Energy is the Force Behind Life

“Although medicine has spent several centuries trying to hold on to the idea that the body runs itself alone, like a self-motivated machine, there must be a driver here, too. Otherwise, our body’s chemistry would be a jumble of floating molecules instead of the incredibly ordered and precise machinery that it so obviously is” (Chopra, 1990, 54). This quotation from Deepak Chopra brings up a major flaw in how the human being is currently viewed. We have a good idea about the biological and chemical processes of the body, but we do not yet understand the underlying mechanism of how and why they occur. Additionally, medicine has not been able to show how two aspects of the human being, the mind and body, are connected. To these questions, science tentatively points to the brain and says that it A) directs the activity of the body, and B) is where the mind resides, thus justifying the mind-body connection as the brain also resides in the body. However, it has not been proven beyond doubt that the answer lies within neurons. I believe this is because the human being is only being looked at materially. Major components of the human being are the personality, intellect, emotions, and beliefs, which are nonmaterial. I believe the human being must be looked at as an energetic system. This will allow us to see that energy is the basis of life of the human body and will also show how there is a mind-body connection.

To establish a model for my ensuing argument, I will use the Chinese Medical view of the human being as a metaphor. For thousands of years, Chinese Medicine has recognized that there is energy in the body that directs all of its activities. This energy, described by the Chinese as Qi, can be seen as “the creative or formative principle associated with life and all processes that characterize living entities. All animate forms in nature are manifestations of Qi. Qi is an invisible substance, as well as an immaterial force that has palpable and observable manifestations” (Beinfield, 1991, 32). Qi not only protects the body, but it is the source of all movement and harmonious transformation in the body (Kaptchuk, 1983, 37-38). Additionally, Chinese Medicine’s model views the human being as an interconnected system in which the physical body is linked to the mental, spiritual, and emotional person (White, 2004, 662). This type of medicine recognizes that mind and body are connected, and that the flow and information of the Qi, or life force energy, directs the physical and non-physical reality of the human being (Kaptchuk, 1983, 37-38).

What is interesting is that Qi is formally recognized in the body. At the cellular level, chemistry and energy interact. For example, the food we eat (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) is converted through complex processes into ATP, the energy currency of the cells. The cells use this ATP made from the mitochondria (energy factories in the cells) to direct chemical activity. This process, known as cellular respiration, is the basis of how the physical body is maintained (Xing, 2005, 16539). Additionally, the nervous system is an electrical system. The brain and spinal cord are connected to the rest of the body via neurons. Neurons pass information through a complex action potential system.  First, a neuron responds to changes in voltage across its dendrites. This voltage difference directs chemical processes that change concentrations of sodium ions in the cell. The action potential moves down the length of the neuron to the axon, and then continues its journey to the next neuron. The brain is able to quickly communicate with the rest of the body via this complex electrical-chemical system. As an example, this is how we are able to remove our hand quickly from a burning stove. The nerve endings on our fingertips send the message to the brain that the stove is hot; the brain interprets the message as a threat, and sends out an additional nerve impulse, thus causing us to remove our hands (Griff, 2006, 412).

Moreover, there is research to show that cells communicate intracellularly not only via chemicals, hormones, and the electrical nervous system, but also on a different energetic plane.  Alexander Gurvitch, a Russian medical scientist, studied the communication between cells in 1923. Gurvitch did an experiment in which he placed identical cell cultures into two separate quartz dishes. The dishes were sealed and isolated from each other, but were side by side. He put poison into only one cell culture, but the other cell culture died the exact same death even though no poison was put into it and it was isolated from the other dish. Gurvitch called this communication mitogenetic radiation and scientifically showed that there is an energy transmission between cells (Marberry, 1995, 54). Fritz Popp, a German scientist in the field of biophysics, further expanded Gurvitch’s work in 1974. With photomultiplier tubes, Popp discovered that cells emit photons of ultraviolet light, and that these emissions allow cells to communicate with each other (Marberry, 1995, 54). These studies further show that energy, sometimes in the form of photons, is a way for the body to communicate within itself.

Moving on from energetic communication between cells, there is also electrical activity within organs that can be measured and recorded. For example, Electroencephalography (EEG) is used to record the electrical activity of the brain. Additionally, Electrocardiography (EKG) is able to interpret the electrical activity of the heart over time by using electrodes attached to the surface of the skin on top of the heart (Hunt, 1989, 18-19). This makes sense because if we recognize that energy exists within and between cells, there must be energy across cells in the form of organ systems.

The information above describes the energetic body on an intercellular, intracellular, and organ level. However, it must be recognized that not only is energy a part of the body, but that it is the body. From physics we have learned that matter is simply another form of energy.  Einstein developed his famous equation, E=mc^2, and “suggested that matter and energy [are] manifestations of the same universal substrate and that the two [are] interconvertible” (Gerber, 1999, 36). If matter is just another form of energy, the physical body can be seen as an energetic body.

As a matter of fact, it has been proven that there is an energetic system close to the description of the model depicted by Chinese Medicine and that shows that energy is the driving force behind the body’s processes. Dr. Valerie Hunt, a Professor Emeritus from University of California Los Angeles, studied the body’s subtle energy system (1989). In her laboratory she placed surface sensors over the seven chakras, “wheel-like vortices of energy over endocrine centers of the body,” as defined by Chinese Medicine (15).  She amplified the energy on an oscilloscope and filtered the data to remove the brain, heart, and muscle frequencies, which were 0 to 250 cycles per second. She found there was a void of activity from 250-500, and then from 500-20,000 cycles per second the frequency information was continuous. Every recording using body surface electrodes contained all the electrical activity of the body. She concluded that there is another field of energy in the body that is smaller in amplitude and higher in frequency. This field flows throughout the body and radiates several feet beyond the surface of the skin in the form of a field (Hunt, 1989, 20-21). This is important because Dr. Valerie Hunt’s studies show that there is a comprehensive system that underlies all bodily functions. If a person needed to record the heartbeat s/he would need to use an electrocardiographic recording over the skin on top of the heart; the electrical activity of the heart could not be measured over any other part of the body. Contrastingly, the energetic system described by Dr. Valerie Hunt has the same pattern throughout the body and is thus comprehensive; it is almost like a hologram where each individual part has the information of the complete pattern.

In addition, this energetic system is shown to connect the mind and body as also described in the Chinese Medical model. First, Dr. Hunt starts with the basis that “patterns of thought and emotions trigger specific illnesses” (251-252).  For example, in cancer, the psychological trauma may be a stronger factor than genetics. This is because acute stress and strong emotional states suppress T-cell activity and other immune system elements (252). To continue, Dr. Valerie Hunt used a Cross Plot Analysis to compare two chakras for amplitude, frequency, and sequence. If the two had similar amplitude and frequency, there was coherency. If the two were out of sync, patients had physical and emotional dysfunction or disease (Hunt, 1989, 34). What Dr. Hunt’s study reveals is that disturbance in the electromagnetic system is connected to emotional disturbance, and the effects could be seen in changed levels of chemical activity. We are seeing that the emotion or the mind of the individual is directly correlated to a certain state of the energy field, which is again directly correlated to a physical response in the body. Energy is the missing link between the two.

We know there is a connection between the two because we see the effects of the mind influencing the body; processing of outside stimuli by the mind changes physiology. For example, stress, a perception of threat by the mind, has been shown to damage the brain. In a study by Ajai Vyas, Rupshi Mitra, B.S. Shankaranarayana Rao, and Sumantra Chattarji, chronic stress is shown to create hippocampal damage (2002). The hippocampus has a negative feedback regulation to respond to stress through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. The scientists stressed rats through different methods like forced swimming for three to four minutes, leaving the lights on overnight, cold temperature, food/water deprivation, and social isolation. It was shown through their study that stress produced significant dendritic remodeling, reversible shortening and debranching of apical dendrites, in CA3 pyramidal neurons (Chattarji, Mitra, Rao, and Vyas, 2002). This is important because it establishes that a negative state of mind, such as when a person is stressed, can be damaging to the body.

However, if the stress is positively managed, the body can be healed. Studies have shown that laughter, an effect of a positive emotional state, can produce improvements in immune system functioning. Those who use humor to cope with stress show higher levels of salivary immunoglobulin A, which is a vital immune system protein (Barrett, Fredrickson, & Tugade, 2004). When immune system vitality is increased, the body has a greater ability to be healed. This has also been shown in other studies. Dr. Deepak Chopra, a medical doctor who writes on mind-body medicine, discussed an Ohio University study of heart disease in his book, Quantum Healing. The researchers fed “toxic, high-cholesterol diets to rabbits in order to block their arteries, duplicating the effect that such a diet has on human arteries” (1990, 49). Strangely enough, the rabbits had a high tolerance to the diet because the person in charge of feeding fondled and petted them. This alone allowed the rabbits to overcome the diet. Although the mechanism that allowed the rabbits to be immune to this diet is unknown, the response is profound in that it shows that positive mind states can overcome even the most unfavorable of circumstances (1990).

Not only can negative and positive stimuli change the body, but personal interpretations of reality can alter it as well. We have understood this to be true because it has long been recognized that in scientific studies, the researcher must include a control group that does not receive the treatments that the researcher is trying to study. The control group is in place to measure the placebo effect. A placebo is “any therapy or component of therapy used for its nonspecific, psychological, or psychophysiological effect, or that is used for its presumed specific effect, but is without specific activity for the condition being treated” (Fassler, 2011, 1905). Placebos are used in scientific experiments because it has been proven that the person can believe s/he is receiving treatment or getting well and actually change her/his physiology to create the same result as the drug or therapy. This means that if the belief is strong enough, the body can heal itself through mind intervention, however there must be a strong enough emotion associated with the belief. In this way, the mind defines the reality of the body and creates beneficial change. These examples show a link between the mind and body, and to move on in the discussion, I am proposing that the mechanism for the communication between the two is through energy.

To these points, some disagree and believe the brain directs the processes of the body, and is the connection between mind and body. To them it makes sense because the brain is in the body and the mind is connected to the brain. In fact, researchers have been able to track thoughts in 3-D through a procedure called positron-emission tomography (PET) (Chopra, 1990, 103). They injected glucose with tagged radioisotopes into the bloodstream of patients. The marker could be seen as the brain used glucose, and this was pictured in three dimensions on a monitor. The scientists saw that “each distinct event in the universe of mind-such as a sensation of pain or a strong memory-triggers a new chemical pattern in the brain, not just at a single site but at several” (103). This study is similar to other results that show correlation between parts of the brain and emotions, intellect, etc. However, no one has been able to point to the brain and physically see a thought or a part of the mind. If the mind cannot be seen materially, then it must be non-material. Therefore, there must be a point when non-matter turns to matter or mind turns into body. As the body begins to be broken down from organ, to tissue, to cells, to DNA, the line between matter and non-matter becomes smaller. As DNA is broken down into atoms, electrons, and quarks, the line gets even smaller.  Energy must be the connection because otherwise “you are left in the embarrassing position of claiming that life is made out of nothingness-empty space devoid of matter and energy-which is all you get if you divide solid particles beyond a certain point” (Chopra, 1990, 157-158). Energy is the missing link between the mind and body because it is A) nonmaterial, therefore, is like the mind, and is B) another form of matter, therefore, it can be converted into the material of the body. In addition to being the link between mind and body, the energetic system precedes the biological and chemical systems, and thus is the force behind the physiological processes, not the brain. It was shown that when researchers stroked the energy field with a feather while the person was blindfolded, the energy field responded even before there was increased activity in the brain or in circulation (29).

I have shown how energy is the basis of the human being. We can finally see the means by which the mind and body connect, allowing us to delve deeper into what life is itself. In my examples that showed the mind-body connection, I showed not only how the mind influences the body, but also how the mind affects the health of the body. This is important because it helps us realize that nothing just occurs in the body spontaneously. In Chinese Medicine, if the Qi or energy is unable to flow smoothly, an imbalance results.  Chinese Medicine believes that energetic imbalances and disharmony in the body are the cause of all disease. It recognizes that symptoms are not just manifestations of the disease but rather the body’s attempt to heal itself; symptoms indicate that balance can be obtained by being aware of the individual’s emotions, beliefs, and thoughts, because the mind of the person affects the Qi in the body (Beinfield, 1991, 36). Energy allows us to see how the mind influences health and wellbeing and can serve as a basis of predicting ailments and treating patients. Additionally, the view of the human being that I have established gives a deeper understanding of life itself. Energy is the basis of life and is the driving information and force behind the perfection of the human being. If we go with the assumption that energy is the source of life, our world around us begins to look a whole lot different.

**********

References

Barrett, L., Fredrickson, B., & Tugade, M. (2004). Psychological resilience and positive

emotional granularity: Examining the benefits of positive emotions on coping and

health. Journal of Personality, 72(6), 1161-1190.

Beinfield, H., & Korngold, E. (1991). Between heaven and earth- A guide to chinese medicine.

New York, NY: Random House, Inc.

Chattarji, S., Mitra, R., Rao, B.S.S., & Vyas, A. (2002). Chronic stress induces contrasting

patterns of dendritic remodeling in hippocampal and amygdaloid neurons. The

Journal of Neuroscience, 22(15), 6810-6818.

Chopra, D. (1990). Quantum healing: Exploring the frontiers of mind/body medicine. New

York, NY: Bantam Books.

Fassler, M., Linde, K., & Meissner, K. (2011). Placebo interventions, placebo effects, and

clinical practice. Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society, 366, 1905-1912.

Gerber, R. (1999). Newtonian vs. einsteinian medicine. Total Health, 21 (1), 36.

Griff, E. (2006). How neurons work: An analogy & demonstration using a sparkler & a

frying pan. The American Biology Teacher, 68(7), 412-417.

Hunt, V. (1989). Infinite mind. Malibu, CA: Malibu Publishing Co.

Kaptchuk, T. (1983). The web that has no weaver. New York, NY: Congdon &Weed, Inc.

Marberry, S (Ed). (1995). Innovations in healthcare design. New York, NY: John Wiley &

Sonc, Inc.

Xiao, J., Liao, J-C., & Oster, G. (2005). Making ATP. Proceedings of the National Academy of

Sciences of the United States of America, 102 (46), 16539.

White, A., and Ernst, E. (2004). A brief history of acupuncture. Oxford Journals, 43, 662-663.

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