Why the Next Big Frontier in Medicine is Energy Medicine

By Jed Diamond, PhD, LCSW

I first heard about Dr. Mehmet Oz in 2000 when I was writing my book The Whole Man Program: Reinvigorating Your Body, Mind, and Spirit After 40. Dr. Oz was one of the top heart surgeons in the world at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia Medical Center. I wanted to find someone with the best scientific credentials to help me better understand heart disease so I could help other men. Dr. Oz was a wonderful resource. He is still one of the best surgeons in the world but he has since expanded his view of what constitutes good medicine.

Dr. Oz is now advocating a kind of medicine that does not require a scalpel. In 2007, Dr. Oz rocked the health world by proclaiming to a worldwide television audience on the largest stage in the world, The Oprah Show, that we are entering a new era of medicine.

“We’re beginning now to understand things that we know in our hearts were true but could not measure. As we get better at understanding how little we know about the body, we begin to realize that the next big frontier in medicine is energy medicine. It’s not the mechanistic parts of the joints moving. It’s not the chemistry of our bodies. It’s understanding, for the first time, how energy influences how we feel.”

Dr. Mehmet Oz, November 20^th, 2007, The Oprah Show

Energy Medicine is powerful. It can help us heal everything from arthritis to Alzheimer’s. James Oschman, Ph.D. one of the leading scientists in the field and author of Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis says that energy medicine “seems to do away with or dramatically improve so many health challenges common in this day and age: insomnia, the chronic pain of multiple diseases and injuries, exhaustion, stress, anxiety, and premature aging.”

How can Energy Medicine help with so many chronic illnesses? One answer seems to be that it helps reduce inflammation in our bodies. Inflammation is now believed to be the underlying cause of more than eighty chronic illnesses, and more than half of Americans suffer currently from one or more of them. “Inflammation may turn out to be the elusive Holy Grail of medicine—the simple phenomenon that holds the key to sickness and health,”says William Meggs, MD, PhD, in his book The Inflammation Cure: How to Combat the Hidden Factor Behind Heart Disease, Arthritis, Asthma, Diabetes & Other Diseases. 

In his book The Encyclopedia of Energy Medicine, Linnie Thomas lists over 65 Energy Medicine modalities. I have found four that I have been using consistently for more than 10 years. They are simple to learn, scientifically sound, practical, and effective.  They are:

1)    Earthing or Grounding.

2)    Heart Coherence

3)    Attachment Love

4)    Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT or Tapping)

Earthing (Grounding): The Most Important Health Discovery Ever?

For millions of years, our ancestors moved across the landscape either barefoot or in moccasins made from the hides of animals. The women walked to gather food. The men walked to find animals for food. We slept connected to the Earth. But in modern times we’ve begun wearing rubber-soled shoes that keep us insulated from the healing energies of the Earth.

According to cardiologist Stephen Sinatra, MD, coauthor of the book Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever?, “Earthing involves coupling your body to the Earth’s eternal and gentle surface energies. It means walking barefoot outside and/or sitting, working, or sleeping inside while connected to a conductive device that delivers the natural healing energy of the Earth into your body.”

Every day I connect with the earth, through touch and walking. I also use Earthing sheets and pads to get the benefits even when I’m in the house. It’s the easiest, most ancient, and maybe the most effective thing you can do to take care of our health.

Heart Coherence: Using the Power of Our Hearts and Minds to Heal

I first began using heart coherence when I was training for a marathon and my heart would speed up more than normal. My doctor said it wasn’t serious, but it interfered with my training. I also noticed my heart speeding up when I was under stress.

The Institute of HeartMath, founded in 1991 by stress researcher Doc Childre, has been doing cutting-edge research on heart coherence under the leadership of research director Rollin McCraty, PhD. Researchers found that people could maintain extended periods of physiological coherence by actively generating positive emotions.

One of the simplest and most powerful techniques involves focusing on your heart, imagining that you are breathing in and out through your heart areas. At the same time, hold a thought of a strong experience of love and gratitude. Often when I’m feeling stressed, I’ll breathe in and out while remembering a wonderful time with my wife or a strong loving memory of one of my children. It’s amazing how quickly the feelings of overwhelm leave me.

Attachment Love: The Energy Essence of a Successful Relationship

Attachment love is based on the latest scientific findings that show we are emotionally attached to and dependent on our partners in much the same way that a child is on a parent for nurturing, soothing, and protection. Most of us understand that children need a secure attachment to their parents in order to grow up be healthy and happy. But many of us believe that we outgrow these dependency needs when we become adults. Men, in particular, are taught that maturity means “standing on our own two feet” and not needing others in order to fulfill our needs.

Attachment love is based on trusting that your partner will be there for you, that he or she has your back, and cares about your well-being. This kind of love helps us break away from the old beliefs that adults need to be independent and self-sufficient. Knowing that we need nurturing and support throughout our lives enables us to use the deep energy of a healthy relationship to keep us all healthy in mind, body, and spirit.

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT or Tapping): Healing for Old Wounds, Trauma, and Pain

EFT is a powerful new discovery that combines two well-established sciences so you can benefit from both at the same time: Mind/body medicine and Acupuncture (without needles). It’s deceptively simple and at first seemed counterintuitive to me.  The process involves thinking about a painful or traumatic experience you have had that is still causing pain in your life.

While you hold the thought, you tap along meridian points on the body. EFT has been used in treating everything from PTSD with returning soldiers and survivors of the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut to dealing with physical and emotional pain.

Stress Relief for Men and the People Who Love Them

I’ve been helping men and the people who love them for more than 40 years. I’ve treated every problem you can imagine from depression to problems with sex, intimacy, and relationships. I’ve found that stress underlies most of the problems men and women face today. In my book Stress Relief for Men: How to Use the Revolutionary Tools of Energy Healing to Live Well, I show you how to apply these healing tools to the problems you face in your own life including chronic pain, male menopause, irritable male syndrome, male type depression, and other ailments of life in our stressed-out world.

If you have questions or would like help using these tools, drop me a note. You can also join me on Twitter for more dialogue: @MenAliveNow

Jed Diamond, PhD, MCSW, is the Founder and Director of the MenAlive, a health program that helps men live long and well. Though focused on men’s health, MenAlive is also for women who care about the health of the men in their lives. Diamond’s book, MenAlive: Stop Killer Stress with Simple Energy Healing Tools, brings together the wisdom accumulated in 40 years helping more than 20,000 men, women, and children.