There is a very basic mechanism at the heart of most chronic illnesses, whether they are physical illnesses, mental illnesses or imagined illnesses.  This is simply known as the pain avoidance mechanism.

The one thing that all living creatures share is an aversion to pain.  One of the most basic advantages in natural selection is that creatures that avoid pain are more likely to survive and pass on their genes.  As animal life evolved into modern day humans, with our outsized brains, the pain avoidance mechanism also grew to outsized proportions and took on new forms.  We humans now go to great lengths to avoid pain, whether it is physical, mental, emotional, social, or any other form.

But what served our ancestral species so well on the savannah is not necessarily a good thing to carry with us in human bodies, particularly when the pain response is not linked to avoiding actual physical harm.  Scientists have discovered just a few years ago that there are a number of areas in the brain that are responsible for processing pain, and this network is something called a pain matrix.

So what does this mean for arthritis?  Arthritis is inflammation in a joint, and there are over 150 types of arthritis. The causes of arthritis are varied, so obviously the treatment for arthritis is also equally varied.  However, in many cases the cause of the arthritis remains unknown, and scanning the affected joint shows inflammation but no clue as to why it is inflamed.

But there is now an intriguing hypothesis that changes in emotional state in the brain can cause stimulation of the pain matrix, which then inflames the joint!  What this means is that in many cases where otherwise healthy people develop arthritis, there is a real possibility that the arthritis is induced by their emotional condition, and therefore, treating the emotional issues can resolve the arthritis.

We know already about the power of the mind from the placebo effect.  The placebo effect, which shows that treatments work simply when patients believe that they work, is scientifically proven.  So certain forms of arthritis and other inflammations can simply be the negative form of the placebo effect.  In other words, patients feel real pain and real symptoms of illness simply because at some level they believe they are sick, or they are undergoing emotional distress that shows up as real symptoms of physical illness.

Peter badly wanted investment advice.  He was more of a creative type, and his business was irregular.  When he finished a big project that gave him a sudden, one-off large paycheck, he decided to invest it for the future.  So he went to see his, ahem, accountant!  After all, the guy who does his taxes and the accounts for the business should be good at investing, right?

If this seems a little muddled to you, let me ask you to think about something else.  When I told friends that I was going to write a book on the human body and improving your health and fitness, I got plenty of free advice…much of it was along the lines of, “But Ravi, you are not a doctor.  How will you establish credibility?   Why don’t you collaborate with a doctor, or, have a famous doctor at least write a foreword for your book?”

I seriously considered doing so, until I thought about it some more.  It then occurred to me that doctors are to health what accountants are to investing for your financial future.  In other words, doctors are trained in disease management and in diagnosing and curing identifiable diseases.  But what has that got to do with maintaining and improving good health and investing in a healthy future?  Absolutely very little, it turns out!

I know from personal experience that many of my doctor friends have the worst lifestyles in terms of smoking, diet, fitness and sleep.  In fact, the more successful the doctor at their job, the busier they are, and the worse their lifestyle.  These folks are brilliant at what they do, which is cure you or help you manage your diseases better.  As a 16%-and-falling-body fat, 54-resting heart rate, athletically fit writer who has just spent the last decade researching the human body and good health, I can assure you I am in far better physical shape than the vast majority of doctors.

Of course, there are exceptions…there are many doctors who are cutting edge in their lifestyle, knowledge of wellness and preventive health.  But I can assure you their paycheck in most cases still comes from treating sick people, not from improving the health of people who are already reasonably healthy.

So who would you rather listen to in terms of getting you to improve your already existing good health to the next level? A health researcher and writer like me who is open-minded and continually updating his knowledge of the latest in wellness, or a credentialed specialist doctor who is an expert on treating people with poor health, but who never spends time professionally with healthy people?