Alternative Therapy Techniques

Mind-Body Therapies

You can get yourself so worked up mentally that you can make yourself physically ill. Your thoughts and feelings can have both good and bad effects on your body, so it's important to keep your mind well in order to keep your body healthy. A great way to do this is through mind-body therapies like meditation, prayer, yoga and guided imagery (using your mind and imagination to evoke relaxing and healing physical responses) that improve your mind's ability to influence your body.

Mind-body therapy can also help you if you're experiencing physical and mental pain. Dr. James Gordon, founder and director of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, encourages people dealing with trauma to talk about the problem and teaches them how to manage stress through drawings and written exercises using guided imagery. "This uses all parts of their brains, and we think that may be one of the reasons they do so much better in dealing with trauma," he says.