In the late 1960’s, Harvard cardiologist Herbert Benson, MD, discovered that relaxation methods could counterbalance both the psychological and physiological changes caused by the body’s fight-or-flight response. He called this the “relaxation response.” Benson’s tests showed that people who simply sat quietly for ten or fifteen minutes with their minds focused on a single word, idea, or thought could markedly change their physiology. These subjects decreased their metabolism, slowed their heart and respiratory rates, and exhibited brain waves of the alpha-theta pattern, which indicates deep relaxation (but not sleep). Benson showed that the relaxation response, no matter how it was achieved, caused bodily transformations. It caused heart rate, breathing rate, muscle tension, and oxygen consumption to fall below resting levels; it encouraged decreases in blood pres- sure; and it helped the waking brain shift into the slower patterns associated with reverie and daydreaming. These slightly altered states of consciousness promote healing in the same way sleep does. If you focus your mind and relax, you, too, can achieve these results.