Mind Over Meds

Too many Americans are taking too many drugs -- and it's costing us our health, happiness, and lives. Prescription drug use in America has increased tenfold in the past 50 years, and over-the-counter drug use has risen just as dramatically. In addition to the dozens of medications we take to treat serious illnesses, we take drugs to help us sleep, to keep us awake, to keep our noses from running, our backs from aching, and our minds from racing. Name a symptom, there's a pill to suppress it. Modern drugs can be miraculously life-saving, and many illnesses demand their use. But what happens when our reliance on powerful pharmaceuticals blinds us to their risks? Painful side effects and dependency are common, and adverse drug reactions are America's fourth leading cause of death. In Mind over Meds, bestselling author Dr. Andrew Weil alerts readers to the problem of overmedication, and outlines when medicine is necessary, and when it is not. Dr. Weil examines how we came to be so drastically overmedicated, presents science that proves drugs aren't always the best option, and provides reliable integrative medicine approaches to treating common ailments like high blood pressure, allergies, depression, and even the common cold. With case histories, healthy alternative treatments, and input from other leading physicians, Mind over Meds is the go-to resource for anyone who is sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Too many Americans are taking too many drugs? and it's costing us our health, happiness, and lives. Prescription drug use in America has increased tenfold in the past 50 years, and over-the-counter drug use has risen just as dramatically. In addition to the dozens of medications we take to treat serious illnesses, we take drugs to help us sleep, to keep us awake, to keep our noses from running, our backs from aching, and our minds from racing. Name a symptom, there's a pill to suppress it. Modern drugs can be miraculously life-saving, and many illnesses demand their use. But what happens when our reliance on powerful pharmaceuticals blinds us to their risks? Painful side effects and dependency are common, and adverse drug reactions are America's fourth leading cause of death. In Mind over Meds, bestselling author Dr. Andrew Weil alerts readers to the problem of overmedication, and outlines when medicine is necessary, and when it is not. Dr. Weil examines how we came to be so drastically overmedicated, presents science that proves drugs aren't always the best option, and provides reliable integrative medicine approaches to treating common ailments like high blood pressure, allergies, depression, and even the common cold. With case histories, healthy alternative treatments, and input from other leading physicians, Mind over Meds is the go-to resource for anyone who is sick and tired of being sick and tired.

We’ve been led to believe that when we get sick, it’s our genetics. Or it’s just bad luck—and doctors alone hold the keys to optimal health. For years, Lissa Rankin, M.D., believed the same. But when her own health started to suffer, and she turned to Western medical treatments, she found that they not only failed to help; they made her worse. So she decided to take matters into her own hands. Through her research, Dr. Rankin discovered that the health care she had been taught to practice was missing something crucial: a recognition of the body’s innate ability to self-repair and an appreciation for how we can control these self-healing mechanisms with the power of the mind. In an attempt to better understand this phenomenon, she explored peer-reviewed medical literature and found evidence that the medical establishment had been proving that the body can heal itself for over 50 years. Using extraordinary cases of spontaneous healing, Dr. Rankin shows how thoughts, feelings, and beliefs can alter the body’s physiology. She lays out the scientific data proving that loneliness, pessimism, depression, fear, and anxiety damage the body, while intimate relationships, gratitude, meditation, sex, and authentic self-expression flip on the body’s self-healing processes. In the final section of the book, you’ll be introduced to a radical new wellness model based on Dr. Rankin’s scientific findings. Her unique six-step program will help you uncover where things might be out of whack in your life—spiritually, creatively, environmentally, nutritionally, and in your professional and personal relationships—so that you can create a customized treatment plan aimed at bolstering these health-promoting pieces of your life. You’ll learn how to listen to your body’s "whispers" before they turn to life-threatening "screams" that can be prevented with proper self-care, and you’ll learn how to trust your inner guidance when making decisions about your health and your life. By the time you finish Mind Over Medicine, you’ll have made your own Diagnosis, written your own Prescription, and created a clear action plan designed to help you make your body ripe for miracles.

Presents evidence from medical journals that beliefs, thoughts, and feelings can cure the body and shows readers how to apply this knowledge in their own lives. -- provided by publisher.

More than four million copies sold: the definitive guide to drugs and drug use from “America’s best known doctor” (The New York Times). Cowritten by one of America’s most respected doctors, From Chocolate to Morphine is the authoritative resource covering a wide range of available substances, from coffee to marijuana, antihistamines to psychedelics, steroids to smart drugs, and beyond. Dr. Andrew T. Weil provides the best and most unbiased information available, frankly discussing each drug’s likely effects, precautions for use, and suggested alternatives. Expanded and updated to include such drugs as Oxycontin, Ecstasy, Prozac, and Ephedra, this edition also addresses numerous issues from the growing methamphetamine and opioid epidemics to the push to legalize medical marijuana, and the overuse of drugs for children diagnosed with ADHD. Offering facts rather than advocacy, Weil’s trusted bestseller has become “a classic guide to psychotropic drugs” (U.S. News and World Report).

Mind Fixers tells the history of psychiatry’s quest to understand the biological basis of mental illness and asks where we need to go from here. In Mind Fixers, Anne Harrington, author of The Cure Within, explores psychiatry’s repeatedly frustrated struggle to understand mental disorder in biomedical terms. She shows how the stalling of early twentieth century efforts in this direction allowed Freudians and social scientists to insist, with some justification, that they had better ways of analyzing and fixing minds. But when the Freudians overreached, they drove psychiatry into a state of crisis that a new “biological revolution” was meant to alleviate. Harrington shows how little that biological revolution had to do with breakthroughs in science, and why the field has fallen into a state of crisis in our own time. Mind Fixers makes clear that psychiatry’s waxing and waning biological enthusiasms have been shaped not just by developments in the clinic and lab, but also by a surprising range of social factors, including immigration, warfare, grassroots activism, and assumptions about race and gender. Government programs designed to empty the state mental hospitals, acrid rivalries between different factions in the field, industry profit mongering, consumerism, and an uncritical media have all contributed to the story as well. In focusing particularly on the search for the biological roots of schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder, Harrington underscores the high human stakes for the millions of people who have sought medical answers for their mental suffering. This is not just a story about doctors and scientists, but about countless ordinary people and their loved ones. A clear-eyed, evenhanded, and yet passionate tour de force, Mind Fixers recounts the past and present struggle to make mental illness a biological problem in order to lay the groundwork for creating a better future, both for those who suffer and for those whose job it is to care for them.

New York Times bestseller and beloved guide, revised and updated with up-to-the minute scientific and spiritual insight, teaches readers how to listen to their bodies and assess all areas of their lives--relational, psychological, creative, environmental, professional--to understand what they need for health. "What a pleasure it is to see the next generation of physicians waking up to what I call real medicine--the kind that acknowledges our true power to heal and be well." - Christiane Northrup, M.D., OB/GYN physician and author of the New York Times bestsellers: Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause When Mind Over Medicine was first published, it broke new ground in the fertile region where science and spirituality intersect. Through the process of restoring her own health, Dr. Lissa Rankin discovered that the conventional health care she had been taught to practice was missing something crucial: a recognition of the body's innate ability to self-repair and an appreciation for how we can control these self-healing mechanisms with the power of our own consciousness. To better understand this phenomenon, she explored peer-reviewed medical literature and found evidence that the medical establishment had been proving that the body can heal itself for over 50 years. She shared her findings and laid out a practical plan for readers to heal themselves in this profoundly wise book--a New York Times bestseller and now a classic guide for people who are on a healing journey from illness, injury, or trauma. In the years since then, Dr. Rankin has deepened her exploration of the world's healing tradition and her understanding of the healing power we hold within ourselves--if only we can tap into it. This revised edition of Mind Over Medicine reflects her latest research, evolving wisdom, and work with clients and students in her healing community, as well as with doctors and other healers in her Whole Health Medicine Institute. Inside, readers will discover: • A thorough update of Dr. Rankin's signature Six Steps to Healing Yourself • New insight into how unresolved trauma can stand in the way of healing from chronic and life-threatening illnesses-and powerful tools we can use to heal it • How to tune in to our Inner Pilot Light for intuitive guidance in our healing And much more "The healing that is possible may be right here," Dr. Rankin writes, "closer than close, underneath all your efforting and striving, available if you are ready to humble yourself before this possibility and receive what awaits you."

Winner of the American Health Book of the Year Award and the Medical Self-Care Book Award, HEALTH AND HEALING is a handbook for people who want to understand the strengths and weaknesses of conventional and alternative medicine. This revised edition includes a new Preface by author Andrew Weil, M.D.