According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, an average of 400,000 Americans live with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), while each week 200 new cases are being diagnosed.
The symptoms of MS are numerous, but include fatigue, numbness, depression, and pain.
Treatments for MS generally focus on reducing disease progression, but what about the psychological effects of the disease?
A new study published in Neurology can provide us with some helpful insights.
Paul Grossman, PhD, from the University of Basel Hospital in Switzerland, led a team of researchers who looked at the psychological effects of mindfulness meditation on people with MS.
They randomly divided 150 individuals with mild to moderate MS into two groups.
The first group received standard medical treatment, as well as eight weeks of mindfulness meditation training. This training focused on mental and physical activities aimed at developing mindfulness.
They attended classes for 2.5 hours per week and practiced related activities 40 minutes per day.
The second group had no mindfulness training and only received the standard medical treatment for MS.
From the first group, those who completed the mindfulness training showed improvement in fatigue, depression, and quality of life, including a 30% drop in depressive symptoms compared to those who had no mindfulness training.
Participants in the second group experienced a decline on most measures.
Six months after the mindfulness training ended, individuals from the first group still exhibited positive effects of the training with some to no reduction in benefits.
Mindfulness is starting to be utilized in areas that would have been unheard of a decade or two ago.
That’s why we’ve created several mindfulness programs exploring just how effective it can be in a number of areas.
In the meantime, have you used mindfulness training in tangent with medical treatment for any of your patients? Please leave a comment.
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Like a lot of methods, its works for some, but not for all!
Hello Jennifer,
Thank you for your book suggestion. Between your and Ellen’s message, I’ve got quite a list of book possibilities to look into. I still do love dancing. Throughout my ten years of illness, I’ve made some of my best choreography. In 2008, I wrote, choreographed and produced my first full-length musical called The Exile Project. It examined the injustices of the prison industrial complex through the lens of one man’s attempts to rebuild his life after serving a prison sentence. You want to know about a space in our culture that desperately needs systemic change as well as good counselors and doctors, visit a prison. I continue to find enormous pleasure and release in life through just plain ole dancing, turning on some music in my little home studio and dancing. It strikes me as beautifully ironic that at age 43 years old, my joy with dance looks much like it did at age 4 years old. The metaphors involved in this entire experience with illness continually inspire me. Today, I begin to teach a community choreography workshop which I imagined some time ago and look forward to beginning tonight. I am determined not to let this competitive, only one person wins culture rob me of my greatest passion. Dancing is mine even if its only done in the kitchen.
Thanks again for your suggestions,
Holly
Dear Holly.
This is a text I posted on a Dr Hyman’s page, I hope it finds you. Well done for all your achievements as seen on LinkedIn.
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This is for everyone on this page, including Dr Hyman, but especially for you Holly.
Thank you for writing your book. Thanks to Amazon, I was able to have a look at it, and noticed how your entire life drama is revealed on the first page: full, complete and detailed – I refer to your nightmare, and its contents. Is it any wonder your whole being was behaving as it was on the night, re-acting to the close proximity of all your troubles? I hope it’s not too hard for you to hear this – as calling out an injustice, fair and square, is usually the most difficult thing to do, when it concerns our parents. I am very happy you’ve made it through, even that you call your milder epilepsy your friend. Maybe that can go too – yes, epilepsy too. Why would it not simply be a Symptom still? It shouldn’t be too hard to associate it (epilepsy) with the trauma of your childhood. In plain French it’s called PTSD, post-traumatic-stress-disorder, or better, post-traumatic-stress-INJURY as Peter Levine calls it.
With regards to Eliminating Toxins and Waste: there is a 5th process in our biology which takes care of ridding our body of STRESS. This, the body does by the process of tremoring or shaking – just like nature always intended, indeed as animals still do in the wild and our homes, and as children also do, till it gets suppressed by society (be strong, boys don’t cry…etc). But there IS a way to invoke this process of tremors quite safely, with immediate and lasting results: through David Berceli’s method of Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises TRE. Please check it out: dead simple, easy and free !!! although it is advised to get a practitioner to help you manage the process, especially when serious known-trauma is involved. Cheers Holly, and thanks again. Happy dancing! Raymond Lambert
Hi Ellen
Thank you for the book list. There are some I haven’t heard of and will definitely look into. Some others to add to the list would be Peter Levine’s Waking the Tiger; Healing Trauma. His work deals with somatic experiencing and working with the body to release trauma gently. I’ve seen this technique transform people who have gone through extreme debilitating physical and psychological trauma. Joseph Chilton Pearce’s The Biology of Transcendence which deals with our physical bodies being able to transcend on a cellular level reconstructing our very DNA. It also focuses on neurocardiology and the power and energy of the heart. As well as, Dr. Gabor Mate M.D.’s, When the Body Says No; The Cost of Hidden Stress. The above use mindfulness meditation and other energy work to deal with healing.
A great book from the psychological perspective is, The Inner World of Trauma; Archetypal Defences of the Personal Spirit by Donald Kalshed. I include this book because in my own process it has helped me tremendously to understand the psychology behind why energy gets blocked.
Holly: If you still love to dance I suggest you check out Gabrielle Roth. She brings mindfulness to movement/dance that enlightens the body. I’ve used her techniques as part of my healing and they’ve been invaluable.
Jennifer
I have used for many years, mindfulness and meditation/ or guided imagery/visualization as part of healing with many issues with clients, including immune system issues, usually related to early/chronic &/or entrenched trauma and responses/habits in ways of responding to relationships and stress/intimacy/emotions. As an Energy Medicine worker and Intuitive (which I was before I became a licensed counselor), I was greatly influenced by in my teen years, by reading Edgar Cayce, and the Primal Scream, and about 25 years ago, Louise Hay. Later, starting in the late 80’s, reading Caroline Myss’ book, “The Creation of Health”, in the 90’s, meeting and being helped by author, MD, homeopath, and acupuncturist, Dr. Luc De Schepper (his books and self tests about immune health are excellent), Karla McLaren (energy boundaries), and in the last 10 years, reading, and training in the work of Energy Medicine pioneer, Donna Eden. The effects of trauma are stored in and directly affect our energy fields, which over time directly affects our physiology. Trauma therapy like EMDR is effective. I use it, and have seen it free clients from an emotional torment (and often accompanying physical manifestations), that talk therapy with a dozen of other clinicians failed to touch.
What I see as most effective is teaching my clients to work with, feel, and know their own energy systems, incorporate abdominal breathing, moving energy through the joints (from the crown through the core, and out the feet) – and feeling the mind/body/spirit interface, and remembering that the body holds cellular and energetic pain and working with the energy and original point of emotional pain can help heal the past and release us from years of anguish, and begin to heal our current whole self. Meditation and mindfulness is a way of life and a path to healing and wholeness.
Thanks Jennifer, your interest and comments mean a lot to me. Correction on my part, it’s not my hypothalamus that atrophied, it’s my hippocampus. Now that I understand that childhood trauma can actually atrophy the hippocampus, I understand that the the foundations of my illness were in place long before my first seizure. Continually fearing my father would loose his temper and start frantically hitting me, my sisters or/and my brother, watching him scream at and hit my mother, listening the constant violent chaos of my parent’s dysfunctional relationship, being ignored by both parents eventually, I’m sure, impacted my hippocampus. This explains why I had such a hard time destressing as a child and as an adult. I found my refuge in a bathroom, a closet or the dance studio. With all that childhood trauma, all my brain needed was one more event to send it over the boundaries of health and into chronic illness. That event came in the form of a serious car accident in my late twenties.
You’re right, we must be willing to let go of things that do not support our health which includes our own inner expectations, desires, and demons. Although I achieved a lot as a dancer, the awful politics of the professional world of dance also took its toll on my mental health. What once was my refuge became my hell. I had to do a lot of renegotiating with this area of my life to find peace of mind again. I still love dancing. How I will continue to make it a part of life is still being negotiated.
Thanks again Jennifer for your counsel, sending you good thoughts.
Holly
Correction…If you truly want to live free and healthier you have to be willing to let go of everything including those you love who are NOT evolving as fast as you are.
Jennifer
Hi Holly,
Thank you for sharing your story. I hear your pain and feel your frustration. And I’m sorry you had to go through so much an ordeal. We share very, very similar stories and paths. My mom died of cancer when I was 16 and my alcoholic father and brothers didn’t support her in her illness. So when I got sick I knew I was out of luck for support to.
I to had to learn how to say no and look after myself. In doing so I to have lost everything in the last 4 years. Family, friends, a stable job, and even my home. Family was the most difficult as I too have been degraded, dismissed and well, you name it they’ve done it. My family sees meditation as a mind controlling cult. Of course they don’t realize family is more of a cult than most religions. In that transition of losing everything, I found my teacher even though I wasn’t looking for one and I started growing a more supportive network. That to was very painful and took time because I had to deal with my own issues of trust and worthiness.
One thing I’ve learned about the spiritual path whether you are ill or not is it requires a great amount of sacrifice and surrender. If you truly want to live free and healthier you have to be willing to let go of everything including those you love who are evolving as fast as you are. People who do not understand spiritual growth are faced with their own fears and often cannot handle the truth that has been hidden for generations.
Anyway, I’m happy to hear that you are looking after yourself and doing well. Finish the book!! People need to know they are not alone and your story is important. The digital age makes publishing easier, faster and accessible.
Should you ever need a medical opinion, I found a holistic neurologist in Colorado that is one of the few who are interested in the whole person.
Keep up the good work, keep dancing it’s great for the soul, and stay well. Remember that even though you may feel it, you in fact are never ever alone.
Jennifer
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Thank you Dr. Buczynski for this space and the connections made. Obviously meditation and medicine is a very hot topic and I appreciate this forum for our voices to be heard. You to are doing amazing work.
Hello Jennifer,
Thank you for your reply. I appreciate your suggestions and insights. I want to share with you a little more about my own journey, particularly around the issue of support.
Yes, I have had the support of a select few friends and my husband, but on the whole it was the very fact of not receiving support from a lot of my family, including my parents that just about killed me.
I grew up in a very dysfunctional and at times violent family. During my childhood, my mother and father spent most of their time screaming at each other. I spent a lot of my time as a little girl trying to hide away from this chaos. I remember spending hours locked in a bathroom with the fan on trying to do my homework. I also spent a lot of my time as a little girl forging my own friendships with outside adults who acted differently than my parents. Now, after studying neurology, I understand that this kind of trauma as a child can cause life-long problems in the brain, like a hypothalumus that atrophies.
I grew up to be a rock. Strong both physically and mentally, I was invincible. That’s how I survived the stress of my family life. When my family ended up homeless, I took care of my siblings, found a job, and still managed to dance by working out a deal with a local bar to let me use their dance floor in the mornings. I was going to thrive no matter what, and boy or boy did I try.
However part of my psychology rested on the belief that down deep my mother and father really did care and that if I had an emergency, they would be there. When I became ill and desperately needed them to show me that I mattered to them, they failed. My father died right before my whole life fell apart. My mother didn’t even have the will or interest to drive the 1 1/2 hours to my home and spend some quality time with me when she found out I was ill. I kept waiting and waiting for her to take the initiative and show her interests and love. This was the test of those fundamental beliefs about my worth and my mother’s love that I had carried my entire life. She never came. To this day she talks about my illness like I’ve got the flu.
I cannot describe the anguish of this discovery. After a lot of grieving and many thoughts of suicide, I finally just broke off ties to many of my family members. I rarely talk to my mother beyond a quick hello once in awhile.
I have not had good support behind me, especially when it comes to walking a different, natural path. At first, other family members gave their obligatory “good lucks” when I told them I wasn’t going to pursue a conventional avenue. To most of them it was just wierd ole Holly doing her wierd ole things. About five years into the illness, many of them became more and more impatient and uncomfortable with my choices. On some level, it asked that they stay engaged in my healing process as well, a role without gaurantees that just plain wore them out. Aggravated by my unwillingness to follow well-known, health directives like “take the drugs,” they thought, “Why in God’s name can’t Holly just do what she’s suppose to do?!” Many of them asked me that question. I tried to explain but it didn’t seem to satisfy their frustrations. By year seven, many of them just didn’t have the will to go on with me. They hated my seizures. They were scared of them and wanted these seizures to end no matter what it took. They just wanted me to take the drugs and get on with it.
Walking a different, natureopathic path with chronic illness asks a lot from friends and family around you. They too must continually contribute love, interest, commitment and patience to the process of healing and the on-going management of the illness. Many people just do not have the stamina or emotional will power to do this. I did have the support of my loving husband and that has been incredibly important to my healing. However, not receiving any kind of support from my mother and some of my siblings seriously contributed to my illness and made things much worse. When I added their disinterest with the dismissals of the conventional medical world, I was very lonely. It took me a long time and a lot of counsel with myself, my husband and a few trusted friends to find hope and understanding again.
Support during illness is so incredibly important to reestablishing health. I never found a conventional doctor inside a hospital or clinic who spoke a different ideology than “drug and kill it.” I found a natureopath at Bastyr college who spoke a different language and with different values. My massage therapist has been very helpful as well.
I could really have used more support during all of this and less conflict over the merits of a natural path toward health. Having done a lot of my own research into this illness, I’ve created my own self-care regime that I follow. It includes meditation, yoga, massage, diet restrictions and my own self-therapy. It’s been very effective and my seizure activity has diminished noticeably from 20 a week to 3 or 4 a month.
Thanks for your comments and interests, be well,
Holly
Hi Holly
First I want to say I’m not a doctor. Psychotherapy isn’t regulated in some provinces in Canada. My certification was a 4 year experiential program that also had an academic component and wasn’t a degree program.
Second…WOW. Thank you for you reply. I understand the isolation and fear that comes with chronic illness. I want to say you are not alone on your journey for better health by methods of awareness and unconventional treatment. I also don’t want you to totally dismiss conventional medicine as sometimes it can be very beneficial when combined with other therapies. You need to find what combination works for you that will bring you healing and safety.
I also want you to know my dis-ease has been the greatest gift of my life. Through mindfulness meditation I came to the realization I wasn’t who I thought I was. What I do in life isn’t who I am. I’m much more than the surface of what I present and at times much less. I’ve been able to drop the categorization, labels and false identities I presented and learned to be authentically who I AM. I’ve freed myself from the encultured beliefs I grew up with and now I am who I am. I can see life much more clearly and I have the freedom to create my life.
Before my illness I was very contracted, angry at everything and everyone, manipulative and a whole bunch of other things that prevented me from fully living. I didn’t feel worthy of much and even though I could love I couldn’t feel it in return. My illness to broke my ego and challenged my entire belief and value system that I was taugh to believe. I was very fortunate to have a spiritual teacher to guide me and an incredible supportive community to help me through this process and advise me in critical decisions. And although it was a very painful process it was the best thing that ever happenend to me. As I said above, I was able to free myself from my own misery.
I believe the same thing is happening in the medical community. Doctors who have spent their whole lives being taught to believe in a certain scientific ideology are now being challenged. Their identities and ego’s are at stake as well. Everything they have believed in is now fallible as more and more evidence is being presented in holistic health care. The new sciences such as quantum physics is shaking the entire ground that these doctors stood on for centuries. So it brings up huge questions for many people. They are angry and confused because I imagine they are scared and angry just as I was. So it will take time for this shift to happen. People at one time refused the earth was round. The difference in this day and age is consciousness is speeding up and change happens quicker than we can process it.
This isn’t to discredit your feelings as they are incredibly valid. And yes good medical help is hard to find. It’s a shame that we have to struggle with these challenges however I think we are the pioneers that will help change the system for future generatons. Each generation has had it’s cross to bear so-to-speak. Helping to spread awareness and compassion so that we can learn to live in freedom seems to be this generations. No easy task.
Congratulations on writing a book. This is a fantastic way to help spread awareness!! We can only change one person at a time and that person is ourselves. When we display the courage and strength to live for the good, true and beautiful, this gives people the freedom to begin to look more closely at themselves even though we may not be aware of them doing so. So thank you for doing this work. You to are an inspiration!
I am also happy to hear you have good support behind you. I wish you all the love and good health you deserve!
Namaste,
Jennifer
Hello Dr. Buczynski and Jennifer,
I want to again thank Dr. Buczynki for hosting this lecture series on mindfulness. It has been very encouraging for someone like me who lives with a chronic illness and has tried to walk a different path than the narrow road of conventional western medicine. I also wanted to thank Jennifer for her post. I found it inspiring. Although I am not a trained doctor, as a trained dancer, I’ve lived a life very connected with my body. When I first began to experience epileptic seizures almost ten years ago at age 33, I was devastated. The entire event challenged the very roots of my identity. However, what was more devastating was the incredibly dismissive and narrow-minded response I received from doctors who I visited looking for some guidance and help. All of them basically said, “Shut-up about all that spiritual, psychological stuff, take the drugs and get out of our office.” In fact, one doctor actually looked right at me and said, “I don’t talk about anything else but drug protocols.” Living inside a chronic illness like epilepsy. in which at any moment you may need the help of your fellow human, can be a very lonely and scarey experience. Having doctors tell you time and again that you’re some kind of wacko because you think your illness carries heavy spiritual and psychological components only adds to that sense of isolation. Their actual villification of you because you don’t want to follow a drug protocol can be mentally and emotionally devestating. They are literally contributing to your illness. Doctors were not the heroes of my story; they were the villans. I am so afraid of doctors and hospitals that several years ago I began wearing a bracelet when I go out into the world that basically says “Don’t contact an ambulance, doctor or hospital whatever you do! I’ll be okay!” If I had not had the the incredible love and compassion of my husband and some good friends, I would have killed myself. Chronic illness is both a physical illness and a spiritual journey. It can give as much as it takes. I no longer see my illness as a curse, but walk with it as a strange kind of blessing. This does not mean that I don’t want to stop having seizures. It means that my relationship with my disease is not one based on anger and animosity. It is not a “fight.” I listen to what it has to teach me and it listens to me. When our dance is over, it will be time to take our bows and leave the stage. I’ve done that many times in my life and know how to do it well. I’ll direct that moment and make it very pretty.
I hope to finish my first book on this journey soon. Sending out good thoughts and best wishes,
Holly
Dear Dr. Buczynski
Thank you for your post. I am a transpersonal psychotherapist and was diagnosed with MS four years ago. I knew my dis-ease was the manifestation of years of not listening to my inner self as well as energy that has been caught in my family system for generations. I also became aware that through my meditation practise that there is a biology of transcendence and that the brain can literally be rewired. I also knew would be able to heal myself through an integral practise of psychotherapy, meditation, body and energy work, diet and exercise.
However, medical doctors (I live in Canada) did not want to hear anything spiritual about my dis-ease especially meditation. They insisted that there was no medical proof of it having any effect. One of my neurologists said she tried meditating for a couple of months and she wasn’t able to control her mind and therefore came to the conclusion it was malarkey. I told her I tried being a neurologist for a couple of months and that didn’t work and thought it was just as useless. Doctors are always looking for quick fixes and not concerned with long term processes that change the core root of the illnesses. Not to say that traditional medicine doesn’t have it’s place either. I think there needs to be a balance of the two different approaches depending on the illness and were a person is at in his/her evolutionary process.
My doctors insisted I just take drugs and hope for the best. There is very little support for chronic illness in Canada. They only wanted to deal with the biological facts and avoided any talk of spiritual practise. Since I’ve always refused traditional long-term drug treatment it’s been impossible for me to get any medical care what-so-ever now. Yet every time I have to go back for check-ups and they see major improvements in mind, body and emotion and are mystified. They just chalk it up to an exceptional case. They still deny any association with meditation. I went from not being able to walk to riding my bike 20km most days, hiking and many other outdoor activities. As a matter of fact I’m in the process of becoming an adventure psycho-spiritual therapist. Basically bringing therapy and meditation out into nature. I’ve also had success with meditation in many groups including youth.
So I’m extraordinarily happy to hear that there is progress being made in the medical community in regards to mindfulness meditation. I know it will be slow progress but I feel we are heading in the right direction. It would be nice if it was compulsory for all medical students to be trained in mindfulness meditation and more integral approaches to patient entered care. Not just for their future patients but for themselves as well.
The series looks fantastic! Unfortunately I’m unable to sign up for the live events as Wednesdays are one of my group nights. I’ll be sure to pass the link on to those who will benefit from the talks.
Best wishes,
Jennifer
Dear Ruth B,
Thank you for your response to my comment earlier this week 9/26-10/2/2010. I have already signed up for the Mindfulness teleseminar series and look forward to hearing Dr. Elisha Goldstein PhD. I signed up for the FREE series as currently I am a student and volunteer my time to facilitate support groups and one on one sessions for peers as a Peer Support Specialist on the western slope of Colorado.
Thank you for the information on Mindfulness and MS. This will come into play for my appointment with a Neurologist this coming October 14th.
Respectfully, Janet Pfauth