Noted physician Andrew Weil, MD, author of Why Our Health Matters: A Vision of Medicine that Can Transform Our Future (Hudson Street Press, 2009) and a longtime proponent of integrative medicine, had a chance to sit down with Body Sense magazine to discuss the science behind massage and other effective complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments.

Loolwa Khazzoom: What do you see as the benefits of massage?

It’s no secret that proper nutrition, exercise, and living a low-stress lifestyle are among the keys to good health and longevity. If we pay close attention to these three cornerstones of our health, our body will reward us with vitality and well-being. Amazingly, even when our body gets a little out of balance—a sore tennis elbow, an irritating cold, or an achy neck from a tense business meeting—we are each equipped with a high-performing immune system miraculously designed to heal our body and protect us from disease.

How much time do you spend thinking about your body? Are the thoughts positive or negative?

In her book, Transforming Body Image (The Crossing Press, 1985), Marcia Hutchinson, EdD, suggests body image has little to do with the physical body. “Image and reality are separate,” she writes. And if body image is a product of the imagination, Hutchinson proposes that it can also be changed using the imagination.

I believe what we say to and about ourselves, becomes ourselves. Here is a depiction of that concept. Which list sounds most like you?