WHAT
YOU CAN
DO
ABOUT IT
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8. The Healing State:
Your Untapped Resource
Do you ever get so absorbed in a piece of music or a knotty problem that you fail to
notice when a friend enters the room? Have you ever felt your mind float as your
muscles melted in a hot bath or sauna? Then you're already familiar with a mental
medicine that can do for your skin what stress has done against it.
I've paid a lot of attention to the down side of the mind-skin link. First were the
needs, fears, and conflicts that act themselves out in skin language: the sexual anxiety
underneath a man's recurrent herpes, the cry for love frozen in a woman's eczema.
Then came stress, the wear and tear of everyday hassles plus the strenuous gear-
shifting that accompanies all of life's losses and wins, from birth to death and with a
hundred varied changes in between.
You may wonder if you wouldn't be better off without a mind or perhaps with a
mind kept in a state of dulled-out tranquillity; that way there would be no stress and
emotion to keep your skin fired up. Life as a vegetable isn't the answer, though. You
can only avoid stress entirely if you avoid life entirely – too high a price, even for skin
as satiny as an eggplant's.
Not that you have a choice. To be human is to have feelings, needs, and fears – to
suffer as well as dance and smile. There's nothing to gain by pretending they're not
there. What you need is an antidote that will let you experience lifefully yet spare
your skin the physiological consequences of life's unavoidable stress. Here's good
news and more good news: not only does such an antidote exist, you already have it
within you. It's just a question of learning to activate and liberate your mind's natural
abilities.
You've probably heard of "altered states of consciousness" perhaps in the
context of drug trips and bizarre experiences. Actually, the phrase simply refers to
those states of mind that are neither the normal attentiveness of waking life nor
sleeping nor dreaming. They include highly positive states, such as the exaltation that
comes when we lose ourselves in great music and very painful experiences, such as
panic and acute grief. We slip in and out of altered states dozens, perhaps hundreds
of times each day.xxxvi
Certain of these states not only feel good but are good for you. They can bring
relaxation, diversion from care, and heightened control over your body, including
your skin. The most familiar of these "healing states" is daydreaming. As you let your
mind drift while you gaze out the window, the usual distracting crossfire of thoughts,
plans, memories, and worries is hushed; although daydreaming sounds like
inattention, it is actually a state of highly focused attention – on a fantasy. In this
state, your mind becomes more imaginative: you think more creatively than logically,
more in images than words. Half an hour may pass unnoticed or a lengthy fantasy
may unroll in minutes.
We enter similar states while engrossed in reading, while running, biking, or
walking, while driving, or while soaking in the tub. They're a kind of vacation from
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the normal cares of the day – and more. With a little training and effort, you can learn
to harness this focused mind energy for health. Used properly, this healing state is a
tool to relieve skin symptoms and to help you explore the emotional turmoil beneath
them. In this chapter, you will learn how to tap into the healing state at will; in
chapters to come, you will learn to go beyond this state to use techniques that will
intensify benefits for your skin.
The most immediate benefit of healing-state exercises is relaxation. In his book
The Relaxation Response, Dr. Herbert Benson of Boston's Deaconess Hospital
identified the physical response evoked by such activities as muscles loosen,
breathing deepens, heartbeat slows, and blood pressure drops.xxxvii This relaxation
response is the physiological opposite of stress, and so I advocate daily practice of a
healing-state exercise to neutralize the unavoidable stress of your life and to help
prevent your emotions from kicking your skin around.
Benson points out that most traditional cultures have their own ways of
inducing the relaxation response. Meditation and prayer may primarily be ways to
pursue harmony with the universe or communion with God, but both also evoke this
body-sparing reaction. It seems that all cultures recognize the need for a break from
mundane reality and have built it into daily routine, as sound traditional diets quietly
satisfy the need for protein, vitamins, and minerals.
In our high-speed, high-tech world, relaxation breaks have gone the way of the
well-balanced diet. Many of the things we do to relax, such as watching football on
TV, are actually stress-producing, and chemical relaxation with tranquilizers or
alcohol take their own toll. For this reason, many health-minded people
conscientiously include daily relaxation exercises in their lives, the same way they
make a special effort to get exercise and to eat nourishing foods.
There are a number of widely used, easily learned techniques to gain the
benefits of relaxation. They include autogenics, Jacobson's progressive relaxation,
meditation, and self-hypnosis. If you've had good experience with any of these, you
can use them now. If not, here are two exercises I've found simple and serviceable.
THE BENSON TECHNIQUE
When Benson surveyed the various ways that different cultures brought on the
relaxation response, he discovered a few essential elements they had in common.
They involved a symbol to focus on or a word, sound, or phrase to repeat. They were
practiced on a comfortable but not sleep-inducing position (people who sit, kneel, or
squat at prayer or meditation can't doze off) and in a quiet environment outside the
flow of daily life.
Benson combined these elements into a nonsectarian relaxation procedure, a
kind of meditation without spiritual content. It's quite simple:
Sit in a quiet place where you won't be disturbed by ringing phones or
other interruptions. Close your eyes. Let all your muscles loosen and
relax. Relax the muscles of your feet, then work up all through your
body, a wave of relaxation gradually coming up to your face. Breathe
evenly through your nose and become aware of the intake and outflow
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of each breath.
As you breathe out, say the word "one" to yourself. Let a comfortable,
regular rhythm establish itself: breathe in, breathe out, "one”; in, out,
"one." Breathe easily and naturally.
A passive attitude is important. Don't worry about being successful and
don't monitor your state of relaxation. Let the relaxation response
develop at its own pace. You're not really doing it – just observing
what your body's doing. Distracting thoughts and fantasies will enter
your head. Ignore them, without struggling to push them away. Keep
on repeating "one" to yourself and they will drift out again.
Do the exercise for ten or fifteen minutes or as long as seems comfortable. You
may want a watch or clock in a handy position so you can check the time just by
opening your eyes. Don't use an alarm.
When you conclude the exercise, sit quietly for several minutes, first with your
eyes closed, then with your eyes open, as you slowly return to ordinary
consciousness and ordinary life. Take a few more minutes before you stand up and
get back to your routine.
Benson recommends doing the exercise once or twice a day. He feels that
digestion interferes with the response and suggests waiting two hours after eating.
SELF-HYPNOSIS
This is an excellent way to gain the relaxation benefits of the healing state and is
possibly the best preparation for the treatment exercises to come. It's the technique
I've found most valuable in working with my patients.
Regrettably, hypnosis still retains a magic show aura that keeps many from
appreciating its possibilities. No, hypnosis does not mean a Svengali putting dupes
under his power, making them cluck like chickens and perform ridiculous stunts
they'd never do while "awake." In fact, it's not something that somebody does to you
at all but something you do for yourself, perhaps with the help of another person.
Hypnosis is a trance state, an altered state of consciousness related to the
absorption in music and daydreams we flit into and out of throughout the day. The
movie audience so focused on the screen that the rest of the world fades away is
actually in a similar trance. With hypnosis, however, concentration can be so focused
that you are able to change physiology and perception. People who are able to enter a
very deep trance can have surgery with no anesthesia besides hypnosis. For me this
is like seeing airplanes fly and babies being born. I've seen it, I know the theory, but I
don't quite believe it.
Scientists remain mystified by the versatility of hypnosis. It may produce
profound relaxation (we're going to use it this way) but the trance itself is not always
a relaxed state – you can be hypnotized while pedaling a bicycle. There are no body
changes that always happen in hypnosis. You can tell whether a person is awake or
asleep by looking at his brain waves on an encephalogram, for example, but much
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less reliably whether or not he is hypnotized.
The ability to enter a hypnotic trance seems largely inborn: 25 percent of adults
can go into deep trances, 25 percent are capable only of a very light trance (simply
pleasant relaxation), and the rest of us fall somewhere in between. There's no clear
connection between intelligence, sex, personality, and trance capacity, but it seems
that people with vivid imaginations – the kind who had imaginary playmates in
childhood – are likeliest to have good hypnotic ability. Our skill usually peaks at ages
eight to ten.xxxviii
Motivation is an important factor. With a big stake in success, you can achieve a
trance to the utmost of your capacity; a strong desire to improve your skin can be
instrumental in gaining good results.
While the experience is dramatic for some, even people who only slip into light
trances often achieve major benefits. "Is that all there is?" certain patients have asked
me, incredulous that what seems like a ho-hum experience can bring such help to
their skin.
My patients are often surprised when I tell them that hypnosis is something
they can do themselves, that it does not require the help of an anointed expert.
Actually, the difference between hypnosis and self-hypnosis is just the difference
between entering the same trance state with help and doing it on your own. There
are any number of methods for entering a hypnotic trance; what's “best" is a matter
of personal style and taste. Here is one procedure I teach my patients. Add whatever
customizing will make the process more comfortable as you mobilize abilities
already within you.
Exercises in Self-Hypnosis
Find a quiet place where you won't be distracted. Sit comfortably in a chair with
arms: feet flat on the floor, arms on the arms of the chair. Loosen clothing if you wish;
take off your glasses. Remove contact lenses if they make it hard to keep your eyes
closed comfortably. Take a deep breath and focus on how comfortably the chair
supports your body. Roll your eyes upward for a moment, looking toward the center
of your forehead. Let your eyelids drift downward, closing your eyes. Relax your eyes.
Now let a sense of relaxation flow down from your eyes into the rest of your
face. Picture it as a thick, soothing liquid, a relaxing syrup. Let it flow down through
each body part, into your arms; down through your chest, your stomach; feel it
gradually fill your legs. Feel how each body part loosens, relaxes as the soothing
liquid fills it.
Take a moment to feel your breathing grow deeper, slower, more even and
relaxed. Let yourself become aware of the blood that flows smoothly and evenly
throughout your body. Feel how limber and relaxed your muscles have become.
You may have distracting thoughts. Don't fight them or push them out of your
mind. Just let them pass by and float off into the background. If you hear car horns
out in the street, just remember: they have nothing to do with you.
When you're ready, let yourself drift deeper and deeper into relaxation. You're
entering a special protected place within your own mind. You're extremely relaxed
yet highly alert. Feel pride in tapping an ability that you've had you all your life but
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perhaps are only just now discovering.
Be aware of your breathing. Use each in and out breath to pace the exercise:
with each breath breathe out worry, fatigue, and self-doubt; breathe in energy,
confidence, and life.
Your whole body feels pleasantly light, filled with a drifting, gliding sensation. (If
some image captures that for you, stay with it, perhaps a sea gull soaring or a small
cloud hovering weightlessly at the height of a summer sky.).
After remaining in this state for a comfortable period (try ten or fifteen minutes:
you may peek at the clock but don't use an alarm), return slowly to ordinary life. One
way to return is to count backward slowly from five, opening your eyes at three and
reaching ordinary consciousness at one. As you do, you remind yourself that even
after usual sensations return, the relaxation and its emotional benefits will continue
to resonate beneath the surface of the mind. Most people like to keep activities low-
key for a few more minutes before they get back into the full swing of life.
You can vary the exercise to fit your particular tastes and feelings. If relaxation
seems to flow more naturally from your toes to your head than vice versa, have that
thick, relaxing fluid flow uphill. If you envision relaxation as a thick, moist, warm,
fragrant vapor that fills your limbs and body, by all means let it happen that way.
Once you've practiced relaxation, it's time to go a step further, with an exercise
that will dramatize your ability to change your perceptions of your body. While
you're deeply relaxed, try to concentrate the sense of lightness in one arm, imagining
it flowing into your hand, wrist, and forearm. Feel the tingling in your hand, or some
barely perceptible movement in your fingertips, and the subtle, insistent tug of a
helium balloon that's attached by a cord to your wrist. Give in as it slowly,
relentlessly draws your arm up. Become aware of the contrast with your other arm. If
you wish, reach over and lift your "light" arm, letting it continue to float after you let
go. Then imagine the helium balloon released, floating up into space as your hand
slowly drifts downward.
Deep relaxation may feel more like heaviness than lightness to you. So instead of
floating, let your body grow extremely heavy and perhaps warm as you relax
completely. Feel your limbs turn to lead. Become aware of how solidly you're
grounded in your chair, how firmly your feet are rooted on the ground.
Most important with this procedure, as with the Benson relaxation exercise, is a
spectator's attitude. You're not the producer, director, actor, or critic; you simply
start procedure and observe what it's like for you. You're not making yourself enter a
trance; you're letting it happen.
Whatever happens is right for you at this time. Most of us tend to monitor and
evaluate our achievements; in doing the relaxation exercises, we ask, "Am I doing it
right?" We question whether we feel relaxed enough, whether we're getting authentic
results or merely deluding ourselves.
I can't emphasize too much that this line of self-doubt is not only unhelpful, it's a
kind of sabotage. Self-consciousness is the enemy of relaxation. The "right" results
are what you get – some people feel "spacey," profoundly different from the way they
feel before and after the exercise; others only experience a pleasantly lazy interlude.
It's never been shown that a deeper, more spectacular trance state is the only path to
good results. People who never get beyond relaxation may get profound benefits for
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their skin.
The experience may differ from one time to another, but try not to compare or
rate them. As a spectator, it's not for you to give yourself marks. Don't fight natural
impulses to fidget or shift around – the idea isn't to attain an unnatural position of
immobility and hold it. If you feel an urge to fidget, fidget. Change your posture to
make yourself more comfortable. If your nose itches, scratch it.
Because individual differences are so important, I hesitate to prescribe a
"routine" of relaxation. To give it a fair chance, however, you should do one or the
other exercise one to three times daily. Build it into your daily schedule – when you
first get up, just before sleeping, or any time in between. If like most people you find
relaxation highly pleasurable, it shouldn't be hard to keep going once you develop the
habit.
Individual experiences vary widely, but many of my patients notice benefits as
soon as they start doing regular relaxation: a surge of energy, a subtle but substantial
change in feelings about themselves. Some find it easier to face daily hassles; they're
able to put in perspective the things that once drove them up the wall. Others find it
helps them get to sleep and to enjoy deeper, more satisfying sleep. Other ways of
''being good to yourself" – exercise and relaxation – may come more naturally once
you get into the habit of giving yourself relaxation breaks.
Just one word of caution, which is necessary only when the exercise is working
very well. Don't assume that because three daily sessions is good, more will be better.
It may be tempting to use the safe, gratifying relaxation state as a refuge. This is
better than seeking shelter in a bottle of pills or alcohol, but it's still a diversion from
the business of real life. An excess of relaxation isn't "harmful" in the usual way – it
won't drive you over the edge to a breakdown or render you a vegetable – but it's an
escape from the serious realities that deserve our attention.
Relaxation is a thoroughly safe procedure, without side effects or pitfalls. Some
people are occasionally distressed by thoughts and feelings that drift over them while
deeply relaxed. Why do you feel waves of sad, happy, or anxious feelings? The healing
state brings you into contact with usually inaccessible parts of your mind, the buried
needs and fears of your inner self. This is nothing to worry about; you won't
experience any thoughts or feelings that you aren't ready for. In fact, such feelings
may be just the ones that, unfelt, have been expressing themselves in skin language.
This is why I suggest that you mentally note (if you can do so without breaking your
relaxation) unusual thoughts and feelings that arise as you practice these exercises.
In chapters to come, you're going to use the healing state to strengthen this
direct line to your inner self. I'll prescribe exercises to continue the diagnostic work
of part 1, bringing buried needs, fears, and emotional tasks within reach, so you can
loosen their hold over you.
In the healing state, your mind is exceptionally open to learning. This is why
certain difficult kinds of learning – breaking habits such as smoking – are often best
done under hypnosis. Future chapters will give you exercises that will teach you to
control your own body to reverse the processes that worsen your skin symptoms.
The Eastern mystics who can raise their skin temperature by fifteen degrees have
learned to focus their consciousness to an incredible degree. We're only striving for a
small part of their achievement.
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Customizing Your Exercise
The two techniques I've described work for most people but not for everyone. If
you find it hard to sit motionless for fifteen minutes, go through the same motions
standing up or lying down (as long as you don't fall asleep). If you can't keep your
eyes closed for that long, follow the steps of either exercise while gazing out the
window.
If neither exercise works for you, even with modifications to make them
maximally comfortable, don't give up. Remember how various versions of the healing
state are fleeting parts of all our days? You can construct your own exercise around
those times when you spontaneously slip into this state. As you grow familiar with the
healing state and the ways to get there, the confidence and energy you gain may
enable you to go further with the formal exercises. If not, the benefits of the altered
state gained by any means are quite real.
One of my patients, a mother of two teenagers, suffered from alopecia; after an
intense personal loss, all the hair on her head and body fell out. In therapy, we
gradually connected Sharon W.'s problem with the losses that ravaged her early life:
the grandmother who cared for her while her mother worked would regularly pack
up her bags when angry, performing a most convincing pantomime of abandonment.
The first of several episodes of alopecia was triggered by the cancer and death of a
close, supportive male friend. (His hair had fallen out because of chemotherapy.)
Sharon was uncomfortable with standard relaxation techniques, particularly
with the loss of visual contact that came when she shut her eyes, so I had her sit and
focus on the pleasing curve of a plant in my office and to practice the procedure with
a plant at home. She went through the same self-hypnosis technique she'd been
unable to do with her eyes closed. As she relaxed, she entered a kind of plant
meditation, imagining the roots of the plant in their similarity to the roots of her hair,
thinking of how plants and trees remain rooted despite storms and how her hair
might grow stronger and more firmly rooted so it too could survive the emotional
storms of her life.
Starting the exercise apparently helped stop the hair-loss cycle after only some
head hair and one eyebrow was lost. Sharon also gained from discovering and
developing her power to inhabit a special place within her own mind – unshakably
hers and not vulnerable to loss.
My friends who knit or crochet assure me that such needlework is a highly
relaxing – one even called it hypnotic – pleasure, so I was not surprised when
another patient, Nancy G., built a successful healing-state routine around the knitting