In his book Quantum Healing, Dr. Deepak Chopra tells a powerful story about the connection between love and physical healing:
An Ohio University study of heart disease in the 1970s was conducted by feeding quite toxic, high-cholesterol diets to rabbits in order to block their arteries, duplicating the effect that such a diet has on human arteries.
Consistent results began to appear in all the rabbit groups except for one, which strangely displayed 60 percent fewer symptoms.
Nothing in the rabbits’ physiology could account for their high tolerance to the diet, until it was discovered by accident that the student who was in charge of feeding these particular rabbits liked to fondle and pet them.
He would hold each rabbit lovingly for a few minutes before feeding it; astonishingly, this alone seemed to enable the animals to overcome the toxic diet.
Repeat experiments, in which one group of rabbits was treated neutrally while the others were loved, came up with similar results. Once again, the mechanism that causes such immunity is quite unknown—it is baffling to think that evolution has built into the rabbit mind an immune response that needs to be triggered by human cuddling.
Studies have shown that cancer patients who attend support groups live, on the average, twice as long after diagnosis as those who don’t. What is this “psycho-immunological factor” which, by now, science knows”
Excerpt From: Williamson, Marianne. “A Return to Love.” HarperCollins. iBooks.
In our work life and our personal life, where are we getting and giving the cuddling that keeps us whole and healthy?
