THE AYURVEDIC VIEW OF STRESS
From an Ayurvedic viewpoint, stress is an experience of imbalance. Whether it is brought on by a physical event or an emotion, stress occurs when a person is unable to receive information into the mind/body system in a balanced way.
Many of life's stresses, though hardly dramatic when viewed as separate incidents, nevertheless take their toll on us as they are repeated over and over again. Many people are all too familiar with the corrosive quality of emotional stress caused by irritating work problems experienced on a regular basis. And while most of our greatest joys may come from our connection to family, some of the most stressful moments in our lives may arise when we find ourselves at odds with those who matter most to us. While our bodies have finely tuned systems capable of handling high levels of stress from time to time, we are not made to endure it on a prolonged basis. To do so harms the heart in both its emotional and its physical aspects.
At every moment, every cell in your body is hard at work nourishing itself, defending itself, and repairing damage. But under great stress, the cells actually stop this process of renewal as they are called upon to perform a range of other activities to meet situational demands. Every cell in your body is filled with infinite intelligence, including the intelligence to heal and reverse disease. So it is important that we do all we can to ensure that our own stress reactions aren't so severe that they hinder one of our most basic mechanisms for health and healing.
Over many centuries, the relationship between personality and illness has been studied and refined in Ayurveda. This connection is particularly important in coronary heart disease, where emotions associated with each of the three doshas, (human types), have specific effects on the progress of the illness. The information that follows can help you to identify imbalances in your system related to the emotions. You are unique in your reactions to life, and a lot can be learned about who you are and what you need to regain your balance, simply by evaluating how you feel and behave in certain situations.'

He is calm and present, the essence of what he recommends to his worldwide audience. He is gentle, attentive, and relational in demeanor, almost courtly in an old-world way. With all his notoriety he doesn't seem to have much taste or time for the fame-and-fortune lifestyle. He clearly seems to prefer the company of family, friends, and patients. In a recent issue of his newsletter he recounted how his annual holiday with family was a visit to Fatima and other holy sites and that his "life's purpose now is to serve and to heal and to transform and to love."

If he is conservative in appearance and demeanor, by conventional medical standards Dr. Chopra is ever radical in his thinking. His celebrity as an author and speaker on human potentials and possibilities enhances his view of medicine in a blended approach of Western and Eastern tradition, making him unique in his field. While Dr. Chopra does not practice medicine in the conventional sense and now holds no faculty appointments, he was trained in Western allopathic medicine with a specialty in endocrinology. Born in New Delhi, the son of a prominent cardiologist, he attended the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, then came to the U.S. for joint residencies in internal medicine and cardiology. He was, at 35 years of age, appointed chief of staff of the Boston Regional Medical Center. He also taught at Tufts University and Boston University schools of medicine before beginning his exploration of Ayurvedic medicine in the 1980s. Thus he straddles both Eastern and Western perspectives. In terms of the Eastern traditions, he seems to have almost single-handedly put Ayurvedic medicine, on the North American map of alternative treatments. His written and spoken body of work is replete with references to the wisdom of this ancient medical tradition from India.
Established in 1996, his La Jolla, California, center is a blend of East and West, alternative medicine and allopathic medicine, community center and day spa. It is also headquarters for his expanding program of educational workshops for the public and his professional seminars for health professionals. The physical decor of the Center well reflects Dr. Chopra's integration of philosophies and modalities. This is very evident is the decorative architectural blend of old world and new, local community and international community, masculine and feminine, indoor with outdoor, and of course, allopathic medicine with alternative medicine.

Role of Research
Research will inevitably prove truth for the "seeing is believing" mind and someday provide widespread acceptance for methods already available today.
Dr. Chopra is a keen student of the scientific research supporting mind-body medicine. In 1997 he wrote the forward for Candace Pert's Molecules of Emotion. When he advocates touch, talking about how rich in hormones and biologically active the skin is, he explains that "when we stimulate the skin, we can cause, literally, a shower of healing chemicals into our blood stream." It is clear that his ideas are formed, in part, by Pert's research, and her realization that our emotions and our biochemistry are part of one continuous information loop that accounts for how we feel and how mind-body medicine works.
Emphasizing the pivotal influence he thinks research will have in bringing about changes, Dr. Chopra says. "As studies come out, from HMOs as well as universities and hospitals, health insurance executives will start to see the wisdom of including more alternative practices. They will."

A Professional View
"Physical therapy's purpose is to restore neuromuscular functioning after some damage, whereas touch therapy has systemic effects. It influences your immune system, your endocrine System, your cardiovascular system."
Dr. Chopra views touch in terms of mind-body medicine, not as a part of physical medicine. This is a quantum leap from conventional thinking. Dr. Chopra explains the difference between physical therapy and touch therapy this way: "They are two completely different things. Physical therapy's purpose is to restore neuromuscular functioning after some damage, whereas touch therapy has systemic effects. It influences your immune system, your endocrine system, your cardiovascular system." In Dr. Chopra's view, this is a distinction that a physician should be able to make readily.
When he speaks of touch having "systemic effects," Dr. Chopra draws on his background in endocrinology and the work of researchers such as neuroscientist Candace Pert and psychologist Tiffany Field who chart the effects of touch through biochemical changes in the brain and body. In the terms of his eastern vocabulary, touch is stimulating the Marma points, the junction points between physiology and consciousness in Ayurveda. In his Western vocabulary, touch is the sensory experience which gives rise to emotions and higher levels of consciousness. It's about consciousness as well as soft tissue. Regarding what physicians need to know about touch therapy, Dr. Chopra says, "The first and most important thing is that it works," that they should recommend it to their patients. The questions he gets from doctors in Europe are "more sophisticated" than those he gets from American doctors: "In Europe, physicians are much more open because alternative and complementary medicine, including homeopathy and Ayurveda, have a much longer tradition in those countries."

He has specific thoughts about what physicians should do to begin integrating touch into their medical practices. He warns that "They can't do it all by themselves. They have to start now, looking at offering these services in their offices, using touch therapists and meditation instructors." As by example, he has already done this at the Chopra Center.
Besides touch therapists, the center employs specialists who teach meditation, breathing techniques, and yoga in regularly scheduled sessions. On the shared benefits of these disciplines Dr. Chopra says, although each "acts at different levels, they are, in a sense, synchronistic in their effects."

He also has a suggestion, taken from his personal experience, for ways that doctors might cover the start-up costs of bringing alternative practitioners into their offices: expand the practice's offerings by adding health workshops and seminars, as the Chopra Center does. "These educational programs can be very cost effective, generating a good amount of income," he says.
A sampling of recent events sponsored by the Chopra Center includes: a weekend health intensive, meditation instruction, book signings, a 3-day workshop for those facing cancer, instructor certification courses, evening group meditations, and a 5-day seminar on emerging trends and theories in mind-body medicine. Two more sources of revenue for the center are its cafe and bookstore, both located on the ground floor of the building, where staff and visitors may enjoy specially-prepared vegetarian cuisine and browse the bookstore.
Not one to wait around until a third party such as an insurance company or the government pays for his offerings, Dr. Chopra continues to develop and refine services for which people pay out-of-pocket. He has not completely given up on health insurance coverage for alternative therapies. He reasons, "You can't push it. I've stopped pushing it. It's been such a long time now that I have been doing this."

His bright, far-reaching vision is out of time, too uncommon and too ambitious to fit into the world of managed-care that is dominated by governments and companies.
For the present, health insurance won't pay any bills at the Chopra Center for Well Being. But that doesn't stop people from flocking there from all over the world. They come mostly because Dr. Chopra "has been such a loudspeaker for this knowledge across the country and world." Those are the words of Mary Maskell, principal Ayurvedic therapist, who has been working with Dr. Chopra since he opened his first center at Sharp Hospital. Persons who come to San Diego have usually signed up for one of the 3 or 7 day personalized health programs which can include a consultation with Dr. Chopra, if he is available, with the Center's Medical Director David Simon, M.D., or with one of the registered nurses. These are the only services that many health plans will cover.
Still, his bright, far-reaching vision is out of time, too uncommon and too ambitious to fit into the world of managed-care that is dominated by government agencies and insurance companies in the last years of the 20th century. Yet it might well be the prescient model of health care as it will be practiced in the early 21st century, a model that integrates the trilogy of mind/body/spirit as a base concept of therapy into every total treatment plan.