Doctor believes faith cuts stress

Dr. Herbert Benson, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, believes that faith can lessen the effects of stress on the mind and body.

The founder of the Mind/Body Medical Institute in Boston, and the author of "The Relaxation Response" and "Examining the Faith Factor" will present his ideas during a May 21 conference on the connections among mind, body and spirit.

He likens those connections to the "third leg" on a tripod in that they can augment pharmaceuticals and other medical procedures that have "awesome healing capacities."

Emphasis on stress

Marriage problems, career troubles, deadlines, concerns about terrorism and mental health issues can cause stress-related problems, Dr. Benson told The Evangelist.

Stress is characterized by a number of physical and psychological symptoms, including increased metabolism, heart rate, blood pressure and respiration; heart irregularities; anxiety; mild to moderate depression; anger; and hostility.

"Any disorder is caused or made worse by stress," he continued. "Hormones are being self-injected into us. They don't cause pain, but they make all forms of pain worse."

Solution

Stress can be reduced by evoking the body's "relaxation response," said Dr. Benson, and that response can be accomplished through methods taken from religion.

"As the body has within it this 'fight or flight' response, so it has within it the opposite response," he explained. "Two steps are necessary to bring it about. The first is repetition. This repetition can be a word, a sound, a prayer, a phrase or even a movement. In the second step, you simply disregard the other thoughts and come back to the repetition."

In Judaism, the repetitive movement is known as davening; in Buddhism, there are mantras and meditation; in other Eastern religions, yoga, tai chi and qi gong serve the same purpose.

Rosary

In Catholicism, he said, this stress-reducing response can be induced by the Rosary or centering prayer.

"The Rosary is a classic prayer for this," said Dr. Benson, who is Jewish, noting how its repetitive nature can evoke a greater sense of peace.

"What we're talking about is the innate healing capacity of an individual," he said. "By the repetition and disregard of everyday thinking, you break the train of everyday thought and allow the body to heal itself. If you're of a secular persuasion, you can say it's all an evolutionary device; if you're of a religious persuasion, [you say that] God put it there."

(For more information on Dr. Benson's presentation at the Capital District Psychiatric Center, May 21, 9 a.m.-12:45 p.m., call the Pastoral Care Department at Albany Medical Center at 262-3176).

Looking for new ideas to link medicine, faith

The Rev. Harlan Ratmeyer, a Lutheran minister who is director of pastoral care at Albany Medical Center, said that the facility wants to develop an approach to healing that "includes more than medicine."

The Pastoral Care Department is "very aware that spiritual focus and material focus have often been split apart a great deal," he explained. "In Western medicine, we have evolved some wonderful programs and techniques that can do a great many things for people. But we have, at the same time, become less caring. We are looking for modalities that help to address the various aspects of curing and treatment.

"Mental health is very much affected by an approach that includes a whole context of body-mind-spirit medicine. We believe that the best of all these disciplines need to come together."

He hopes religious and lay ministers attend the workshop with Dr. Benson. (KD)

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