David Seidler - Inspiring success story

Wonderful story of TMS healing by the screenplay writer David Seidler (the King's Speech).

He healed from stuttering through feeling and finding expression of long-held anger and healed his cancer through visualisation:

https://laterbloomer.com/david-seidler/ (How The F-Bomb Changed David Seidler’s Destiny – Later Bloomer)

 

That's a nice article on that blog site, @zclesa, but the truly astonishing one is the CNN article linked from the blog, which recounts much more about the story behind Seidler's recovery from bladder cancer. The article is 12 years old, and according to Wikipedia, Seidler is still around and NOT suffering from cancer at age 86. The CNN article offers some really powerful coverage of self-healing possibilities and some of the physiology involved, with good input from authoritative sources. They also interviewed a serious crtic, with strong credentials, who is entirely scathing about the possibilities, but I don't give a flying you know what about her opinion. (She's only a couple years younger than Seidler and is apparently also still around).

Anyway, he describes spending "hours" on his healing visualizations, and that is not hyperbole - I believe that a self-healing like that requires a huge commitment of time and focus. I knew someone many years ago who I believe healed herself from an inoperable and malignant tumor somewhere in or around her reproductive organs. She went on retreat and devoted herself to the same kind of intense visualization for several weeks. She came back, the docs took another look, and said "huh - it totally shrank, sure, we can take it out now". I believe in her healing, but she was a really self-absorbed individual who was very difficult to be around, and while there was no way for me to know if she was like that before, maybe that's what it takes.

 

Truly inspiring stuff! Thanks, @JanAtheCPA for pointing out the linked CNN article. Can you imagine cancer away? - CNN.com
That's where they really discuss the mind-body issues.

 

Headline of a new article from National Geographic (March 14, 2023):

Can positive thinking prolong your life? Science says yes
Studies show that staying optimistic about aging can be as beneficial to your health as exercising or eating well.


If you copy and past that headline into any browser you'll find the article. I won't provide a link because it's behind a paywall which can be frustrating (I always have to wait about 10 seconds for the site to recognize that I'm logged in before I can read anything). NGS might provide limited free articles each month as many publications do now.

The article is focused on aging and outlook, but they mention the significance of one's attitude when much younger. A few extracts from the article:

"Scientists have known for quite a while that people with strong ties to friends and family tend to live long."

"...of course, it’s difficult to tease out cause and effect. Does social engagement keep older people healthy—or does robust health give them the zest and desire to spend time with friends? Either way, an editors’ note accompanying the Brigham Young analysis said doctors and other health professionals “should take social relationships as seriously as other risk factors that affect mortality.”"

"Becca Levy, a professor of epidemiology and psychology at Yale University, points to another influence on healthy longevity: our beliefs about aging. She has published scores of studies demonstrating that whether we think of old age as a time to enjoy or something to dread has a powerful influence on how well, or how badly, we do as we inch closer to that stage."

"...people with a positive mindset about aging tend to have better self-efficacy and self-mastery, the ability to take control of their lives and regulate their impulses. They also tend to eat well, exercise, and take prescribed medications. And they have lower levels of the hormone cortisol and other biomarkers of stress."

"Writing is one way to shift how we think about aging. In a study, Levy asked groups of adults to imagine a day in the life of a hypothetical older person who is physically and mentally healthy, and briefly write about it once a week. After just four weeks, negative perceptions of aging declined significantly."​

 

And there's the Nun Study: Positive Emotions in Early Life and Longevity:

psp805804.pdf (apa.org)
Handwritten autobiographies from 180 Catholic nuns, composed when participants were a mean age
of 22 years, were scored for emotional content and related to survival during ages 75 to 95.

As it turns out, the “Nun Study” was a longitudinal study in which psychologists studied nuns and discovered
that those nuns who exhibited a positive mental outlook early on in life were more likely to live longer and,
in the case of Alzheimer’s disease, were less likely to exhibit Alzheimer’s symptoms regardless of how diseased
their brains were.

 

Aah, my life-long cynicism may catch up to me... Although it hasn't stopped me from adopting healthy habits throughout my life, so perhaps I also have an inherently positive outlook about my own longevity. I can only hope . My mother was quite the cynic in some ways and lived to a reasonably healthy (and sharp) 93 in spite of regularly telling me "don't get old". But that's another story. She inspired me with the lifelong healthy habits but ultimately I did not listen to my mother... I mean, what's the alternative?

 

Nonetheless, I totally 100% believe in this. The power of our minds is extraordinary.