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Everything You Need to Know About the Mind-Body Connection

No, it's not all in your head. ByCarolyn Todd

Shutterstock / Wondermind

It’s pretty common these days to hear people talk about the mind-body connection. Maybe you’ve heard about it on social media, in a yoga class or run club, or from your friend who swears their lower back pain gets worse whenever they’re super stressed. 

So what exactly are we actually talking about when we talk about the mind-body connection? How real is it? Can you truly blame your physical symptoms on your emotions or the job that’s stressing you out? And what does all of this mean for your health and well-being? We tapped a few mind-body experts to find out. 

What is the mind-body connection? 

“The ‘mind-body connection’ refers to the interplay of the mind and body,” says Chiara Gasteiger, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in psychology in the Mind & Body Lab at Stanford University. The two are deeply connected in lots of ways, Dr. Gasteiger explains, so what’s going on in one naturally influences what’s going on in the other. “Our mind—through our thoughts, beliefs, and emotions—influences our physiological responses, health, and well-being,” Dr. Gasteiger says. “And at the same time, the state of your body profoundly shapes your thoughts and mood.” 

Despite how woo-woo this might sound, it’s grounded in tons of research, says Elyse R. Park, PhD, MPH, professor of psychiatry and medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of research at the Massachusetts General Hospital Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine. We’ll get into that science in a bit, but you don’t have to pore through studies to know the connection is real. “You can see the mind-body connection in action all the time,” Dr. Gasteiger says. 

For example: “If you’re nervous before a presentation, you might suddenly get an upset stomach or sweaty hands,” Dr. Gasteiger says. (That’s mind influencing body.) Another one: When you’re sick in bed with a migraine or the flu, your mood may tank too. (That’s body influencing mind.) 

If you deal with depression, maybe you’ve noticed that it can impact not just your thoughts and emotions, but also your appetite or energy levels. Maybe you know that exercise (or even just a silly little mental health walk) does wonders for your mood. Something almost everyone can relate to is the connection between sleep and mental health, says Dr. Park. Your racing mind can keep your body from resting. And a crappy night of sleep can make you not only physically exhausted the next day, but also crabby and mentally sluggish. 

Where did the mind-body connection come from? 

The idea that your physical and mental states are linked seemed pretty out there just a few decades ago, says Dr. Park. But the mind-body connection isn’t actually new at all. For centuries, ancient healing practices and cultures (like Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, and Ancient Greece) emphasized that the health of your body and your psyche were deeply intertwined, Dr. Gasteiger points out.

But around the 17th century, “Western medicine shifted toward viewing the mind and body as separate entities,” explains Dr. Gasteiger. It wasn’t until the 1960s and 1970s that doctors started becoming seriously interested in the mind-body connection—and finding scientific evidence to support it. During that time, a Harvard cardiologist began studying mind-body links like the effects of stress on blood pressure and the impact of meditation on your breathing and heart rate, Dr. Park explains. By 1975, a new field called psychoneuroimmunology (psychology + neurology + immunology) was illuminating how stress and emotions can affect the immune system, Dr. Gasteiger says. 

In the late 1970s, a new “biopsychosocial” model of health gave medical providers a way to conceptualize well-being as more than just your biology, but also your psychology and social environment, Dr. Gasteiger explains. Advances in fields like neuroscience also led to a deeper understanding of the mind-body connection. Today, the concept is widely accepted in Western medicine, Dr. Park says. Just ask anyone who’s had a medical professional tell them to “try yoga” after coming in with a host of physical symptoms. 

5 fascinating examples of the mind-body connection

So, how does the mind-body connection shape our health? What does the research say? There are too many examples out there to count but here are a few cool ones. 

The gut-brain axis

Ever notice how much we talk about the gut in relation to our emotions? You get a gut feeling about somebody, you’re gutted by a breakup, you go with your gut when making a tough call. Turns out, there’s actually science behind that. The gut-brain axis is the two-way communication stream between your brain and your digestive system, Dr. Gasteiger explains (largely through a big nerve called the vagus nerve). In fact, more information gets exchanged between the brain and gut than any other system, according to the Cleveland Clinic. 

In case you haven’t noticed, stress, anxiety, and depression can all affect your digestion, Dr. Gasteiger says. Meanwhile, imbalances in the gut microbiome (the community of healthy microorganisms living in your intestines) can influence your mood and mental health. Research also shows that people with IBS are at much higher risk for anxiety and depression—and that the conditions might even share some underlying causes. 

Skin and mood 

Anyone who’s ever dealt with bad acne—or just an ill-timed volcanic zit—knows your skin can affect your mood. But have you ever noticed you’re also more likely to break out (or have a skin condition flare up) after an especially chaotic week? 

The skin is so connected to the mind that there’s a whole field called psychodermatology (psychology + dermatology). Conditions like acne, rosacea, psoriasis, and atopic dermatitis are all linked to mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, according to research. And stress has been shown to make skin symptoms worse. The good news? Mental health interventions like therapy have been shown to help skin symptoms or flare-ups that may be exacerbated by stress. (Scientists think this has to do with the complex connections between your nervous system, hormones, immune system, and skin.)

The placebo effect 

One of the weirdest examples of the mind-body connection is the placebo effect. When you see a doctor and get medication, you generally expect to feel better, right? The placebo effect is the idea that this alone—simply believing a treatment will work—can actually make you feel better, Dr. Gasteiger explains. 

We’ve got tons of hard proof this is true. Researchers test out new drugs by giving one group of people the real medication and one group of people a sugar pill (without telling them which one they’re getting). By seeing how much the people on the real drug improve compared to the people taking the placebo, scientists can tease out the effects of the drug itself from the placebo effect.

Amazingly, researchers often find that a good number of the people who take nothing but a sugar pill get some relief. Placebos have resulted in improvements in conditions like high blood pressure, chronic pain, allergies, migraine, nausea, and chronic itchiness from skin conditions. One review looking at 186 clinical trials (including 16,655 people) found that, on average, the placebo response accounted for about half of the overall effect of a treatment. 

It’s not just your mind playing tricks on you either. Placebos have been shown to trigger real, measurable changes in your body, Dr. Gasteiger says—like the release of its own opioids (natural painkillers). So it’s possible that if you believe a new stretching or movement routine is going to help your mood, it really might. 

The role of mindset in healing 

The placebo effect is just one example of how your thoughts and beliefs can influence your health. Here’s another: Being optimistic about your recovery from an illness or injury can enhance the healing process, Dr. Gasteiger says. A review of 30 studies, totaling 28,741 people with musculoskeletal pain (like back pain, whiplash, or a leg injury), found that those who had low expectations about their recovery were over twice as likely to later be on disability leave from work than people who had high expectations for their recovery. 

Even your perception of time can influence the healing process. In one small study, the rate of wound healing was influenced by how much time a person believed had passed. Researchers had people receive cupping therapy (which causes bruise-like marks), and then left them alone in a room with a clock for 28 minutes. For a third of the people, the clock was rigged to run at half speed—so they thought only 14 minutes had passed. For another third, the clock was rigged to run twice as fast as real time, so they thought 56 minutes had passed. (The final third had normal-running clocks.) The results? The researchers actually saw improved wound healing in the groups that thought more time had passed. 

The stress and relaxation response 

Mental and emotional stressors can cause your body to release hormones that trigger a “fight-or-flight” response, explains the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). Your heart rate, breathing rate, and blood pressure go up; your muscles get tense. That can be tough on your body and brain—especially when it becomes chronic, Dr. Park says. “When you're always in the stress response… it's hard to function, it's hard to be healthy.” As a result, chronic stress plays a role in causing or worsening a bunch of conditions (including many of the ones we’ve mentioned). 

Thankfully, we also have the relaxation response (phew!), which helps to counter the stress response. “Everything comes down,” Dr. Park explains: your heart rate, your blood pressure, your stress hormones, and your risk of exacerbating physical symptoms. You can bring on this relaxation response through a variety of mind-body strategies, Dr. Park says. You can try things like breathing exercises, a body scan like progressive muscle relaxation, meditation, gentle movement, and guided imagery. By directing your breath, muscles, awareness, or imagination, you can shift the state of your mind and body. 

According to the NCCIH, research shows techniques that elicit the relaxation response can be helpful for a wide variety of health conditions. For example, breathing exercises and clinical hypnosis can reduce hot flashes. Progressive muscle relaxation and diaphragmatic breathing may help manage IBS symptoms. Guided imagery can benefit people with arthritis pain. And various relaxation techniques may decrease nausea and vomiting in people undergoing chemotherapy.

No, it's not "all in your head." 

So, hang on a minute… Does all this mean you’re basically making your health problems up? That if you just thought more positively or went for enough mental health walks, you wouldn’t be sick? That it’s “all in your head,” as people say? Not even close. 

“The phrase ‘it’s all in your head’ implies that some symptoms and health problems are imaginary, which can feel very dismissive,” Dr. Gasteiger says. Recognizing the importance of the mind-body connection doesn't make your symptoms any less real or valid, Dr. Park says. On the contrary, understanding the role of the mind deepens our understanding of those symptoms and helps us appreciate the many dimensions of well-being. “It’s a great reminder of how complex the human body is, and the profound ways our psychological states can shape our physical health,” says Dr. Gasteiger. In reality, the mind-body connection should motivate and empower you to take better care of your mind, Dr. Park says—to watch those negative thought spirals, lean into optimism where you can, get the support and treatment you need, and engage in whatever self-care practices help you manage stress. And, similarly, it should remind you of all the ways your body (and the way you move it and treat it) can impact your mental health too.