Feeling blue or anxious? Before you reach for the Zoloft or Xanax consider reaching inside yourself for the answer to what troubles you.

Our bodies are adept at self-healing. This reality is witnessed daily in the broken bones, minor infections, upper respiratory issues, gastroenteritis attacks, minor headaches and other ailments that all seem to resolve on their own.

We cannot negate the need – and the gift – of medical and surgical interventions that help save lives and get us through a medical crises, but we too often overlook this truth – our bodies are the true source of this healing. The ability to heal is an essential life force that runs through us all.

Antibiotics, for example, would hardly work at all if it were not for our normally intact immune systems. Patients who are being treated with chemotherapy may suffer life-threatening infections when their level of white blood cells dips below a crucial number. Also, those who are chronically taking steroids, known to suppress the body’s immune system, are likewise susceptible to infections with agents that are ordinarily rather harmless.

Our intention to heal, along with a positive outlook, has long been recognized as an essential aspect of healing our physical beings. What is less obvious is that we are capable of healing ourselves emotionally as well.

This notion finds its origins in the work of Candace Pert and others in the field of psychoneuroimmunology. Pert and pioneers in that field found that each and every cell of our body contains receptors which enable them to bind to peptides circulating in the body.

Pert has referred to the process as ‘molecules of emotion’.

I came to realize the practical truth of this theory while performing thousands of endoscopic procedures including upper endoscopy and colonoscopy at my surgical center in Edison, New Jersey. [My day job as a gastroenterologist].

Each procedure involves the insertion of a long tube-like scope into the appropriate orifice for safe and thorough evaluation of the required section of stomach or bowel. Anesthetics are used in order to ensure patient comfort and safety. I was astounded to observe how rapidly anesthetics can induce a state of sedation that is similar to sleep. The patients feel no discomfort at all and quickly awaken when the IV drug is discontinued. This could only occur if the anesthetic could interact with receptors in the cells of the brain responsible for awareness and the awake state. The binding had to be quick and rapidly reversible as well.

I also realized that any drug that works on our moods, emotions and state of mind: the anti-anxiety drugs such as valium, xanax, klonopin etc., or the anti-depressants such as paxil, prozac, Zoloft, celexa etc. could have no effect on us if they did not bind to existing receptors in our brains.

But why should such sites actually exist? How did they get there?
Clearly as the products of millions of years of primate and mammalian evolution we inherited them for a reason – they provided a Darwinian advantage over those creatures who did not possess them.

The inescapable conclusion from this line of reasoning is this: they very likely served to allow our ancestors to calm themselves, become less anxious and even less depressed. And such a state of mind would have offered them an evolutionary advantage over others who did not possess such self-healing abilities.

The implications are fascinating and compelling. We are biologically structured to be able to reduce our own emotional distress and to be happier and more content than we could have ever imagined – to become our own emotional healers.

Dr. Steve’s Prescriptions:

1. Metaphysical Awareness. Nurture faith and belief in the biological capacity to heal our own emotional distress. Without the confidence to proceed, we tend to slip further into despair, grief and fear.

2. Physical exercise. Accept the reality of how certain internal chemical compounds such as adrenaline are released by emotional stress and how exercise can ‘burn’ them off.

3. Meditation. Learn to calm the chaos of the mind and create peace from within. This alters the ‘molecules of emotion’. Brain scanning has confirmed this truth.

4. Eat right for a clear mind. Become aware of how your body/mind reacts to certain foods and chemicals. Explore and be willing to do elimination trials of substances which can effect particular emotional states – carbohydrates, sugars, alcohol, wheat products, fats etc.

5. Spiritual exploration. Welcome the spiritual dimension that exists within each one of us. Even atheists cannot deny the universality of this distinctly human characteristic. Observe how prayer and connection to a higher reality can affect us emotionally.

6. Seek and create a soulful community. We are innately social beings and we calm each other through expressions of love, compassion and support.

7. Try therapy. There is nothing wrong with talking out your troubles to a qualified therapist of analyst. Cognitive therapy teaches us how to talk to ourselves. “Talk therapy” has healing effects but should encourage us to become our own healers as well.

8. Medication when needed. No need to suffer when short term medication can help get back on track. Use these medications like antibiotics – something to assist our bodies in its own healing. Just maintain awareness that the goal is to do as much as possible naturally and as a complement to medication – to tap into our innate ability to heal ourselves.