Is Your Mind Separate From Your Body?

Just how the mind sends signals to the body to control it, the body sends signals to the mind to control it and its auto-pilot thoughts.

Its connected to the same body because it is the body.

Although it's only anecdotal, my own experience confirms this. Once I dropped my "spiritual" beliefs, I started taking much better care of myself physically - started taking medications as prescribed, exercising, cutting down on garbage food and smoking. I've never felt better in my life. It actually started with a realization of just how much damage I was doing to my brain, and it extended out from there.

When we think of our "selves" as separate from our bodies, there isn't much reason to treat them well, no matter how much we are told to by our chosen authority.

Excellent blog. The way I think about the mind/body connection has been greatly influenced by reading works by your fellow PT blogger Alan Fogel. And I believe this shift in understanding has had enormous benefits for my health.

In my opinion, the mind and body are connected. For example, when we touch our toes we feel it in our toes and fingers, not our brain. The brain sends the signals, etc, but the body is an extension of the brain (which is part of our body). It's all tied together. Granted, this doesn't explain why I'm "me" and you're "you" and all that other stuff, but it helps us to understand that the brain and the rest of the body communicate back and forth. Another example I have is that a lot of our fears are based off of our physique. The stronger you are, the more confidence you have. For example if you're a basketball player and you're worried about getting pushed around in the paint (for those that don't know much about basketball, that's near the basket), that fear will lessen if you hit the gym and bulk up a little bit. So, you're mind is reacting to your body.

Mind is rooted in body. Anyone that thinks mind is not should ask the question where was mind before conception, and where does it go after death. Placing the mind separate from body is abnegation of intellect. Consciousness is a suitcase term that has many biological factors. Those that understand that are more realistic and tend to use evidence to find the truth. Because live closer to the truth, they will also be more cognizant of a healthier lifestyle.

Don't mean to sound stupid, but isn't it common sense that the mind is a product of the body? Where else would it be? I believe that the mind is the result of bodily processes (like the author was saying about hormones, but when it comes to cognition I've always assumed the mind and consciousness is created by the communication between neuro cells/transmitters). Because the mind needs the body to exist and the body needs the mind/consciousness to be fully functional and stay safe, then of course changes to one affects the other. That's why you feel anxious when you have an overactive thyroid and depression when you have an underactive thyroid or glandular fever. And that's why you feel physically ill in so many ways when you feel anxious or depressed.

Is there really an alternative belief? Could someone explain the opposite point of view to me - that the mind and body are separate?

For those of you who do not understand Dr. McGonigal's entry--good for you. Seriously. You're more advanced than I am.

I understand it all too well. I have led an unexamined life. My existence was all about meeting whatever hedonistic pleasure my mind wanted at that moment. There was no thought about my body. My body told me many things, but I never paid it any attention until there were serious medical issues.

I now strive for a mindfulness so as to be aware of all of me, but I am very new to that journey. Dr. McGonigal's work has intrigued me, and I thank her for articulating that which I couldn't.

To speak in terms of mind and body is Newtonian physics rooted in that historical period. It is the common sense, every day view of reality, including cause and effect. All scientific knowledge is paradigm dependent. The Cartesian/Newtonian view has been surpassed by 20th century physics in accord with ancient wisdom. From quantum theory and eastern philosophies, as well as some early Greeks, however, we know that before anything is, there are a myriad possibilities (wave) which become collapsed into one 'thing' (particle) when an 'observer' looks(?)/realizes (makes real by his creative activity) something. The observer himself is either entirely an observation by some Other or a verb beyond the banal experience of mind and body. As Sartre wrote: 'The human being is existence (verb) trying to become essence (noun).' There is no cause and effect, or time as everything is happening at once, but to our minds locked into a way of seeing and communicating in a linear way, things appear to be so, until, in a moment of enlightenment we step outside 'the matrix' and see things as they (more) really are, viz. just illusions. That's why having been a psychologist it was never enough for me; I always knew that the Way was beyond psychology, which was also why I was attracted to Zen Buddhism, Jungian psychology and why my focus was Gestalt therapy an existential approach.

Even among Buddhists, who will agree that the self is an illusion, there is a concept of consciousness that exists after death. The natural conclusion is that even if the "mind" as we know it is an illusion, and that it is the product of physical processes in the body, there is something else, consciousness, that pervades both body and mind.

So the questions remains, if the dualists have an incomplete explanation, and the physicalists have an incomplete explanation, what else is there?

Calling on quantum mechanics was an important point...the wave particle duality gives us an interesting analogy. If light is neither a particle or a wave, but is actually both, depending upon how you look at it, and an electron has the same properties, what does that mean? That means that it is something greater than the both of them that we aren't capable of knowing. Quantum mechanics also dictates that we will never be able to know more about this puzzle, that it will remain unknowable.

Descartes observed his mind, acknowledging that he was a thinking being, and, as we know, later came up with the premise of the "ghost in the machine". As a machinist by nature, but devoutly religious, he was unable to reconcile the existence of the mind within the mechanical structure of the body. So we can also observe that hormones, and a great deal of our emotions are the result of processes within the body, getting rid of the concept of the mind. That satisfies it, right? Is it a particle or a wave? How can it be both?

A Buddhist monk can meditate until he stills his mind, and upon no longer observing a mind, determine that he is not a thinking being, per se. But even despite this, he acknowledges that there is a consciousness within the body that he recognizes as his own. It is different than a "soul" as Western religions determine it, but it carries with it the karma, the emotional memories that were formed within the body over the course of a life.

"Primitive" cultures all over the world have believed that there is a physical consciousness, but that there are other levels of consciousness as well. We have a simpler version of that, with the sub-conscious and the conscious. Depending on the culture, it can me a much more complex model. This points to the fact that mind/body unity does not remove the possibility of a "spiritual self", which may be the consciousness that Buddhism observes as extending after death.

Calling upon quantum mechanics is also not a bad allusion...after all, we know from quantum non-locality that particles can remain connected, even if separated by long distances. If our memories are simple electrical pulses stored in our brains, or the result of hormones released in our bodies, which is also the result of electrical activity in our body, why would that information not persist after the specific circumstances of the body dies? Even as electrons are separated from their original atom, do they not remain connected?

If not being spiritual helps you treat your body well, I'm all for it, but my suggestion is that any spirituality that encourages you to neglect your body is not a very good one.

I have always felt my mind and body were deeply connected and interrelate. What bothers the mind can manifest itself in physical problems, such as stress and ulcers. When the body is ill, it can result in depression or other issues of the mind. I also think hormones and emotions are part of your overall mental and physical health.

"Premise #1: The mind is in the body...It's a basic assumption of modern psychology, especially for those who study the brain."

Not always. Neuroscientist Jeff Schwartz MD at UCLA (who also endorsed your book) is of the opinion that You Are Not Your Brain . Also don't forget the guy who discovered the Neuron (Sherrington), the guy who discovered the Synapse (Eccles) and the guy who defined Science in the 20th Century (Popper). To be fair, Dualism is certainly out of fashion the last century or so.

To quibble a little bit, I looked up the original article and their description of dualism was hardly flattering. One could tell it was not penned by a dualist (at least not an eloquent one).

I'd be interested to see how the results carry over to the US, and to see how the effects are correlational. I'd guess that there are several factors that would affect health attitudes that correlate with dualism (e.g. religiosity and therefore poverty and poor education). The other thing that I'd be interested in finding out is the effects of Dualism on "spiritual" things. Are dualists spending all the time and willpower they saved on helping the poor and meditating? Are they nurturing their souls through art and prayer? Science often advances by razor-thin slices, so while the diet aspect is interesting, it is an incomplete answer.

My major beef (is that the proper scientific term?) with the study is that it seemed to be pitting well-articulated materialism against sloppily-described Cartesian Dualism, that is, that mind and body are entirely separate things. The orthodox Christian view for example is that there are indeed two kinds of stuff, but that the body is immensely important and intricately tied to the spirit (hence the vehement opposition to Gnostics claiming that Jesus only resurrected in spirit; his physical body being alive has always been an indispensable doctrine). A similar view is commonly held by Buddhists: the body is important (hence the value of practices like Yoga), but there is a part of a person that is nonphysical that gets reincarnated. Neither of these two very popular views would be well-described by the study.

"Does exposure to more scientific training (especially psychological science or neuroscience) lead people to healthier choices?" - No. Just look at how most neuroscientists and doctors live (with the notable exception of yourself). I don't think it's a problem of knowledge.

"And can you believe that your essential self is somehow separate from your body, and yet still be motivated to take good care of it, the way a parent takes care of a child, or a farmer cares for the land?" - Yes. Look at the Stoics of Greece, or the monks at Clairvaux (or for that matter, I guess you could look at almost any set of monks from any religion). I think that there is much potential in approaches like the one you mentioned at the church.

I think a divorce between mind and body is probably bad and damaging as is any wrong philosophy, and that goes both for nuanced dualism and for materialism (whichever one be wrong). I do very much agree with this line of research: beliefs really do matter and we should start to ask "how?" Very thought-provoking article!

Great topic, I like that the author is not only considering which view is true, but how this underlying premise impacts our life choices. I would like to add to the conversation the benefits of believing that the mind is separate from the body. It is true that if you believe this, then having a healthy, attractive body not the meaning of your life. From Buddhist perspective, the real meaning of the human experience/opportunity is to develop our mind. Why? because when we pack our bags at the time of death, that is all that is coming with us. No matter how healthy our body is, at the time of death, we will leave it behind. If maintaining and developing our body has been the main emphasis of our life, then at the time of our death we will realize that we have made a mistake, and put our eggs in the wrong basket. Buddha encouraged us to use our life to prepare for our death, that is the only thing that is definite in our future. The only thing that will be useful to us at that time is spiritual experience gained through training our mind in meditation and in daily life. If we believe the mind ceases with the body, we will never have the motivation it takes to seriously train our mind and we will exaggerate the importance of the body. It is important to take care of our body because long life allows us more time for spiritual training. But, even if our body is not healthy, we can train our mind. We can use our experiences of suffering to develop the inner qualities of compassion and renunciation.

A while back I started thinking of my body less as "me" but more of a physical placeholder that represented me. It's hard to explain, but it basically boils down to dividing myself into three parts: my logical mind, my emotions, and my physical body. Looking at it that way was somehow a lot more motivational than seeing myself as a whole unit. Instead of forcing myself to work out, I was making my body work out to take care of it.
On a psychological website I imagine I'll get psychoanalyzed about how I have a low sense of self-worth because I'm more likely to take care of things that are "mine" then things that are "me." But it's really more of a mind over matter. Instead of not taking a run because "I don't feel like it," I think more along the lines of, "my body doesn't want to, but I know what's best so we're going to do it anyway."
It's interesting.

This may be a old post, but I just took off from my sleep and searched of body and soul and landed here.
My experience seems different. I can hear me snoring even before I sleep. I have to take some conscious effort to bring it under control. It is something like an another being living in me, taking away all my energy. It is odd!

It would at least be helpful if Dr. McGonigal understood that her statements about the relationship of the "mind" (wholly undefined, in this article) and "body" are, by their very nature, incapable of even being addressed by current scientific methods, much less answered.

These are questions related to the foundations of science, which are non-empirical questions.

As a psychologist, it is not likely that Dr. McGonigal has spent much time reflecting on the underlying assumptions of science. Most psychologists I know (I'm a psychologist) haven't. Unfortunately, these is largely what has led our profession into the situation it is in, in which few studies can be reliably replicated.

Not only is this lack of understanding of the foundations of modern science, troubling, but our lack of understanding of the limitations of our methodologies (primarily quantitative) is equally troubling.

Paragraph 11, line 2: "Expression of religious fatih."

Dear Dr. McGonigil, the brain is like a computer with neural sensors and operates the body and emotions. The mind is the programmer. The mind has access to the cosmic mind. We receive ideas, perceive the spirit, soul,future, consciousness and God. The body loses weight upon death, the mind being made-up of subatomic particles has weight. The brain goes to the grave upon death. The mind, spirit, soul, memories and Personality ascend. People who have been clinically dead, brain dead, have come back to life, some after more than an hour with stories of an afterlife. So what do you think about this?

Dear Dr. McGonigil, the brain is like a computer with neural sensors and operates the body and emotions. The mind is the programmer. The mind has access to the cosmic mind. We receive ideas, perceive the spirit, soul,future, consciousness and God. The body loses weight upon death, the mind being made-up of subatomic particles has weight. The brain goes to the grave upon death. The mind, spirit, soul, memories and Personality ascend. People who have been clinically dead, brain dead, have come back to life, some after more than an hour with stories of an afterlife. So what do you think about this?