Optimizing Chemotherapy with Dr. Emmett Miller

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Getting Maximum Benefit with Minimal Side Effects

Introduction
Optimizing Chemotherapy is designed to help  maximize the effectiveness of chemotherapy treatment while minimizing or eliminating any side effects. As you listen,  learn how to utilize focused concentration, guided imagery, deep relaxation and other mind–tools to control the reactions and responses of your body. In addition to reducing side effects,  focus upon directing  your medication towards the disease instead of to your healthy cells.

The Purpose of Optimizing Chemotherapy:
The human mind can have an extremely powerful and positive effect on the healing process of the body. In other words, your attitude, how you think, the images in your mind, and how you deal with the stress of life can  either speed up or slow down the healing process. This program is designed to help you develop a deeply relaxed state of mind that can help support and initiate the biological activities of the cells in your body that are central to the healing response.

The purpose of this program is to teach you how to use Dr. Miller’s mind-tools and how to use them effectively to deal with the current challenge to your health. It will also show you effective stress management skills that can serve you in many different areas of your life. Moreover, it will help you to develop a more positive mental attitude, and how to use positive emotions to inspire and empower your immune system (your white blood cells).

Another goal is to help you use your mind to modify how you will be affected by your treatment. When you fear and resent your treatment,  the side effects of the medication tend to be more numerous and severe. Through the use of enjoyable and satisfying mental techniques, Dr. Miller guides your mind and body to align with the medication while averting unpleasant side effects.

How Optimizing Chemotherapy Works:
No one has ever seen a mind operate without a body –without a mind, the body is useless. Still, in our culture, we have learned to imagine the mind and body as being somehow “separate.” As a result of this, we have not been taught the skills and perspectives that could enable us to use our minds to come into harmony with our bodies and our emotions, and use them as a team  to produce health and wellness.Once understood and used, this mind-body harmony allows you to take charge!

The 1st step is to quiet the mind and relax the body. For this, Dr. Miller  teaches  several meditative techniques that have been used for thousands of years. Among them, prayer and meditation have long been utilized to focus the mind away from external distractions, relieve stress, and come into the present moment.

The kinds of thoughts you think, their overall focus, and their flow affect the mental images that are formed in your mind. Just as the many words in a paragraph all come together to create the meaning of the paragraph, the thoughts flowing through your mind all come together to create the image that is formed in your mind. If you spend 5 min. of thinking about all of the unpleasant, anxiety–inducing, and resentful thoughts you can come up with, you will probably find your mood sags.

Similarly, as you listen to Dr. Miller's soothing guidance, you will entertain a series of pleasant, positive, enjoyable thoughts. This will, in turn, induce a pleasant, positive and enjoyable mental image. The qualities of this image will have an effect upon your emotions, and you will find that they are listed. Such positive emotions as this are generally effective in supporting the healing response. The images you begin to create in your mind are now positive and enjoyable and will effect healing properties within your body.

If you imagine you are sucking a lemon, the ordinarily involuntary response of salivation occurs. If you imagine you are standing at the edge of a high roof, your heart rate and blood pressure  go up, even though these too are “involuntary” responses. Likewise, if you imagine yourself or the cells of your body being overwhelmed by an illness, your body will tend to respond by surrendering.  On the other hand, if you envision that your white cells are strong and powerful, this omnipotence seems to encourage a vigorous and aggressive healing response that can, in many cases, eliminate cancer cells from your body. This program, especially when used with the supplementary programs listed below, can enable you to learn the potent tools that so many cancer patients have found to be effective for them.

All medications, especially those that are used in the treatment of cancer or other serious medical illnesses, can have side effects. The kind of side effects and their severity are different for different medications. Similarly, different patients react differently to medications and it has been shown through studies that  the difference in reaction can be your attitude about your treatment and about the medication you are receiving. Optimizing Chemotherapy will teach you ways to think about your medication, and ways to visualize its activities in your body that support your being one of those patients who can tolerate a large enough dose of medication to completely wipe out your cancer cells, rather than merely to weaken them.

Remember, no medication can heal you; medications can only support your internal healing response and help weaken the cancer cells. Help your body perform at its peak and speed your return to health and wellness.

Recommended Applications:
•    Patients with cancer, especially those undergoing chemotherapy;
•    Patients being treated with medication for other illnesses can modify the imagery to fit their particular case;
•    People who are suffering from shock, grief, resentment, or confusion as a result of discovering that they have cancer.

Optimizing Chemotherapy can  also prove helpful in relieving the depression, shock, and acute post-traumatic stress disorder ("PTSD") that often accompanies a  cancer diagnoses. It supports a positive outlook and serves to remind patients that we are not powerless against cancer, and that a strong partnership between patient, medication, and the healthcare system is the most effective strategy.

Contraindications and Precautions
Although there are really no absolute contraindications for the use of this product, people who are severely psychotic or who do not want to at least try to follow the guidance offered will probably benefit little from listening. Listening is also not a substitute for needed medical care or psychiatric care for serious mental or emotional disturbance. In any undiagnosed potentially serious condition such as a head injury, again, there will not likely be any harm, but it would be wise to delay their use until an adequate diagnosis has been made.

Although no such problems have been reported, people with seizures of any kind, or neurological or with severe neurorespiratory disease, should check with their primary care practitioner for suggestions regarding the use of this program. Likewise, if you are undergoing psychotherapy, share your use of these with your therapist, as he/she may want to integrate this use with your treatment.

And, of course, if you are driving or using equipment that requires your full attention, do not close your eyes and do not listen to any program that you find causes you to become drowsy, distracted, or incapable of functioning safely. Programs designated as “Drivetime” should be used with these precautions in mind.

Detailed Description Of Exercises:

Track 1
Begin by familiarizing yourself with the process as introduced on this track. Before listening, turn off the phone, close the door, and eliminate, to the best of your ability, anything that might distract you from your inner journey. turn the lights down, Sit back or lie down, relax, and open yourself to receive the beautiful images and dulcet tones Dr. Miller's voice offers.

Dr. Miller guides you to relaxation of your physical body. Next, he provides techniques to eliminate distractions and mind chatter – questions, doubts, concerns, comparisons, evaluations and criticisms. These are all stress producing and toxic to deep relaxation and to the proper healing response.

You are next guided to a place of great calm and comfort, a very safe place–your special place. Here you will make contact with your inner healer, the wise Self deep within. Finally, Dr. Miller will restore you to full wakefulness, but you will return relaxed and energized by this experience. You will also probably find that this relaxation and energization stays with you throughout the rest of the day and night, especially if you listen frequently.

Dr. Miller suggests that you listen to this Track 1 at least once or twice a day, three times if you have time. As soon as you feel fairly competent at relaxing yourself while listening, it's time to go on to Track 2. For some people this will be after only a day or 2, whereas others may take as much as a week before they learn to let go of their stress and tension. Even after you begin to listen to tracks 2 and 3, you will probably want to come back to this track on a fairly regular basis, as it is most soothing and relaxing.

Track 2:
Begin listening to Track 2 after you have become familiar with entering the Healing State in Track 1. At first, or any time you are particularly anxious or stressed, you may listen to Track 1, then keep listening as Track 2 begins. Soon you will be able to become relaxed enough simply listening to Track 2 alone.

As you listen, you will learn additional techniques to deepen your level of relaxation, to more completely clear your mind of distractions, and to focus your attention where you want it to be focused. You will then be guided to go deep within your body, and to visualize the cancer and your immune system. You will visualize the cells of your immune system drawing on your positive emotions, becoming energized and thorough at cleansing your body of unwanted invaders. Do not worry whether on not what you see looks like something out of a textbook; however you visualize the cells of your cancer cells and your immune system is just fine. The video program Immunoimagery offers some useful suggestion on creating your images.

You may see your cancer cells a flock of gnats, a bunch of thorns, outlaws wearing black hats, a group of terrorists, etc. Your immune system might be visualized as a battalion of teenagers with flyswatters, a team of doctors with tweezers to pull out the forms, good guys riding on horses wearing white hats, a group of Navy SEALs, etc. The more powerfully an image evokes your emotions, the better.

Practice with the imagery on this track about 3 times a day, alternating with Track 1 from time to time.

Track 3:
After a few days of working with track 2, you should be ready to begin to introduce the idea of chemotherapy into your imagery. Although the thought of chemotherapy might have been frightening to you at first, after a week or two of listening to Tracks 1 and 2 you will have learned to relax deeply and make friends with your body. Now you are simply welcoming the notion of having help. After all, that's what chemotherapy is, it is help to weaken the cancer cells so that your immune system can clean them up entirely.

Just as you want to create the most emotionally evocative imagery for your immune system and for the cancer cells, you want to envision the chemotherapy as a powerful aid, one that your body can direct specifically towards your cancer cells and away from the normal cells of your body. You will visualize the cells of your body being protected as if by a force field. Imagine, therefore, that there are no side effects to the medication, or that they are minor and do not distract you from your primary goal of staying positive and supporting your healing.

Many people listen to this track while they are at the doctor's office or at the hospital receiving their chemotherapy, imagining that the fluid going into their arm is being sent specifically to those places where you want to eliminate the cancer cells. Of course your chemotherapy works mightily while you are receiving it into your body, but it also works for many days afterwards. So continue listening between your chemotherapy treatments – although you may want to listen only once or twice a day, interspersing your listening to tracks 1 and 2.

There is no hard and fast rule that works for everyone as to exactly which tracks should be listened to and how often. Listen to yourself, there is great wisdom within. Just as you know how to tell when it's time to drink some water or eat some food, as a result of the experience of deep relaxation you have learned listening to this program, you will get clear messages from within has to which tracks to listen to and how often

Supplementary and related programs:

AWAKENING THE HEALER WITHIN
Dr. Miller’s presentation, originally delivered at the Cancer Support and Education Center, presents his basic concepts of mind-body medicine. These tools provide an excellent way to learn about how your mind and your body interrelate, and how, by choosing your thoughts and mental images wisely, you can awaken your body's innate potential for healing. You will also learn more about how to use deep relaxation and meditation in your healing, and enjoy several experiences of using these mind–tools.

Immunoimagery (DVD)
Healing from cancer involves strengthening your immune system. The goal of this program is to help develop and use the communication linkage between your conscious mind and your immune cells, which act like "circulating neurons" in the body. Train your mental images with award-winning time-lapse micro cinematography, animated cartoon characters, and life like drawings of effective immune cells. Includes a basic course in psychoneuroimmunology that is practical, convincing, and easy to understand.

Abolish Anxiety
Sometimes dealing with the challenges of a diagnosis of cancer can produce enormous emotional trauma. This can make it difficult for the mind to focus within in silence. This program can help clear that up by helping you to understand and deal with the symptoms and the causes of Anxiety and Panic. It can assist you in overcoming anxiety and panic attacks, as well as provide ongoing anxiety relief if you have chronic anxiety. And it can help you be able to use the imagery in this program more effectively.

Accepting Change And Moving On: On Loss And Letting Go
This program helps you through unexpected changes that you may encounter as you take on the management of fighting cancer: Relationships change, priorities change, perhaps bodily functions will change. These changes will require an inner adjustment and this program through guided imagery and self-hypnotic mind-tools will help you through to new patterns of living.

Deep Healing – The Essence of Mind Body Medicine (Book)
Dr. Miller’s classic text is of great value in understanding how his techniques work and why. A better understanding of how mind and body work together should be of great value in modifying your life and your behaviors to promote balance and help you heal yourself and maximize your wellness.

Easing Into Sleep
Often, anxiety, worry, and the stress of dealing with the challenge of cancer can interfere with your sleep. Easing Into Sleep uses deep relaxation and meditative techniques to help you learn to release tension and be available to sleep. Very useful for caregivers as well.

Escape From Depression
When the pressures and stresses become too great, some people find that the mind will take refuge in the state we call depression. This is a retreat from the world, and may be accompanied by lethargy, sadness, fatigue, lack of motivation, helplessness, or hopelessness. Use this program to bounce back, get back in the game, and focus on the all-important job of healing yourself

Heal Your Body Suite
This collection offers a number of programs to help you learn more about how to support the healing of your body through the proper use of your mind. A wide variety of guided imagery techniques are presented in this suite.