Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Health & Beauty Anatomy of an Illness Anatomy of an Illness Norman Cousins’s best-selling book is an amazing and inspiring journey of how he overcame a serious illness by treating himself. His story has been very influential to the health profession in our era even though he was not a health professional. This book shows how the mind can have a powerful effect on the body and by working together they can have triumph over an illness. In 1964 Norman Cousins was stricken by the life-threatening disease of ankylosing spondylitis. Cousins became depressed with the hospital routine and concluded that it would not be healthy for him to stay. Cousins responded by leaving the hospital and treating himself with methods he thought would be useful in healing his illness. His treatment consisted of high doses of Vitamin C and laughter. He took the doctors advice to take vitamin C and he also watched funny movies and television shows. Cousins wrote that “ ten minutes of belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would and would give me two hours of pain free sleep.” Cousins noticed that after he was given a high dose of vitamin C or after a lengthy laugh the degree of inflammation measured decreased. Cousins had found a remedy for this disease and would not let anything get in his way to cure himself. Cousins was ahead of his times with his ideas and would still be considered ahead of his times if he tried this kind of treatment today. This intriguing story is influential to anybody who is skeptical that the mind cannot have powerful effects over the body. Cousins once wrote that “I have learned never to underestimate the capacity of the human mind and body to regenerate.” This amazing story sparked the interest of a huge group of patients and physicians that believe in mind-body medicine. There still is a huge interest in mind-body healing and it is still practiced effectively today. This is a interesting book for anyone to read but it would especially be a wonderful book for somebody to read who is facing a life-threatening disease because it demonstrates that other methods of medicine besides traditional medicine can be successful. Bibliography: Word Count: 381
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