Relaxation Revolution

Recent scientific breakthroughs—demonstrating that mind body strategies can actually “switch off” or “switch on” gene activity associated with health and disease—have triggered a mind body revolution in the medical world. In the 1970s, Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School ushered in a new era of understanding in the field of mind body medicine. Coining the term “relaxation response,” Dr. Benson identified the body’s physiologic reaction that is the exact opposite of the stress (fight-or-flight) response. In the four decades since that initial discovery, Benson and his colleagues have established the first effective therapy to counteract the harmful effects of stress. They have explored how the relaxation response, the power of expectation and belief, and other mind body phenomena can produce healing in your own body. A new era has dawned. Genetic research now shows conclusively that the mind can