The book seeks to answer questions about how the brain can heal the body and cure diseases that "seem unexplainable by science."

Omega Plus cooperates with Dan Tri Publishing House to publish the book How the Mind Heals the Body? by author Jo Marchant.

The 440-page, 12-chapter work recreates the author's journey around the world to meet doctors, patients, and researchers in psychosomatic medicine.

From there, Jo Marchant seeks answers about how the brain can heal the body and cures that "seem unexplainable by science".

Cover of the book "How the Mind Heals the Body?" (Photo: Omega+).

Although Western medicine dominates, there are still millions of people who swear by alternative medical practices.

In the United States, the wonders of spiritual healing are discussed frequently on television. As many as 38% of adults have used some form of alternative medicine (62% if prayer is included).

On one side were the proponents of conventional medicine in the West. They were rationalists, reductionists, and believed only in the tangible, material world. They viewed the human body as a machine. Thoughts, beliefs, and emotions played no role in the treatment of disease.

When a machine breaks down, humans usually don't talk to it. Doctors use physical methods like scans, tests, medications, or surgery to diagnose and repair the problem.

On the other side are those who pursue other solutions: ancient remedies, alternative therapies, and even medicine from faraway lands.

These traditional approaches emphasize the intangible over the tangible, placing people above all external conditions; subjective experience and beliefs over clinical trial results.

Instead of prescribing, physicians treat illness with acupuncture, spiritual healing, and chi to tap into invisible energy fields.

Throughout the book, readers will discover some surprising ways to trick the mind into fighting disease, or encounter stories of how meditation helps people fight depression and dementia, and how patients who feel cared for recover faster after surgery.

Readers will also meet Iraq war veterans who used virtual reality technology to treat their burns using “Snow World,” and children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who took half the usual dose of medication along with placebo capsules to control their symptoms.

Through these cases, Jo Marchant details the mysterious and complex relationship between the human mind and body.

At the same time, she explores the mind's vast potential for healing, lays out its limitations, and explains how people can apply these new findings to their lives.

What you think in your mind, your attention will be focused on. As your thoughts are, so is your life.

The author seeks answers about how the brain can heal the body and treatment methods (Photo: Omega+).

With How the Mind Heals the Body, Jo Marchant points the way toward a system of medicine that treats not simply the physical body, but the person.

However, she also warns that the mind is not a panacea.

Sometimes it has a noticeable and immediate effect on the body.

It is sometimes an important but hard-to-detect factor among many others that shapes long-term health, as well as the effects of diet and exercise.

Sometimes it has no effect at all.

“We still don't have all the answers,” said Jo Marchant.

Portrait of author Jo Marchant.

The book was a New York Times bestseller and was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize.

"Jo Marchant has chosen incredibly moving characters to show us the importance of research. And she has a knack for finding inspiring characters… The research is fascinating, with a seemingly endless variety," according to the New York Times.

"The book is a careful, detailed investigation of how the brain can help heal our bodies. It's also an important look at the other side of the coin: how stress-induced brain damage can leave the body vulnerable to disease or premature aging…", commented the Wall Street Journal.

Phuong Hoa (according to dantri.com.vn)