The Best Medicine

The Best Medicine

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
—Proverb of Solomon

The Best Medicine

In his book The Myth of Normal¹, Gabor Maté, a renowned physician widely respected for his work in addiction and trauma, shares numerous stories and studies that underscore the profound healing power of emotion. He’s spent years treating addiction and trauma and came away with one major conclusion: our emotions don’t just shape our lives—they shape our bodies, our health, and our future. As the ACE study demonstrated, emotion can be deeply destructive, but as Gabor goes on to illustrate, hope is not lost. Learning how to resolve our emotional trauma and flowing in healthier currents can literally undo the damage.

Maté cites studies suggesting that emotional repression can accelerate the progression of cancer. For example, men who chronically repress anger are at greater risk of developing colon cancer than men who do not^2,3. Similarly, smokers with repressed emotional histories have been shown to be at significantly higher risk of developing lung cancer than their unrepressed counterparts^4,5.

The Myth of Normal documents cases in which individuals facing terminal diagnoses of cancer will sometimes undergo deep emotional transformations with shocking effect. In the face of death, some individuals let go of long-held trauma or fear. Some even forgo traditional chemotherapy in order to “die on their own terms.” They begin telling themselves a different story and, mysteriously, their cancers go into remission without any known cause. From our current scientific knowledge of cancer, these are bonafide miracles and they are seemingly tied directly to one’s emotional well-being.

Maté reports that clinicians who treat ALS (aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease) often describe that those with ALS are typically far too nice. They even presume to declare that someone’s test will come back negative for ALS because they were not nice enough. If their observation is taken at face value, one might think this shows conflicting cause and effect, but this is where emotions differ from actions. Being nice is not the same thing as experiencing the emotions of niceness. One can easily appear nice due to persistent fear and anxiety which were driving behaviors to prevent pain.

None of this is an argument against medicine nor especially a suggestion to avoid medical treatment. This simply illustrates how deeply emotion influences our biology, health, and the life we end up experiencing. In a way, laughter truly is the best medicine, but until we can walk on water, we may wish to supplement with effective medications. Doing so can only increase our expectations of recovery which creates another layer of emotional support for healing. So even if emotions and trauma are the cause of a disease, and even if resolving them is potentially the cure, let’s not part from known effective treatments. At the same time, recognize that the treatments alone may not suffice if we have unresolved emotional conflict within us.

Emotion is a significant part of our lives whether it’s health, affecting how others treat us, how we treat others, our performance, their performance, scientific studies, or just in our daily success at being happy. And yet, most of us go through our daily lives saying we’re “fine,” hiding our inner lives from each other, and even hiding our feelings from ourselves. Emotional self-awareness is viewed as weakness or distraction. Many people have no idea what they’re feeling at any given moment, nor do they want to know. We lack the vocabulary and, worse, the motivation to explore it while hiding behind embarrassment or fear.

Learning to regulate our emotions and becoming attuned to how they influence others is life-changing. It is a unique skill that can change the life we experience for the better. We will all face hardships still for sure, but with proper training, we can move past them as if by magic. Being expectant, composed, and confident will gain a certain presence about us, and that presence will alter how others respond to us—subtly, unconsciously, and yet powerfully. At this point, however, I might as well recommend we choose happiness while swimming in a pool full of piranhas. What is hopefully banging around in your head right now is, “That’s all great, but how the heck do we do it?”

Unfortunately, I’ve come to realize there is no one-size-fits-all solution. We all have different trauma, different triggers, different experiences, and different predilections to various behaviors. There is no answer that I could provide that would work for everyone, but comprehending the power we hold is the first step toward harnessing it. The second step is becoming acutely aware of how we are feeling and how it causes us to behave. It is in recognizing where we mess up, what makes us feel off, and what gets us back on track. And that is up to each of us individually. What works for me may not work for you, but if you are aware of these dynamics and seek the answers, I have no doubt you will find them.

Recap