The Psyche And Physical Well-Being

From the Rambam [!!] in his medical book "The Regimen of Health":

• If emotional stress is maintained for a long period, one will definitely become ill.
• Constant anxiety damages the body.
• Emotional experiences produce distinct changes in the body… Emotions also have an effect on the circulation of the blood and the functioning of one’s organs…They affect the body and they in turn are affected by the constitution of the body.
• The physician should think that every sick person has a constricted heart while every healthy person has a broad state of consciousness. Therefore the physician should remove [from the patient] all emotional activities that lead to anxiety. This way the health of the patient is preserved. This principle takes precedence in the cure of any patient, especially if his illness is specific to this area like depression…
• The physicians have instructed that one must pay attention and constantly consider ones emotional activities. Maintaining them in equilibrium, during health and illness, must take precedence over any other regimen.

Maimonides has a beautiful piece in his Regimen of Health regarding emotional health where he suggests to Saladin’s son how to perceive life’s challenges:

“The physician should not think that medical knowledge (alone) can set aside emotional instabilities. Psychology and ethical philosophy are necessary… 
Contemplation alone reduces bad thoughts, anxiety and distress. Most thoughts that cause distress, sorrow, sadness or grief, occurs from one of two things: 
1.   Either one thinks of the past like the loss of money or a beloved one
2.   Or one thinks of something that may occur in the future like a possible loss or injury and one fears their coming. 

Yet it is known through rational observation that thinking about the past is of no benefit at all. Sorrow and grief over the past are activities of those who lack the influence of the intellect. There is no difference between a person who grieves over lost money and the like, and someone who grieves because he is human and not an angel, or a star, or similar thoughts which are impossibilities.
Similarly, any anxiety that results from thoughts about what may happen in the future are pointless because every possible thing lies in the realm of possibility: maybe it will happen and maybe it will not. Let a person replace anxiety with hope [in G-d] and with this hope it is possible that in fact the opposite of what one fears will actually happen, because both what one fears and its opposite are (equally) in the realm of possibility.”


[Excerpted from a Jewish Action article by David Zulberg]