Mind Sneezes, Body Catches a Cold: Are Your Thoughts Making You Sick?

By Mike T. Lanjo

Life throws us many challenges, and some give rise to strong emotions. Modern neuroscience research shows that many patients who visit primary care doctors are experiencing physical symptoms that have a purely psychological cause. The good news is that once we realize that negative habitual thoughts have the power to make us sick, we can focus on eliminating physical symptoms simply by transforming our thought processes.

Mike Tangunu Lanjo, a clinician and passionate public servant who frequently provides holistic care for clients, shares practical insight that offers a different perspective on how the human mind can cause physical illnesses that present symptoms such as fatigue, dizziness, back and chest pain, digestive issues, and rashes, and often leave medical professionals frustrated and unable to provide a solid diagnosis. Through his guidance, Lanjo encourages us to identify and address the root causes of diseases by viewing the body as one integrated system instead of a collection of independent organs. We can then shift our attention from the physical to the psychological realm, ultimately allowing for whole-body healing, not just the suppression of symptoms, in most psychosomatic cases.

Mind Sneezes, Body Catches a Cold is a holistic guide to achieving optimal health through thought process transformation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Jun 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781489729194

Mike T. Lanjo

Michael Tangunu Lanjo holds a master’s degree from New York University and works as a clinician at the New York State Office of Mental Health. He thrives on practicing holistic treatment, a form of healing that considers the whole person in the quest for optimal health and wellness. Mike is a passionate public servant who lives with his family in New York. This is his third book.

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Copyright © 2020 Mike T. Lanjo.

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ISBN: 978-1-4897-2918-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2917-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2919-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020909543

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 05/28/2020

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1     Psychology of Mind-Body Disorders

Chapter 2     The Real Battle Is in the Mind

Chapter 3     Biochemistry of Emotion:

How the Outside Gets Inside

Chapter 4     Your Body Speaks Your Mind

(Psychosomatic Illnesses)

Chapter 5     There Is No Pain without Brain

Chapter 6     Mind-Gut Connection: Butterflies in the Stomach

Chapter 7     Fear Exists Only in the Head but Can Kill

Chapter 8     How Your Mind Can Stress Your Body to Death

Chapter 9     When Your Body Defense

Department Goes Wrong

Chapter 10   When Medication Fails, Apply Awareness to

the Forehead

References

About The Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Before you judge my life, my past or my character, walk in my shoes, walk the path I’ve traveled, live my sorrow, my doubts, my fear, my pain, and my laughter. Everyone has their own story. When you’ve lived my life, then you can judge me.

—Hemant Kumar, an Indian singer

I’m grateful to both friends and enemies who have taught me the better and bitter lessons of life. I believe that my enemies have been my greatest teachers thus far. My enemies have taught me how to be a better person. You will agree with me that you can dislike how someone treats you but still use that event as an opportunity to learn more about yourself and help you to improve your behavior and decision-making. Accepting the enemy’s gift is not about loving your enemy. It’s not about your enemy at all—it’s about you. It’s about taking a difficult person or situation and turning it into a self-improvement opportunity. You don’t have to go searching for enemies, but when you find them, it can often become a blessing in disguise. I’ve learned to never feel bad when old friends become new enemies. They are probably tired of pretending to be friends.

Rev. Dr. Jesse Voyd Bottoms Jr. of Beulah Baptist Church, Poughkeepsie, New York, is one of the best preachers I’ve come across. He is of a class of his own because he loves relentlessly, tirelessly, effortlessly, and compassionately. Pastor B, God did truly shatter your dreams and gave you His own. You’ve visited hospitals, jails, nursing homes, and the bereaved, and you’ve helped thousands of helpless people grasp onto hope. I am thankful to the Almighty God for using late Landon Gray to direct my steps to Beulah for Pastor Bottoms to touch, shape, and improve my family’s lives.

My warmest thanks to those readers who have enjoyed my clinical work and my previous two books: What a Wicked World! and The Greatness of America. Your kind words and constructive criticisms have fueled my quest to continue writing books that try, in some small ways, to improve overall health and enrich the lives of others.

Vicky Tangunu Ndimukum shares her life with me, puts up with my crazy writing habits, and fills my home with laughter and four lovely kids: Hope, MicVick, Mike Jr., and Chance. This book belongs to them. My deepest appreciation goes to the entire Ndimukum family, specially to my brother, Dr. Appolo Tankeh, of IBM New York. He is the dominant figure in my life.

There are also wonderful people I work with at the New York State Office of Mental Health, whose assistance is perhaps unknown to them. Dr. Stacy Maise, Dr. Abdel Elmouchtari, and Unit Chief Dina Marquez are due a tremendous amount of gratitude. A positive state of mind and a good mood at work are essential to being at one’s best, and Stacy, Abdel, Dina, and my coworkers provide an atmosphere each day that allows for this.

Many thanks to Tangyie Suh Nfor, Chris Estberg, Kristen Escobar, Alex Loli, Mike Aitchison, Fadi Mamuda, Alecia Douglas, Stacy Maise, and LifeRich Editorial team for combing through the pages of the manuscript and offering valuable criticisms.

I am similarly indebted to Dr. Charles Yakum, Moses Ndiformache, Angie Ricketts, Eli Piterechu, Dr. Musa Nkiamboh, Commissaire Ghogomu Mbeinkong, Joyce Forlemu, Bar. Celest/Eli Tatung, my Sing Sing CF coworkers, and so many wonderful people who are dear in my heart but not listed here. I appreciate you all for coming to my help during trying moments and proving to me that there’re still people who are willing to lift us up in spite of the fact that the world is characterized by who are letting us down.

This book is the product of many people’s contributions and actions or inactions. I have tried to acknowledge the specific contributions of others, but those credited do not necessarily share my views. In fact, others have influenced this volume, but its positive or negative responsibility remains mine.

Mike Tangunu Lanjo (Ndimukum)

New York, June 2020

INTRODUCTION

No matter how much we know in any area, there are always new things to learn and things we have previously learned that we need to be refreshed in.

—Joyce Meyer, author and president

of Joyce Meyer Ministries.

If you think that your body might be trying to talk to you through illnesses, you will probably find this book captivating. Dr. John. E. Clarke, a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist, believes that diagnostic tests cannot find the cause of symptoms in more than half of all medical patients because most of them are psychosomatic. Yet, doctors continue to send patients for all kinds of tests that continue to show nothing, running up enormous bills for insurance companies.

We can strive for a healthy mind and healthy body once we realize that our minds can make us sick if our habitual thoughts are negative in nature. Life throws us many challenges, and some of them give rise to strong emotions. Although emotional pain is often dismissed as being less serious than physical pain, it is important that continual emotional pain is taken seriously. Negative thoughts and emotions can kill!

Your body responds to the way you think, feel, and act. This book is packed with information that is practical and can change people’s lives by changing how they look at physical illnesses. Much of what I have to say is solidly grounded in new research, though the pharmaceutical and insurance companies would prefer that I don’t speak of it! The idea that our minds can cause physical illness continues to mystify even medical practitioners, who can neither diagnose it nor identify its cause. Fatigue, dizziness, back pain, stomach upset, chest pain, rashes, and failure to diagnose through laboratory results or other tests leaves medical professionals frustrated and powerless.

Psychosomatic means mind (psyche) and body (soma). In this book, the terms psychosomatic and mind-body disorders are used interchangeably. A psychosomatic disorder is a disease that involves both the mind and body. Some physical diseases may be made worse by mental factors such as stress, anxiety, trauma, and depression. There is a mental aspect to every physical disease. Some people may also use the term psychosomatic disorder when mental factors cause physical symptoms, but there is no physical disease. For example, a headache or chest or neck pain may be caused by stress, however no physical disease can be found using X-rays. When you are stressed or upset for days, you may experience piles, body pain, toothache, or dry lips, and repeated doses of medications don’t seem to permanently cure the problem. Sometimes the ailments go away on their own. If this is the case with you or someone you know, you may consider that your illness is a psychosomatic one.

Medicine is a necessary treatment for other medical conditions, but not when it comes to psychosomatic illnesses. Research findings have indicated that stress management and lifestyle changes can be more effective treatments for mind-induced malaise than medications. Medications may suppress a psychosomatic symptom without addressing its root cause. This is like one attempting to clean one’s reflection off a mirror. Most physicians would rather deal with traditional organic diseases than mind-induced ones. The medical approach to mind-body disorders has been leading to troubling treatment failures and the frustration of expensive diagnostic dilemmas, where everything is ruled out but nothing is ruled in.

Mind-body symptoms exist to serve a purpose. If you prevent that purpose by taking away the symptom with medications without dealing with its root cause, the brain will simply find a substitute bodily symptom. The body is intimately connected to the mind, and particularly to emotions. Physical reactions to emotional states happen every day. You have a near accident on the highway, and your heart begins to pound, followed by the urge to urinate. You are getting up to address an audience, and your mouth is dry while you feel butterflies in your stomach. Sweat flows freely in a tight situation. You suppress a sudden anger, and all these reactions happen unconsciously. This book uses the terms subconscious and unconscious interchangeably.

The study of mind-body connection is in its infancy, to such an extent that many medical scientists and health insurance agents are either not yet aware of the impact of the mind on bodily function or are ignoring it for monetary gains. It is the purpose of this book to draw attention to that connection.

Drawing from published research as well as my own clinical experience, I can suggest that people in the helping professions must accept psychosomatic symptoms as real rather than treat them as imaginary. The most promising therapeutic approaches are medications if necessary, as well as looking for underlying patterns of thoughts and assumptions that may contribute to the disorder.

How does the brain decide to produce a psychosomatic symptom and choose its location? This question probably cannot be answered by laboratory science. It requires a whole new way of thinking about and studying the relationship between the mind and the body. Benjamin Franklin stated that it is not important for us to know the manner in which Nature executes her laws; it is enough to know the Laws themselves. In the meantime, we must get along as best we can, make our observations about mind-body interactions, test them, and use them, even though we can’t explain exactly how they work.

The difficulty with research on psychosomatic disorders is that psychometric tests cannot show the presence of repressed feelings, inner hurts, and broken hearts. Psychometric tests are a standard scientific method used to measure individuals’ mental capabilities and behavioral style. Understandably, those feelings that are most painful and undesirable will be most deeply repressed and hardest to reach. The patients usually insist that they are not holding anything against themselves or others in their hearts. So many of us invest a fortune making ourselves look good to the world, yet inside we are falling apart. It’s time to invest on the inside, says Iyanla Vanzant, an inspirational American speaker, and author.

Psychologists and psychiatrists are criticized by those who are analytically oriented for not producing objective data to support their conclusions about psychosomatic disorders. Unfortunately, most psychometric measures are useless because what they measure is not relevant to the pent-up emotions. Bringing powerful, frightening feelings to light can only be done by a skilled therapist. I cannot imagine a psychometric test that could do the same thing, though it would be a blessing to humanity if someone could design a psychosomatic diagnostic test tube or microscope. As Maya Angelou would say, A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song … Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. This book has not been written to bring answers. It’s intended to stir discussions on mind-body interactions. Learning about one’s thoughts and emotions and how they lead to body dysfunction is a good starting point to wellness self-management. The proper identification of mind-body illnesses would alleviate much suffering in this world and reduce the enormous medical cost that now burdens modern society. Recent research findings have left little doubt that the brain is intimately involved in a variety of body systems previously thought to function independently.

This book is filled with humor (for those who love to laugh) as well as statements that may hit on your inner, unhealed wounds and challenge your current belief systems, which may lead to ego death. This isn’t the typical kind of death we fear. The ego death I’m referring to is the most illuminating, awe-inspiring, enlightening, and paradigm-shattering experience one could ever experience. But the truth is that the ego can never really die; instead, it can be transcended and made conscious so that it’s no longer running our lives and causing psychosomatic illnesses.

My writing points at defects that all mortal beings can correct. Although my jotting is at times painstakingly hard to swallow, it seeks to shock us out of our tragic lifestyles. There is no offense or disrespect intended! You may feel in some instances that the book is talking about you personally. You may feel compelled to question some of the things you come across in this book. This book encourages that we identify and address the root causes of diseases by viewing the body as one integrated system, not a collection of independent organs divided up by medical specialties. It targets the whole system (holistically), not just the bodily symptoms. It redirects our attention to the underlying causes of what makes us sick instead of resuppressing psychosomatic symptoms with only medications. However, this book is not intended to be a professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

CHAPTER

1

PSYCHOLOGY OF MIND-BODY DISORDERS

Stunning new scientific discoveries about the biochemical effects of the brain’s functioning show that all the cells of your body are affected by your thoughts.

—Bruce H. Lipton, cell biologist

Everyone is going through something. Everyone is insecure about something. It’s not just you. Why is life such a constant struggle? You are not the first person who has gone through these struggles, and you won’t be the last. Identify what you can change, and accept the things you can’t. We all have internal reactions to life pressures, and we may have bodily symptoms in response to hurtful feelings. No matter how we react to life’s pressure consciously, another world of reactions exists in the subconscious mind. Because we are not aware of those unconscious processes and therefore cannot control them, and because they are so terrifying, the brain may automatically induce physical symptoms to prevent the inner turbulence from becoming conscious.

Mind-body disorders are symptomatic states generated by the brain to serve a psychological purpose. The task of our ego-driven minds is to mask any thought that can generate uncomfortable feelings once it rises to our conscious minds. Our minds are quick to create bodily symptoms in a bid to distract us from emotional PAIN, which according to Iyanla Vanzant stands for Pay Attention Inward Now.

In today’s hectic world, we often find it difficult to put in the time necessary to do all the things needed to be done. Even cutting our nails has become a challenge. If a marriage is rocky, the stress increases, especially if the house is about to be foreclosed. We try to keep our struggles top secret. Time passes, and it may be getting too late to get married and have children. And maybe child support will mess us up for the next eighteen years. Our bodies see this tough side of life as life-threatening and go into survival mode.

Prehistoric human beings possessed mechanisms for instant physical response when threatened in the wild forest. Unlike prehistoric threats, nowadays few threats are deadly. The thought of your spouse cheating on you triggers the same body reactions a cave dweller would experience facing a lion at night in the forest. Your body reacts with a mighty rush of cardiovascular resources. Your heartbeat quickens. Your blood pressure rises. Into your blood pour hormones that send sugar to the muscles and brain, mobilizing full energy. Red cells flood the arteries to help the body take in oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide. Your immune system (which protects you from millions of harmful bacteria, microbes, viruses, toxins, and parasites) shuts down. Your digestive and growth processes turn off so that this energy can be directed toward meeting the danger.

The prehistoric human would use the energy to fight the lion or flee. The energy generated by the stress response has no outlet in the jealous, modern-day person because the threat doesn’t require fleeing or fighting. We cannot go around fighting people simply because we have a thought that they may one day try to date our partners. Our societal laws or customs compel us to cover up our impulses, swallow our frustrations, and turn our anger inward. If you attack anybody because you suspect that the person may one day sleep with your partner, you may end up in prison.

In his book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle encourages us to see if we can catch ourselves complaining in either speech or thought about situations we find ourselves in, what other people do or say, our surroundings, our life situations, traffic jams, or politics. To complain indicates nonacceptance of what has happened. You can change your flat tire without first worrying about it. Complaining invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim, and playing victim is very stressful and draining. In the race of life, losing or lagging may appear to be proof of profound personal inadequacy. We are constantly measuring ourselves against others. When they gain, we lose. We’re more focused on amassing money, fame, and image—which, if overdone, can lead to anxiety and depression. Everywhere we look, people are stressed.

Medical science now tells us that the accumulated effects of stress can damage the circulatory system, the digestive tract, the lungs, the heart, the muscles, and the joints. Also, stress can speed up the general process of aging. What a modern human is up against is not a tiger to be defeated but a thought: a thought of how ungrateful people are these days, a thought of what people say behind your back, a thought of being broke and broken, a thought of being a failure, a thought of premature death, or a thought of your