Pages of solace

This less than100 page easily readable and understood book by Prof D.B. Nugegoda is not one that is to be read once and kept aside. In this book, the author who is professor of Community Medicine at the University of Peradeniya tries to explain scientifically why stress arises and ways of overcoming it. The book is the result of his long years of interest in the field of Mind-Body Medicine and his extensive reading of literature in this field.

While the physiological basis of our reaction to stress, the famous fight or flight response and how it can be deleterious to health is explained at the beginning of the book, the following chapters are each dedicated to a way of overcoming this. There are chapters discussing the importance of laughter, assertiveness, physical activity, love compassion and empathy, social support, living with nature, music therapy, sleep, meditation, mind power and mental imagery.

All the chapters include details of interesting studies or clinical correlations. In the chapter on love compassion and empathy he quotes a study by Chopra where the most important thing in the recovery of patients after a heart attack was found to be not diet or smoking or their will to live but whether their wives loved them or not.

In the chapter on music therapy there is mention of a hospital-based study in San Francisco which had showed that listening to music eased anxiety, stress and pain both in children and adults during the traumatic period of cardiac catheterization. In the chapter on mental imagery there is the thought-provoking story of a patient with diabetes and hypertension who was suffering from end stage renal failure. She had left her stressful job and practised mental imagery where she imagined the damaged nephrons in her kidneys being repaired. Her renal functions became normal.

All the methods described are based on self care. The author also stresses that it is not so much the event that causes stress but our responses to it. The book is also interspaced with thoughtful quotes. The book is as the author himself wishes a source of solace, comfort, hope, determination and strength for those who need it.