The Early Years Part Two: The Psychology of Health Recovery

by Shanti Shanti Khalsa, PhD, C-IAYT, Guru Ram Das Center for Medicine & Humanology Founder

During the 1980s and 1990s HIV/AIDS was the most vilified illness of the 20th century. In Los Angeles we had difficulty even finding a location to hold the Immune Fitness® classes because the students were ill and they looked it. They had patches of red on their skin from Kaposi’s sarcoma. They had wasting syndrome.

As the months went by, the epidemic of HIV got bigger and stronger. It hit hard. Those with an AIDS diagnosis had a prognosis of eighteen months to two years.

The medication AZT was in clinical trials for the first time in the mid-1980s and the dosing was so high that people would get sick from it. Sometimes during class a student would have to rush to the bathroom to vomit.

The 2013 film, The Dallas Buyers Club, depicts the mid-1980s experience of Ron Woodroof and the same dosing challenges my students experienced. Ron stopped taking AZT and extended his life by nearly seven years through alternative treatments. In 1990 the real-life Ron Woodroof brought his buyer’s club to Los Angeles.

Between nausea, fatigue, and the effort to just show up, those in the Immune Fitness® classes found that sticking with the yoga practice was more than challenging. I sought to support them by inviting them to bring one or two friends or family members to the class. This simple change had a phenomenal impact. They now had one or more people in their life who experienced the value of the yoga, who could practice at home with them, and who could ensure they came to class each week. Plus, the friend or family member enjoyed the yoga class, too.

Therapeutic Kundalini Yoga Teaching Tip #4:

Create support in your therapeutic classes – create sangat/community

Since then, every therapeutic Kundalini Yoga group class includes the person with the diagnosis and friends and family members. No matter what the health condition is, everyone benefits from support.

 

The Major Discovery

Concurrent with the AIDS Epidemic, the late 1980s ushered in the field of psychoneuroimmunology.

Key researchers of that time were Robert H. Remien, PhD at Columbia University, who studied psychological resilience among long-term HIV non-progressors (those who lived 10 or more years with HIV and did not get ill); Lydia Temoshok, PhD, at University of California San Francisco who studied the role of biobehavioral and biopsychosocial factors in HIV/AIDS; and George Solomon, MD at University of California Los Angeles who was one of the first scientists to see a link between emotions and immunity among long-term survivors of AIDS (those with an AIDS defining illness but who lived far longer than the 18–24 months prognosis).

These researchers discovered that it was not the treatment that made the difference in health outcomes of those they studied. Someone could be on herbs and acupuncture, another on various vitamin supplements, on a liver cleanse, or even taking AZT – treatment was not the determining factor for those who stayed well with HIV or AIDS.

It was the psychology—the way of thinking, a shared set of beliefs—that those living healthy with HIV or AIDS had in common.

The ability to set and maintain boundaries, to be clear about what to say yes to and what to say no to, the belief that your actions and your health behavior makes a difference in your experience – self-efficacy – are all part of what we call the psychology of health recovery.

The notion that our thoughts and emotions can affect our immune system, even when HIV destroys the very cells that initiate the immune response, was absolutely radical, earth- shattering, and seriously paradigm-busting at the time.

Yet it resonates with ancient yogic concepts; and once I began to explore and implement the principles of the psychology of health recovery within yogic practice, my entire approach to teaching therapeutically changed.

Building vitality became the base to reach every intended outcome in the Immune Fitness® program. Vitality is essential for physical health, mental clarity and emotional well-being, behavior change, and spiritual connection.

This change in how I taught began to show results in the students’ responses and experience. They had more energy, improved mood, took better care of themselves, made important shifts in their relationships, and gave thought to what steps they would take to live a meaningful life now that they felt better.

Therapeutic Kundalini Yoga Teaching Tip #5:

Raise vitality first. With it, everything else works.

George’s Story

George was one of the students in the first Immune Fitness® course in 1986.

He once shared with me:

“Taking the Immune Fitness® classes lifted me out of hopelessness, restored my sense of self, and gave me the energy to actually do something to get better. I realized that I’m a lot stronger than the diagnosis led me to believe and I am not as sick as people might want to think I am.

HIV didn’t end my life; it propelled it forward. And the yoga gave me the vitality I needed to make life changing decisions. I now know that when I prepare for tomorrow, when I plan my future, I just may have one.”

And, George’s future continues to unfold today in Southern California. This past year he reached out to me about how he is doing and told me:

” . . . What I learned saved my life. I did everything you shared in that course and I am healthy and alive 39 years later. Saying thank you hardly cuts it, but thank you.”

In our next issue, I share with you the early groundbreaking research I did on the effects of meditation on self-efficacy beliefs, anchoring the psychology of health recovery into the practice of yoga therapy.