which have been done

by a colleague of mine in Italy,
Professor Benedetti,

in the early 2000s,

and they were able to look at

post-operative pain
with the drug morphine,

and were able to show

that morphine was
almost half as effective

when you didn't know
you'd received it.

In other words,
the effect of a drug

is a combination
of the pharmacology of the drug

and the effect of your brain

knowing
that you're having the drug

and the therapeutic ritual
of the drug administration.

That component
is the placebo effect,

and that's what we're studying.

ESTHER STERNBERG: What we're
really talking about here

is what has been almost misnamed
'the placebo effect' -

the brain's own
healing mechanism.

And the reason it's misnamed

is it's usually
the placebo effect...

The word 'placebo'
is usually preceded

by a four-letter word - 'just'.

"Oh, it's 'just'
the placebo effect'."

Well, it's not 'just'
the placebo effect.

It's a very powerful effect
that contributes

about 30% to 50% of the effect
of any biological cure.

Belief is critical
because belief has the ability

to trigger part of the overall
healing response, if you like.

In simple terms, belief is
part of why we get better.

It's not the complete answer,

but it's one part of any medical
treatment, which is important.

And that's both at a
patient level - having belief -

and at a doctor level -

realising that belief
is important.

And the communication
about some of these things

with the patient
is important as well.

My name's Ian Gawler.

I started off my working life
as a veterinarian,

but after just a couple of years
of being in practice

I got a swelling
in my right thigh

which turned out to be a very
aggressive form of bone cancer.

And so in the beginning of 1975

I had my leg amputated
through the hip,

and it got worse

because less than a year later,
the cancer reoccurred.

Nobody on record had lived
more than six months

with that particular type
of secondary cancer,

and most people seemed to die
within about three months.

Being a veterinarian, I'd seen

animals healing through their
own natural agency, if you like,

and so that set me off on
this sort of quest for healing.

And I was very fortunate

because I was around in the
early days of mind-body medicine

when meditation
was just starting

to be used therapeutically,

where nutrition was starting

to be taken,
by some people, seriously

for its therapeutic value,

and that whole role of the mind
and emotions and health

was being considered.

As I was putting all this effort
into getting well,

I reached a point where I...

..it was very apparent that
my mind was the limiting factor,

because up to that point
I'd been doing all these things

that had the possibility
of helping me to recover,

but it became apparent
at that time

that I had some level of doubt
about it.

I was told about this
Indian holy man named Sai Baba,

who was revered in India
at the time

as a...as a divine incarnation.

I must say, of all the people
I met through my healing journey

in terms of presence

and in terms of fulfilling
the expectation

of what one would have

of a really extraordinary
holy man,

he really fitted the bill.

And he said to me very clearly,
very directly,

"You're already healed.
Don't worry."

And he'd sort of
picked up on the fact

that there was this doubt
sort of there.

And with doubt,
you hang back a bit.

And although from the outside

I would have looked like I was
very committed, very engaged

with this whole healing process,

I know - it was a fact -

that there was this
level of doubt there

that was sort of
holding things back.

And through the agency
of meeting him

and the catalytic effect
that he had

and the sort of power
of his presence,

which is, like, what made him
for me a true healer,

I was able to actually
switch that

and I came away from there
with conviction.

And it didn't actually change
what I was doing,

but it changed
how I was doing it

in this quite deep
and profound way.

And so everything from then on
I thought...

You know, I came away, you know,
thinking I'd really get well.

In recent years
the scientific line of inquiry

has moved from being
not if, but how,

belief effects your health.

And while the study
of placebo responses

still has a long way to go

to influence the practices
of conventional medicine,

scientists are starting
to uncover

a physiological basis
for placebo.

Neuroscientists can see
placebo treatments

prompt chemical responses
in the area of the brain

that modulates things like
mood, sleep and pain reception

in a similar way to drugs.

Research on the brains of
people with Parkinson's
disease

has shown that placebos
increase dopamine,

a chemical
that affects emotions

and sensations of pleasure
and reward.

In a study of patients with
irritable bowel syndrome,

people got better

even when they knew
pills given to them were fake.

These people were told

their doctors felt the pills
would help,

and they did.

This is
a really important reminder

that the therapeutic interaction

between the therapist -
any healthcare professional -

and the patient,
is important,

and I think people have
known that for years.

And now we can,
through placebo research,

demonstrate that it's important

because there's a clear
biological manipulation

or altering of...of symptoms.

I think 'healing response'

is a better term
than 'placebo response',

because in most doctors' minds,
placebo responses...

People only think of

giving sugar pills
and saline injections,

so this is fooling patients,
duping them in some way.

And doctors don't like to see
themselves as duping patients,

and patients certainly don't
want to see themselves as dupes.

So I think to avoid all that

I would tend to
talk about these

as mind-mediated
healing responses.

Now, it doesn't mean, you know,

"I think I'm gonna
get rid of my cancer

"or my, you know,
other major illness

"and it's just gonna go away,"

but it does mean
that the body's response

to the insult of an infection
or a tumour or something else

may be modulated by
central nervous system effects,

including expectation
and placebo.

There's no way you can ever
draw a line and say,

"On this side are the
intrinsic effects of treatment

"and on this side are
the mind-mediated effects."

And not only is it impossible
to do that,

it's foolish to do that,

because to me
the placebo response

is the meat of medicine -

that's what you're trying
to make happen.

IAN GAWLER:
It wasn't like I found

some magic medical thing
that fixed me

or some alternative treatment
that fixed me.

I think if there's a magic
bullet involved in my case,

it was actually that sort of
inner capacity for healing

and activating that.

After I recovered,

a lot of people
heard about my story

and wondered what I'd done

and whether it could
be of help to them.

And really, my story's got
less and less significant

in that sense

because the real body
of the work

is the testament
of all the people

who've done these things
over many years.

A friend had mentioned
the Gawler Foundation to me.

Straightaway in this program,

things started to make sense
to me.

You know, like,
full light bulb moments.

You know, I was motivated
and I was keen to stay alive.

I'd just got married.
I was...I was 27.

Like, I didn't want to die.

And I made a lot of changes.

IAN GAWLER: And I have
no trouble in saying,

"I don't care what the odds are.
You're an individual.

"You've got a body,
you've got emotions,

"you've got a mind,
you've got a spirit.

"It's possible that
you're gonna recover."

A lot of the people
that I've helped

that have managed to recover

sort of in spectacular ways
against difficult odds

have found
that point of conviction

at some point
in their own healing journey.

SCOTT: They teach you about
the effects of emotions

on your body,
your immune system,

the importance of meditation,
nutrition,

having some sort of
spiritual connection

to whatever it is
you believe in,

all these things.

And they're all things
that you can do for yourself.

So some people say that my...

..my healing
is this miraculous recovery.

But to me, it was...

..it was just hard work
and perseverance.

And belief.

I believed these things,
you know, were good for me.

The easiest way
to sum it up for someone is

would I have got well

without all these approaches
like meditation

and, essentially,
looking after yourself?

No.

Would I have got well

with just that
and no chemical intervention?

Maybe.

But if you wanted to
break it down,

the drugs weren't gonna cure me,
not by themselves.

I was a terminal patient.

I had stage IV melanoma.

And here I am,
cancer-free, 6.5 years later.

Despite
the overwhelming evidence

that your mind plays
a major role

in both determining
your sickness and wellness,

there remains a major line
of inquiry to explore -

the role of genetics.

Genes are stretches of DNA

that sit in almost every cell
in your body.

They contain instructions

for producing proteins that
run every bodily function.

We inherit half our DNA
from each of our parents.

And if your parents,
grandparents or other
relatives

have an illness,

you have a greater risk
of getting sick too.

I'm George Jelenik.

I'm a medical doctor
who is in academic medicine,

and emergency medicine is the
specialty I've been trained in.

Mum was diagnosed with MS.

So MS is multiple sclerosis,
which is...

..which means that you've got

multiple lesions,
or little areas of damage,

through your nervous system.

Generally it's thought to be
an autoimmune disease,

so the immune system essentially
attacks your own nervous system.

And she deteriorated
quite quickly.

Within perhaps five years
of diagnosis,

she could no longer walk.

And I remember her

then coming to my
medical school graduation

in a wheelchair

and having to be sort of
lifted up the ramp to get inside

to...to see me graduate
from medicine.

I'd done three years
of residency as a doctor

and I thought I would just
take off and see the world

and go for a few years.

And in fact
it was at my going-away party

that I was rung to say that
my mother had been found dead.

She was intent

on finishing her life perfectly
rationally and...and reasonably

because of
what her life had become.

And so she took an overdose
and was found in the morning.

There's a very strong
genetic predisposition to MS,

so if you have a first-degree
relative who had MS,

like my mother,

then your chance is
about 20 to 40 times

the average chance
of the rest of the population.

And it was 1999, 18 years later,
when I was 45,

that I first developed
symptoms of MS.

We used to think that
the genes you were born with

are what you're stuck with

and that's it,
that it's set in stone.

And it turns out
that's not the case.

You're born with the genes.
The genes aren't gonna change.

But the way they are expressed
is very profoundly affected

by the experiences
that you go through.

So often I hear people say,
"Oh, I've just got bad genes.

"It's all in my genes.
What can I do?"

Well, actually you can do a lot.

For the last 36 years,

I've directed a series
of research studies

showing what
a powerful difference

changes in diet and lifestyle
can make

not only in preventing disease,

but actually in treating
and often reversing it.

We were able to show
for the first time

that we could slow, stop,
or even reverse

the progression
of early-stage prostate cancer.

We looked into some of the
mechanisms to help explain that,

and we found that over 500 genes
were favourably changed

in just three months.

And, in fact,
turning on the good genes

that prevent these conditions

and turning off
particularly the oncogenes

that promote prostate cancer
in men, breast cancer in women,

colon cancer and so on.

And I think these findings are
giving many people new hope

and new choices
that they didn't have before.

So the bedrock principle
of biology,

that genes are fixed
and unchangeable,

has now been shaken
to the core.

Through the study
of gene expression,

scientists now know

that your genes can be
switched on and switched off.

And while for the most part
every cell in your body

contains exactly
the same genes,

and that won't change,

being exposed
to external forces

can flip the switch
one way or another.

By studying epigenetics,
researchers also know

that gene expression can be
passed to the next generation.

The way
your great-grandmother lived

could be affecting your health.

And here,
at the front line of science,

there are major implications
for mind-body medicine.

Recently, research
on the relaxation response

was taken to a whole new level.

Scientists at
the Benson Henry Institute

for Mind Body Medicine

looked at
the genetic expression

of people who meditated.

And the results revealed

that meditation can
flip the switch

on genes affecting disease.

But it's even,
from my point of view,

more remarkable than that,

because the first time you evoke
the relaxation response,

these genomic gene expression
changes occur.

Now, what happens,
the more times you do it daily,

the more intense
is the response,

the more anchored it is,

but it happens
the very first time

when you go through
these instructions.

That's incredible.

That's absolutely remarkable.

So what you're saying is

that within minutes
of doing a technique

that evokes
the relaxation response,

we can change the way
our genes are expressed?

Yes. Yes. And that's...

Now, there is
a very important point here,

namely, the more you do it,
the more intense the response.

That means the daily practice
of these techniques is vital.

Sure, you can get a benefit,

but you can get
so much more benefit

if you do it on a daily basis.

GEORGE JELENIK:
To be diagnosed with MS

was just an enormous...
an enormous blow.

I mean, it's impossible
to really adequately convey

how life-changing that is.

At a stage when you've got
a really young family

and you've just been appointed
to a really important new job,

and things seem, apparently,

to be going really well
in your life,

it's like an enormous hand
just reaches in

and takes your life away
from you.

In an instant it's just gone.

I started thinking,
"Why have I gotten sick?

"Why did I get sick right now?

"What is this illness
doing for me?

"What does it mean
in the context of my life?"

And so I...I had a path
suddenly to explore.

I'm no stranger to medical
research in the job I do,

so it was relatively easy for me

to look through
the medical literature

and see what had been written
about this illness before.

And really the literature
had so many clues

about what causes MS
and what makes it worse

that it wasn't that difficult
to put that together.

I think I got sick,
in hindsight,

because everything in my life
was really out of whack.

It was really out of balance.

And it was the exploration
of that path, really,

that led me to be well
and keeps me well.

For a long time, I wouldn't use
the word 'recovery'

because I thought...

That doesn't even get discussed
in medical circles,

that it's possible
to recover from MS.

And I thought it was
really sticking my neck out

to say I'd recovered.

But in fact, from what I've seen

in my own personal experience
now,

I think
it's perfectly reasonable

to start a conversation
about recovery from MS.

Why not?

It's just
another chronic illness

like many of the others we see
in the West.

Why couldn't you recover
from that?

If you looked at my life now,

it is unrecognisable
from my previous life.

I live
a pretty healthy lifestyle.

So I exercise every day
of the week,

plus walking to work and back.

I eat a plant-based
wholefood diet,

I eat a lot of fish, take
omega-3 supplements, vitamin D.

I'm perfectly happy to meditate
with my colleagues at work.

And, interestingly enough,

the whole organisation
at St Vincent's Hospital

is starting to embrace
meditation.

When things go wrong,
I seek counselling,

I keep my diary,

I've got some really good
friends I can sit and talk to

and really close family
who really understand me.

So, all in all,
it's a whole lot easier

for me to stay
emotionally healthy now

than it was in other parts
of my life.

If you looked at the kind
of cards I was dealt,

then I think the average person
would have said that

that's a recipe for...
for a disastrous life.

And yet I don't
remotely feel like

I'm living the kind of
prescription that was delivered.

It's real hope that you can
end up perfectly well

after 10 or 15 years
with this illness.

I mean, I have.

Through the story
of George Jelenik,

a professor
of emergency medicine,

we have living proof

that your wellness
is determined

by far more than your genes,

that you can apply
the latest science

to change the way your chronic
illness affects your life.

But here at the frontier
of mind-body medicine,

it doesn't stop
at gene expression.

Thanks to the work

of a Nobel Prize-winning team
of researchers

from the University
of California,

we know that high levels
of stress

affect the rate your DNA ages.

They found, for example,

that women with the
highest levels of stress
in their lives

had about 10 years
of accelerated ageing

compared to low-stress women.

They measured this
by looking at telomeres.

These are little caps

that sit on the ends
of your DNA strands,

like the ends of shoelaces,

and guard
your genetic information.

As you age,
your telomeres get shorter,

and the shorter your telomeres,
the greater the risk

of illnesses
associated with ageing.

Shortened telomeres
have been linked

to increased risk of cancers,
heart disease and dementia.

But it's not too late.

A pilot study by Dr Dean Ornish

has shown that even this
is reversible.

DEAN ORNISH: When people went
through our lifestyle program,

which included
stress management,

exercise, a healthier diet
and more love and intimacy,

their telomeres
actually got longer,

so their lives get longer.

It's still the only
intervention, including drugs,

that's been shown to actually
make your telomeres longer.

And I think these findings are
giving many people new hope

and new choices
that they didn't have before.

CRAIG HASSED: I just think
it's fascinating

to be thinking
you're sitting in a chair

practising a mind-body technique
like meditation

and you're doing genetic
engineering at the same time.

I find that extraordinary.

So how we feel and how we relate
to ourselves in the world

has an effect on our ageing

through a whole lot
of different mechanisms

from genetics to physiology,

for better or for worse,

and things accelerate ageing

and there are things
that slow it down,

and it's not surprising.

Having good emotional health,

coping well with demands
of day-to-day life,

leading a healthy lifestyle,
slow it down,

and the things
that we associate with

poor mental health
and an unhealthy lifestyle

speed it up.

It just depends on how fast
we want to burn the wick.

But if there was
a patentable product

that had those kinds of effects

we'd be all over it.

We'd be spending
billions of dollars on research

and rolling it out
in no time at all.

It's been nearly 10 years

since I was diagnosed
with an autoimmune disease,

a 3-year journey
to make this film.

I am not in a wheelchair.

I am not on medication.

I now see that
when it comes to my health,

balancing my mind and body

is as essential
as the air I breathe.

And in a strange way
I'm grateful for the illness

because, like so many other
people I've met along the way,

it wasn't until I got sick

that I realised
I needed to get better.

DEAN ORNISH: I can't tell you

how many patients
have said things to me

like, "Having a heart attack

"was the best thing
that ever happened to me,"

or, "Being diagnosed
with prostate cancer..."

You want to go,
"What? Are you nuts?"

And they say, "No, that's what
it took to get my attention

"to begin making these changes
in my life

"that have made it so much more
meaningful and beautiful

"that I might not have ever
done it otherwise."

They're spending more time
with their loved ones,

they're eating and exercising
more, so they feel better.

And so for me that's what...

I mean, we're all gonna die,
so...

More important than how long
we live is how well we live.

HERBERT BENSON:
For health and wellbeing

and to treat illnesses,

of course we need drugs,
of course we need surgeries,

but we also need
the power of the mind.

Now we have
the evidence-based proof

that the mind can heal,

and it should be added
appropriately

to drugs and surgeries.

DEAN ORNISH: I've spent my whole
life professionally documenting

what a powerful difference
these simple changes can make.

You know, we think
it has to be a new laser

or something really high-tech
and expensive -

a new drug,
a new surgical technique.

We are trying to show
that these very simple choices

that we make in our lives
each day

have a powerful impact
on our lives,

much more and much more quickly
than we had once realised,

for better and for worse.

JON KABAT-ZINN: Absolutely.

We have much more to say
over how healthy we'll be

than our doctors,
and how we do that

whether it's though yoga,
whether it's through meditation,

whether it's through exercise,

whether it's through
changing our diets,

whether it's through
giving more...

..airtime to our relationships

and appreciating
that our relationships

aren't, like, off to the side
someplace.

They're absolutely critical
to how well we will feel.

DAVID SPIEGEL: I believe
in the power of group support.

I have no doubt at all that
it helps people live better.

And we are not just
splendid individuals.

We define ourselves in part
by the people around us

and how they interact with us.

And so I have no doubt at all

that it helps people
live better,

and I think the evidence
is accumulating

that it helps them live longer
as well.

ALICE DOMAR: I know our mind
and body are connected.

I've had thousands of patients
get pregnant.

I know there's
a mind-body connection.

I've seen it,
I've done research on it.

It's a given.

ANDREW WEIL: I think
mind-body medicine

is central to good medicine.

In fact, you know,
one thing I often say

is that one day we'll be able
to drop the word 'integrative' -

this will just be good medicine.

There is no doubt that the mind
and the body are connected.

There is no doubt that
the brain and the immune system

and the rest of the body
are connected,

and that when those connections
are intact and in balance

you have health

and when they're broken
you have disease.

You can't always overcome
your genes.

You can't always overcome
your environment.

But with help,

with an experienced practitioner
who can help guide you,

you can find the best formula

to help your body and your brain
to help you heal.