Our negative thoughts are translated into physiological states that can produce an ulcer, a heart attack, a stroke, an infection, cancer or a headache. In fact, medical science now recognizes that virtually every disease or dysfunction has a stress component. Which disorder we actually get depends on our genetic makeup. If our coronary arteries are prone to spasm, a stress mechanism can set off unstable angina and a heart attack. If we are prone to headaches, we may get a tension, a migraine, or a cluster headache. The type we get will be the one to which our body chemistry makes us most prone.
Drugs or medical treatment can be of little help at this level. This emphasizes once again that most drugs merely serve to palliate symptoms while the root cause of disease may be eliminated by drugless behavioral medicine.
The most effective single step that most chronic headache sufferers can take is to let go of all beliefs that cause or intensify headaches and to replace them with new beliefs that minimize headaches and that engender high-level wellness.
One can only guess at how many millions of migraine headaches are suffered annually by people who continue to believe “I will never forgive so-and-so because of what he or she did to me.” Such a destructive belief is a “hair trigger” which can set off a headache on the slightest provocation.
Meanwhile, we estimate, every year at least several thousand migraineurs achieve immediate and permanent liberation from their headaches when they learn to forgive everyone whom they believe may have harmed them.
Through behavioral medicine, we can eliminate most stress, and thereby end most headaches, by changing the way we perceive events, so mat instead of seeing them as threatening, we see them as neutral or friendly.
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