Mind over Matter

 Recently I was commenting on religion as being something we hold on to because our lives are finite and the thought of it ceasing is very painful. It is something that occupies our mind, and that leads on to the effect of our minds on our bodies.
For many years now I have related to people my experience with cold sores. I used to get them on my lips and their imminent arrival was heralded by a tingling on my lip. After having this happen for years I realised that I had read that they were caused by an excess of sunshine or of stress. Sunshine was the slip, slop, slap business, but stress happens to all of us at different times. But. The but was the idea that if stress caused the cold sores, that is that my mind was causing them, then could my mind just as well stop them. It turned out to be a good idea.
The next time I felt them coming I went into the bathroom and with the door closed and the family out I looked in the mirror at that lip and told it in the worst language I could find in my brain, and that was pretty bad language, just what I thought about it developing cold sores.
This procedure I repeated on subsequent occasions of lip tingling until the cold sores admitted defeat and stopped coming. These days they merely have to be told to "bugger off" and they retreat.
Hence my brain can affect my body. When I developed cancer my friends in Nigeria prayed for me and I knew it. They were good Christians. My wife prayed for me. And she was a good Buddhist. I do not know that the nature of the religion was a factor but I do believe that knowing that I had that support was good for my brain and I expect good for my body in its battle with cancer.