Dr. Mark Hyman

If you have the expectation that you're going to get better,

you're going to set into play an enormous pharmaceutical treasure trove, which is the pharmacy between your ears.

And it's real and it works.

So don't actually underestimate that.

For example, if you're an optimistic surgical patient, they needed fewer pain meds and had fewer complications.

So your brain and its ability to think differently

that you're going to get better actually influences the biological pathways of healing.

Really important.

And regulating your nervous system is also really important.

When I was really struggling and sick, every day I would do a restorative meditation.

It was hard for me to sit up, so I couldn't sit up.

And I would lay down, I would put headphones on, I would go through this 30-minute relaxation sequence

like a yoga nidra, like a deep sleep, what Andrew Hoopman calls non-sleep deep rest.

It's been around for thousands of years.

It's just where you go through a body scan, you just breathe, and you kind of reset your nervous system.

And this activation of this parasympathetic nervous system, this rest and repair system, is activating all kinds of amazing things.

Because when you think about it, when you're stressed, your blood vessels are constricted, your blood sugar goes up, all these things happen to deal with an acute response, which you need to run from a tiger.

But it's not going to help your body heal.

So when you activate the parasympathetic system, it makes your blood flow increase.

It gets your tissues more oxygenated.