Your mind controls your body
Do you think that what you believe can have a significant affect on your physical health? I do and have had the courage to teach others the same beliefs. For many years Dr. Albert Bandura of Stanford University, has been the world’s leading authority on efficacy theory. Efficacy theory is a scientific way to describe how our beliefs about our abilities affect those same abilities and, indeed, our entire lives.
For almost 20 years, I have been studying people, their behaviour and how what they believe affects everything they are and do. Dr. Bandura has been doing research for about 40 years, trying to determine just how this works. He found that our beliefs about our ability to change health habits, and about the degree of control we have over our lives, have a profound affect on our health.
These beliefs determine whether we will actually do what we need to do in order to stay healthy. They also determine how well we handle stress. Excessive stress has been linked directly to weakness of the immune system.
Bandura’s researchers found that it is impossible to predict how well a given patient will do based on medical evidence alone. Arthritis patients learned to control their pain without drugs, as well as they did with drugs. They also reduced their dependence on doctors and slowed the progression of the arthritis.
I am certain that our beliefs directly affect our health and well-being. Thanks to Bandura and others like him, the research to help explain how this works is also available to everyone.
If we all had the courage to teach what we know the world would be a better place.
posted in paul palmer, the courage to teach | 152 Comments