We are wrong to deny the link between physical and mental health, as emerging evidence suggests
‘Let your shoulders drop. Close your eyes. Breathe. Enjoy that moment of physical relaxation.’ Photograph: Yuri_Arcurs/Getty Images
Something is stirring in the world of mental health and for once the news is positive. This month, British scientists began testing a radically new approach to treating schizophrenia based on emerging evidence that it could be a disease of the immune system. Meanwhile, scientists are investigating the possibility that low levels of chronic inflammation may be linked to depression.
Oliver Howes, a professor of molecular psychiatry at the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences and a consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley hospital in south London, is leading the schizophrenia research. “In the past, we’ve always thought of the mind and the body being separate, but it’s just not like that,” he says. “The mind and body interact constantly and the immune system is no different. It’s about changing the way we think about mental illnesses.”
Hear, hear to that. For a while, I’ve believed that we need to stop splitting mental and physical health. The mind doesn’t exist outside the body. A body without a mind is a corpse. In a way, this is a return to an old way of thinking: a “healthy mind in a healthy body” was the main component of the ancient Greek Hippocratic philosophy. But since Descartes split mind and body, arguing that the two were distinct, we’ve been living with the consequences.
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