Can you use the power of your mind to stop pain?

Motivational speakers are always telling us that if we just can harness the power of our brains, the world is our oyster — but is that really true? The human brain is the most complex machine on earth. It weighs around 1.3 kilos, contains 100 billion neurons and is responsible for our thoughts, emotions, memories and actions. But do the brains have hidden powers that we can harness to overcome illness, win at sporting events or even influence inanimate objects? Our reporter Leila McKinnon will put the latest brain-powered technology to the test.
	When we think power of the mind, we often think of Uri Geller. He shot to fame in the '70s, by claiming to bend or break spoons, just by thinking about it. And he's still assaulting the world's cutlery. Geller believes we all have supernatural gifts. We just don't know how to use them. "You think of somebody you haven't spoken to in a year, they call you that day," he says. "There are thousands of these little ESP events that happen in one's life and they don't know how to use it."
Uri's used his mind to decorate his car, but others are putting the power of the mind, to more practical uses.
	Dr Damian Farrow, a coach at the Australian Institute of Sport, is helping athletes improve their game by visualising in their minds, what they want their bodies to do. Dr Farrow has developed a computer program that simulates on-court conditions. The player has to react, and make decisions, just like it's a real game, and they repeat that over and over.
"We have athletes improve 10 to 15 percent in terms of their accuracy of making decisions in a game of basketball and we attribute that to the training we have given them." So mind power is scoring goals in sport. But at the University of Washington medical centre, there's a breakthrough of potentially far greater benefit. Dr Hunter Hoffman is focusing patient's mind power, to overcome pain. "The human mind can be as powerful as morphine, for people who respond well to virtual reality," he says. He has discovered that virtual reality can help burns victims endure excruciating treatment programs without excessive painkillers.
	"Pain requires conscious attention, so to feel pain we have to be conscious, that's one of the reasons they make you unconscious, virtual reality is a new way of reducing consciousness by luring the spotlight of attention into the virtual world. And that leaves less attention available for the pain." It's all about distracting the mind, but how well does it really work? Leila's decided to find out by trying the thermal pain simulation.
First, Dr Hoffman needs to establish Leila's pain threshold. "It won't be excessively painful and we will find a temperature you are happy with," assures Dr Hoffman. A metal plate is strapped to Leila's foot, which will progressively heat up. Leila's job is to rate the level of pain at different temperatures on a scale from one to 10 — 10 being unbearable. Dr Hoffman gradually increases the pain, to find out how just how much Leila can take. Leila rates her worst pain at six, so her pain threshold is six out of 10. That's the best temperature for the test. Now, for the mind power smoke and mirrors. Dr Hoffman sets me up in a virtual reality world to distract my thoughts away from pain. This time, Leila is in snow world. Her task is to shoot snowballs at giant penguins, but will it be enough to take her mind off the scorching metal plate?
While the same level of pain is applied, the idea is to distract her mind from the heat on her foot. And guess what? It really does work.
	Dr Hoffman: "So while you were in virtual reality how much time did you spend thinking about your pain?" Leila: "One." Dr Hoffman: "And how unpleasant was your pain during virtual reality?" Leila: "One."
The virtual world took the same heat stimulus from the painful rating of six to one! Dr Hoffman: "So that is an 80 percent drop in pain". Leila: "Well it was amazing I didn't feel a thing until I had run out of giant penguins to kill! And then I could feel it again." It's not just Leila who has had these type of results. Dr Hoffman's carried out similar tests in an MRI and he found pain responses in the brain dropped by as much as 90 percent, using the virtual reality. "A lot of patients are amazed by how much their pain is reduced and they are amazed about how powerful their minds are," he says.
If you really want to wonder at the power of the mind, talk to Mike Nicolas. Sixteen years ago, he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. "The doctors said at the time the treatment would be impossible, given the size of the tumour, radiation would be impossible," he says.
	Doctors removed Mike's lung and gave him six weeks to live. But with the support of his family, Mike literally set his mind to healing his wounds, from the inside out. "I visualised it slowly knitting together and healing and it did." He never took for granted that his lung cancer would not reoccur. And to date, his lung cancer has not come back.
But against all odds, this did not mean it was the end of his fight against cancer. Eleven years later, Mike's cancer returned, this time in his liver. He spent 100 days in intensive care and was resuscitated six times, but he and his wife Di never gave up hope. He puts it down to positive thinking. After the initial shock of being diagnosed with cancer the first time back in 1990, he decided to start looking after his body. With the support of his incredibly positive wife, he learnt to improve his diet, give up cigarettes and engage in sport. But then he took this positive thinking to the next level. He learnt to meditate and use visualisation methods through the Gawler Foundation. He pictures his tumours as seen in X-rays and CAT scans and imagines them dissolving into nothing. The Gawler Foundation is in Melbourne and runs workshops for people just like Mike. Although there may not be any biological proof that visualisation works, he says the important thing is that it gives him a sense of empowerment. He feels he has some control of his body, his mind and his disease. Six weeks to 16 years and still fighting… There is one last aspect of mind power, hypnotherapy.
	Adelaide-based doctor Graham Wicks is thought to be the only practitioner using hypnotherapy in an Australian hospital. He treats illness and phobias and has even used hypnosis instead of anaesthetic during surgery. Dr Wicks' patient Chris used to suffer anxiety seizures each time he encountered pain, but not since he started sessions with Dr Wicks.
"Hypnosis is grossly misunderstood by most people — it's not a sleep state. It is a state of absorption, focus attention. It's the sort of state we get into when we become very absorbed in something," says Dr Wicks. No one knows exactly how hypnotherapy works, but somehow it switches off our conscious left-side brain, and switches on our creative right-side allowing access to the subconscious. "It constantly does amaze me some of the things that people can do with their minds. And of course the tragedy is, most of the population don't know they've got this skill," says Dr Wicks. Too right says Uri Geller. These days he spends most of his time motivating others and teaching them how to tap in to the power of the mind. "But the day will come that we will all be using it, everyone will be using it we will all be telepathic," he says. There is no doubt the mind is a powerful tool, will we ever realise its full potential? Using willpower, focus and positive thinking, anything is possible.
Your brain accounts for two percent of your body weight, yet it gobbles up 20 percent of your oxygen and blood supply just to keep going. And if they harnessed the electricity it uses while you're having a think, your brain could light up a 10 watt bulb.