Guided Imagery and the Immune System
Guided imagery, a mind-body modality, improves the immune system of cancer patients! That’s nuts, right? How could “Training focused on concentration and visualization of the immune cells destroying… cancer cells”1 (p. 208) have an impact on a body system out of voluntary control?
At first glance, mind-body regulation of the immune system seems to good to be true! If this were the case, all breast cancer patients should be sitting around, practicing mind-body medicine, listening to mellow background music while a soothing voice instructs breast cancer patients to imagine an optimal functioning immune system, right? So let’s put Lengacher et al.’s1 hypothesis that guided imagery improves the immune system’s ability to fight cancer into context. [Read more…]