A scientist explores the mind/body relationship in terms of biological triggers and feedback loops. Some of his research may lead to answers about Chronic Fatigue, Gulf War, and Irritable Bowel Syndromes:
Often there is an organic trigger like glandular fever. That's the start, and usually most people get over it, albeit after some weeks or months. But others can get trapped in vicious circles of monitoring their symptoms, restricting their activities beyond what is necessary and getting frustrated or demoralised. This causes more symptoms, more concerns and more physical changes, so much so that what started it all off is no longer what is keeping it going.
One of the enigmas is why certain infections, like glandular fever, have an increased likelihood of triggering chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), while others, such as influenza, do not. We also don't know why people who have had depression are twice as likely to develop CFS. I get cross with people who want to explain one and not the other. Some people take too psychiatric a view of CFS and ignore the infective trigger, whereas others want to think only about the infection.
The NY Times gives us a feel good story about (the early-seventies band) Death. This is a must read for fans of early punk:
The teenage Hackney brothers started playing R&B in their parents’ garage in the early ’70s but switched to hard rock in 1973, after seeing an Alice Cooper show. Dannis played drums, Bobby played bass and sang, and David wrote the songs and contributed propulsive guitar work, derived from studying Pete Townshend’s power-chord wrist technique. Their musicianship tightened when their mother allowed them to replace their bedroom furniture with mikes and amps as long as they practiced for three hours every afternoon. “From 3 to 6,” said Dannis, 54, “we just blew up the neighborhood.”
Death began playing at cabarets and garage parties on Detroit’s predominantly African-American east side, but were met with reactions ranging from confusion to derision. “We were ridiculed because at the time everybody in our community was listening to the Philadelphia sound, Earth, Wind & Fire, the Isley Brothers,” Bobby said. “People thought we were doing some weird stuff. We were pretty aggressive about playing rock ’n’ roll because there were so many voices around us trying to get us to abandon it.”
And lastly, this, a literature review of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction from 2006:
The abstract (email me if you would like the whole, quite short paper)
Meditation, as a psychological intervention, has become of increasing interest to psycholo-
gists who conduct clinical research with or provide clinical services to medical populations.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a manualized program which teaches a vari-
ety of meditation techniques and has frequently been used in medical settings with mixed
medical populations. The following is a review of the literature, which provides preliminary
support for the effectiveness of MBSR in specific medical populations, including persons with
chronic pain, cancer and heart disease. Despite these encouraging findings, experts agree that
continued research is needed, especially controlled studies with more rigorous methodology
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