TERRE HAUTE — The suicide in Muncie last month of an Indiana National Guardsman who was home on leave from Afghanistan and rising suicide rates among members of the U.S. military has focused attention on the problem of “post traumatic stress disorder,” according to organizers of a three day conference taking place this weekend in Terre Haute.
Roy Geib, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Terre Haute, said the Wabash Valley has a high concentration of military veterans and that helped raise his concern for post traumatic stress disorder,” or PTSD. It also encouraged him to want to bring an expert on PTSD to Terre Haute.
The keynote speaker at the weekend conference, Dr. James Gordon, works with servicemen and women dealing with PTSD. He will be speaking on the subject of PTSD Sunday, the final day of the conference, which is taking place today and Sunday at the Landsbaum Center for Health Education near Union Hospital.
On Friday night, Gordon, a graduate of Harvard Medical School, told an audience at Indiana State University’s University Hall – formerly the Lab School theater – that stress is directly connected to physical health and well-being.
“Everything that occurs on a mental or emotional level affects the body, and vice versa,” Gordon told an audience of about 100 people. The body’s natural immunity can be inhibited by stress, he said.
Gordon, the founder and director of the Center for Mind Body Medicine in Washington, D.C., said the typical medical approach to illness – relying on surgery and drugs – is overused for patients with chronic illnesses. A different approach, focusing on stress reduction, exercise, attention to spirituality and community as well as eating properly, would often be a far better approach, he said.
To demonstrate the ability of the mind to affect the body, Gordon had his audience engage in a brief period of meditation and then move their bodies to music.
“Meditation is really the heart and soul of mind body medicine,” Gordon said.
Gordon has worked with victims of trauma in Bosnia, Israel, Gaza and in post-Sept. 11 New York and post-Katrina Louisiana. He has also worked with returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
“It is possible to make a difference” in your own health, Gordon told the audience, many of whom were health care professionals. Meditation, hope and “living in the present … is powerful medicine.”
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.
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