thesciencebaseforintegrativewellnessandhealthcare.docVIP

The 3rd World Conference on Buddhism and Science (WCBS) Why do monks chant at 6 breaths a minute? Is it beyond science? Dr Paul Johnson, Oxford University Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing not simply the absence of disease or disability. WHO 1948 Modern (western) healthcare with its many remarkable innovations has failed to prevent either the pandemic of life style-related diseases now accounting for over 2/3rd of illness and healthcare cost globally, or cure them. Most are preventable and reversible with a change in lifestyle. Since less than 3% of western healthcare budgets are spent on health promotion and disease prevention this is unlikely to change. What little health promotion there is focuses on diet and exercise with the mind neglected except recently in the treatment of depression (1). The subordinate position of Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) usually results from the view that it lacks the clinical evidence base or science of modern medicine. However, modern science has already demonstrated that a wide range of traditional practices, such as Pranayama, Yoga, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, meditation, and mindfulness improve autonomic nervous system (ANS) and immune function and outcome in people with a wide range of acute and chronic diseases. In contrast, most modern pharmaceutical and surgical therapies are targeted at organ specific diseases and do not aim to correct homeostatic imbalance which frequently underlies the onset and severity of many acute and chronic disorders. Improving life style is usually of secondary importance to the western clinician as well as their patients and is often an unquantified recommendation or addition to clinically ‘managed’ interventionist measures. It thus might be argued that modern or conventional medicine because of its organ/disease-specific approach is never likely to be comparable to holistic traditional medicine, especially those practices based on mindfulness and movement