Book SummaryMind Over Medicine, by Lissa Rankin

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Mind Over Medicine

In Mind Over Medicine, Lissa Rankin argues that it’s possible to heal your physical ailments if you foster a healthy mind. By developing positive beliefs and living a balanced, fulfilling lifestyle, she claims you can create the conditions for relaxation and healing.

Lissa Rankin is a physician, author, and speaker. After graduating from medical school, she practiced modern western medicine for roughly a decade. However, after years of suffering from chronic illnesses despite modern medical treatments, Rankin began exploring cases of spontaneous remissions and holistic medicine. She discovered that our health depends on far more than prescription medicine and checking the conventional boxes of quality sleep, diet, and exercise. Instead, she found scientific proof that the healthiest people also have optimistic beliefs, good relationships, fulfilling jobs, creative outlets, and overall life satisfaction.

This realization inspired Rankin to accumulate research on the mind-body connection—this book (published in 2013) is the compilation of her research and strategies for self-healing. She’s also founded holistic health programs such as the Whole Health Medicine Institute and delivered a TEDx Talk on the subject of this book. Since the release of Mind Over Medicine, Rankin has published several books including The Daily Flame, The Fear Cure, and Sacred Medicine.

In this guide, we’ll...

Mind Over Medicine Summary Part 1: How Your Mind Influences Your Health

In the first half of this guide, we’ll discuss Rankin’s perspective on how exactly your mind and beliefs influence your physical health. We’ll first explore the power that placebos and nocebos have to heal you or make you sick. Then, we’ll explain how your beliefs induce stress or relaxation, which in turn affect your nervous system. Finally, we’ll discuss the modern epidemic of anxiety and depression and explain how your lifestyle dictates these conditions.

The Power of Placebo and Nocebo

Rankin explains that believing you received medical treatment (or didn’t receive treatment) affects your interpretation of how sick or injured you are as well as the physiology of your body. This has been proven by the placebo effect—that is, the beneficial effect experienced by a patient who has received a fake medical treatment but believes they’ve received real treatment.

For example, in one study cited by Rankin, half of the patients received knee surgery and the other half believed they received surgery but didn’t. The placebo group was sedated, had three incisions made on their knee, and afterward were shown a video of a procedure that they...

Mind Over Medicine Summary Part 2: Embrace a Relaxing Lifestyle That Promotes Healing

In Part 1 of this guide, we learned how beliefs, lifestyle, and stress affect our physical health. In this section, we’ll explain how to reprogram your beliefs and design a lifestyle to promote relaxation and healing. We’ve organized Rankin’s advice under two categories: mastering your inner world and designing your outer world.

Master Your Inner World

To get your mind healthy and promote physical healing, Rankin says it’s crucial to master your inner world. To do this, she says you should embrace and reflect upon negative emotions, meditate, and develop your spirituality.

Normalize Negative Emotions, Shift Negative Beliefs

If you believe you shouldn’t experience negative emotions at all, when these emotions inevitably occur, you’ll worry about your worries, which will cause you to spiral into chronic stress. Rankin says because we’re not in total control of our thoughts and feelings, we should embrace sadness, anger, and fear. Acknowledging these negative emotions help us process them more effectively and allow them to pass. To embrace your negative emotions in a healthy manner, appreciate the purpose they serve you. For example, fear helps you survive by...

Shortform Exercise: Develop Healing Beliefs

Lissa Rankin says that positive beliefs are a major contributor to self-healing.

Think of a negative belief you have about your health. What is it? How does the belief make you feel?