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The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things: Fourteen Natural Steps to Health and Happiness
Every day modern medicine announces the arrival of yet another “wonder drug” or “miracle procedure” to a world increasingly wary of expensive high-tech cures. Drugs, transplants, and surgery don’t work for 90 percent of our aches and pains and, while we are grateful for life-saving developments, we know that most come with risks that we ignore at our peril.
Long hailed as one of the founding fathers of mind-body medicine, Larry Dossey directs our attention to simple sources of healing that have been available for centuries—treasures often hidden in plain sight—from the power of optimism and of tears to speed recovery to the surprising usefulness of dirt and bugs in curing disease and infection to the benefits of doing nothing.
Exploring the medical research that validates these simple remedies, Dossey encourages us to align ourselves with the wisdom of nature and allow true healing to take place. The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things can transform our view of what health is all about, whether our concern is cancer or the common cold.
Long hailed as one of the founding fathers of mind-body medicine, Larry Dossey directs our attention to simple sources of healing that have been available for centuries—treasures often hidden in plain sight—from the power of optimism and of tears to speed recovery to the surprising usefulness of dirt and bugs in curing disease and infection to the benefits of doing nothing.
Exploring the medical research that validates these simple remedies, Dossey encourages us to align ourselves with the wisdom of nature and allow true healing to take place. The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things can transform our view of what health is all about, whether our concern is cancer or the common cold.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
39 people are currently reading
268 people want to read
About the author
Larry Dossey
63 books86 followersLarry Dossey is a physician and author who propounds the importance for healing of prayer and spirituality. He combines science and prayer to advance the cause of healing the sick.
Larry Dossey studied medicine, graduating from University of Texas at Austin & the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas in 1967. While attending medical school, he became interested in Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Taoism. Severe, recurring migraines prompted him to study biofeedback and meditation in hopes of finding a means of controlling the headaches. He began to practice meditation regularly, while remaining skeptical about the type of praying he had learned in his youth. After graduation, Dossey went on to a distinguished medical career, which included service in Vietnam as a battalion surgeon and residencies at the Veterans Administration Hospital and Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Dossey's curiosity about the connections between science and religion prompted him to begin researching medical studies focused on the power of prayer to aid healing. In the 1980s, Dossey began writing books to document and explain his findings.
Dossey's 1993 book, Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine, made it to the New York Times bestseller list and sold close to 150,000 copies in the first three years after its publication.
Larry Dossey studied medicine, graduating from University of Texas at Austin & the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas in 1967. While attending medical school, he became interested in Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Taoism. Severe, recurring migraines prompted him to study biofeedback and meditation in hopes of finding a means of controlling the headaches. He began to practice meditation regularly, while remaining skeptical about the type of praying he had learned in his youth. After graduation, Dossey went on to a distinguished medical career, which included service in Vietnam as a battalion surgeon and residencies at the Veterans Administration Hospital and Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Dossey's curiosity about the connections between science and religion prompted him to begin researching medical studies focused on the power of prayer to aid healing. In the 1980s, Dossey began writing books to document and explain his findings.
Dossey's 1993 book, Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine, made it to the New York Times bestseller list and sold close to 150,000 copies in the first three years after its publication.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 23, 2016
The final chapter of this book made me cry..like a little bitch. Great book exploring slightly unconventional healing methods..took a lot from reading this. Will be seeking out the authors other material fo sho.
May 15, 2009
I picked up this book randomly in the huge clearance catacombs of a local bookstore for $1, and it was the best dollar I've ever spent. It took me over a month to read this book between a busy life and all the time required to ponder after each paragraph. To say that this book is one of the best I've ever read is an understatement. I'm a cynical believer of metaphysical things and my affinity to things regarding the soul waxes and wanes, so the fact that this book ties in medical studies about things as mundane as onions and as profound as the overlooked prevalence of medical miracles made for a life changing read.
I've never dog-eared so many pages in a book before, and as part of my GoodReads/journaling endeavors, I wanted to record some of the parts that struck me:
p.17 - If we are trapped in pessimism, perhaps we should not hold back, but plunge in and be seriously pessimistic, nothing halfway. If we did so we might wind up laughing, and liberate ourselves from pessimism's grasp.
p.18 - By choosing to regard losses, hurts, frustrations and stressful life changes with less gloom and doom and not as the end of the world, we control their power to damage us.
p.21 - Several studies show that what one thinks about one's health is one of the most accurate predictors of longevity ever discovered.
p. 28 - In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.
p.69 - "Onion tears" are caused by sulfur-containing compounds in teh vegetable that are liberated on cutting. These chemicals dissolve in the watery film over teh eys, creating a dilute solution of sulfuric acid that is irritating and tear-producing. Because these offending compounds are concentrated at the base of the onion, cutting off the root end last helps prevent onion tears.
p.84 - Ponsonby's team found that high exposure to very young siblings was indeed correlated with a lower risk of MS, as well as infectious mononucleosis, later in life.
p.90 - ...In sitting with her dirt [referring to surrendering to disease:], Duff was honoring a principle of alchemical philosophy - that all things are related to their opposites, and that healing comes from the integration of the disparate elements of experience.
Only those people who really can touch bottom can be human. But to touch bottom is to become even dirtier, because the bottom is where the much lies. But as Duff found out, therein lies deliverance. Only when she hit bottom was her dirt transformed, and she began to heal.
p.99 - The sinuses are major producers of nitric oxide, a gas that is made by a variety of plant and animal cells. NO is a small, reactive, and highly soluble molecule that passes easily through cell membranes and acts as a biological signal. In mammals, NO helps maintain blood pressure by dilating blood vessels, stimulates the immune system to kill invaders, and helps control penile erection. NO also affects signaling between neurons in the brain and probably contributes to the formation of memories. When the Karolinska researchers examined the level of NO in the paranasal sinuses of healthy individuals, they found that it increased fifteen-fold during humming compared [sounding, purring, and toning, too:] with quiet breathing.
p.100 - Immersion in one's own sonic vibrations does have healing effects. UCLA researchers found that if hospitalized schizophrenics hummed an mmmmm sound, they experienced around a 60 percent reduction in auditory hallucinations. Clinical reports abound in which angry, stressed-out , and chronically depressed people found inner balance and repose through humming, chanting, and toning.
p.101 - It is known that when human bones are exposed to frequencies in the 20-50 hertz range, they tend to become stronger and denser. [The frequency at which cats purr.:]
p.122 - People who experience spontaneous remission from cancer often do so after taking up habits that are totally foreign to their temperament, and which frequently involve considerable physical risk. [skydiving, mountaineering, scuba diving:]
p.134 - Thoreau put it, "Tis healthy to be sick sometimes." Dolly Parton said, "If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."
p.141 - Grad's study suggested that 1)human thoughts and emotions might influence living systems [plants:], positively and negatively, and 2)physcial objects might mediate these influences. Grad performed three similar experiments, but instead of using psychiatric patients he used a healer. The outcome was significant in all three runs of the experiment: The seeds watered with a solution the healer had held, in an attempt to impart healing power to it, germinated and grew better than seeds in the control group. Grad extended his experiments to animals, and found similar effects in wound healing and tumor growth.
p.143 - Aspirin works in both humans and plants in the same situation - when they have been cut, scraped, or bruised. In animals, aspirin blocks the production of prostaglandins, whic hare fatty acids that initiate and inflammatory response and constrict blood vessels. In plants, aspirin blocks the production of jasmonic acid, which causes leaf-eating bugs to produce chemicals that give them indigestion. Jasmonic acid also causes plants to age.
p.172 - A diet of microscopic worms or their eggs is proving to be one of the mose effective treatment for inflammatory bowel disease, of which Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are the primary examples. In one clinical trial reported in 2004, a liquid concoction of pig qhipworm eggs, drunk twice a month, resulted in a 50 and 70% remission rate for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, respectively. This may prove to be a major breakthrough, because these diseases are currently incurable and can cause serious disability and death.
p.178 - If our capacity to focus on negative possibilities and to be unhappy has given us a survival advantage in our evolutionary history, then unhappiness is a friend and ally deserving of our respect and gratitude. Were it not for our intrinsic capacity to feel sad, we might not be around to lament the fact that we are not always extatic. We might consider giving thanks next time we feel down in the dumps, recalling that unhappiness has paved the way for happiness across the eons. This perspective might actually help us endure sadness, and might prevent us from becoming trapped in that pathetic, negative feedback loop of feeling unhappier about not feeling happy.
p.183 - We should resist equating healing with feeling good. This is a difficult leasson for healers; we prefer that our patients always be happy. But unless we understand the place of unhappiness in the lives of those we serve, we shall have to endure more unhappiness ourselves, for that is the price always paid for severing the wholenss that is healing.
p.207 - "We are a part of a universe that is a work in progress; we are tiny patches of the universe looking at itself - and building itself...a clue that the mystery of creation my lie not in the distant past but in the living present." - John Archibald Wheeler
p.230 - Without mystery there is nothing to know; without knowing, the concept of mystery does not arise.
p.232 - The only people who get anywhere interesting are the people who get lost.
p.234 - Some religious folk pull back from "spirituality" these days because it involves, they believe, a freewheeling lack of rigor and discipline and a flirtation with superstition. But the antipathy toward spirituality may reflect, more than anything else, intolerance of mystery. But turning away from religious mystery is dangerous, for without an acceptance of ambiguity we risk becoming slaves to rigid rules that often lead to fanaticism and retribution toward "the other", as we have seen throughout history in religious wars and in the current scourge of religion-based terrorism.
p.235 - "There is no Excellent Beauty that hath not some strangeness in the Proportion." -Sir Francis Bacon
p.264 - "There are only two ways to live your life: one is as though nothing is a miracle, and the ther is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein
I've never dog-eared so many pages in a book before, and as part of my GoodReads/journaling endeavors, I wanted to record some of the parts that struck me:
p.17 - If we are trapped in pessimism, perhaps we should not hold back, but plunge in and be seriously pessimistic, nothing halfway. If we did so we might wind up laughing, and liberate ourselves from pessimism's grasp.
p.18 - By choosing to regard losses, hurts, frustrations and stressful life changes with less gloom and doom and not as the end of the world, we control their power to damage us.
p.21 - Several studies show that what one thinks about one's health is one of the most accurate predictors of longevity ever discovered.
p. 28 - In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.
p.69 - "Onion tears" are caused by sulfur-containing compounds in teh vegetable that are liberated on cutting. These chemicals dissolve in the watery film over teh eys, creating a dilute solution of sulfuric acid that is irritating and tear-producing. Because these offending compounds are concentrated at the base of the onion, cutting off the root end last helps prevent onion tears.
p.84 - Ponsonby's team found that high exposure to very young siblings was indeed correlated with a lower risk of MS, as well as infectious mononucleosis, later in life.
p.90 - ...In sitting with her dirt [referring to surrendering to disease:], Duff was honoring a principle of alchemical philosophy - that all things are related to their opposites, and that healing comes from the integration of the disparate elements of experience.
Only those people who really can touch bottom can be human. But to touch bottom is to become even dirtier, because the bottom is where the much lies. But as Duff found out, therein lies deliverance. Only when she hit bottom was her dirt transformed, and she began to heal.
p.99 - The sinuses are major producers of nitric oxide, a gas that is made by a variety of plant and animal cells. NO is a small, reactive, and highly soluble molecule that passes easily through cell membranes and acts as a biological signal. In mammals, NO helps maintain blood pressure by dilating blood vessels, stimulates the immune system to kill invaders, and helps control penile erection. NO also affects signaling between neurons in the brain and probably contributes to the formation of memories. When the Karolinska researchers examined the level of NO in the paranasal sinuses of healthy individuals, they found that it increased fifteen-fold during humming compared [sounding, purring, and toning, too:] with quiet breathing.
p.100 - Immersion in one's own sonic vibrations does have healing effects. UCLA researchers found that if hospitalized schizophrenics hummed an mmmmm sound, they experienced around a 60 percent reduction in auditory hallucinations. Clinical reports abound in which angry, stressed-out , and chronically depressed people found inner balance and repose through humming, chanting, and toning.
p.101 - It is known that when human bones are exposed to frequencies in the 20-50 hertz range, they tend to become stronger and denser. [The frequency at which cats purr.:]
p.122 - People who experience spontaneous remission from cancer often do so after taking up habits that are totally foreign to their temperament, and which frequently involve considerable physical risk. [skydiving, mountaineering, scuba diving:]
p.134 - Thoreau put it, "Tis healthy to be sick sometimes." Dolly Parton said, "If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."
p.141 - Grad's study suggested that 1)human thoughts and emotions might influence living systems [plants:], positively and negatively, and 2)physcial objects might mediate these influences. Grad performed three similar experiments, but instead of using psychiatric patients he used a healer. The outcome was significant in all three runs of the experiment: The seeds watered with a solution the healer had held, in an attempt to impart healing power to it, germinated and grew better than seeds in the control group. Grad extended his experiments to animals, and found similar effects in wound healing and tumor growth.
p.143 - Aspirin works in both humans and plants in the same situation - when they have been cut, scraped, or bruised. In animals, aspirin blocks the production of prostaglandins, whic hare fatty acids that initiate and inflammatory response and constrict blood vessels. In plants, aspirin blocks the production of jasmonic acid, which causes leaf-eating bugs to produce chemicals that give them indigestion. Jasmonic acid also causes plants to age.
p.172 - A diet of microscopic worms or their eggs is proving to be one of the mose effective treatment for inflammatory bowel disease, of which Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are the primary examples. In one clinical trial reported in 2004, a liquid concoction of pig qhipworm eggs, drunk twice a month, resulted in a 50 and 70% remission rate for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, respectively. This may prove to be a major breakthrough, because these diseases are currently incurable and can cause serious disability and death.
p.178 - If our capacity to focus on negative possibilities and to be unhappy has given us a survival advantage in our evolutionary history, then unhappiness is a friend and ally deserving of our respect and gratitude. Were it not for our intrinsic capacity to feel sad, we might not be around to lament the fact that we are not always extatic. We might consider giving thanks next time we feel down in the dumps, recalling that unhappiness has paved the way for happiness across the eons. This perspective might actually help us endure sadness, and might prevent us from becoming trapped in that pathetic, negative feedback loop of feeling unhappier about not feeling happy.
p.183 - We should resist equating healing with feeling good. This is a difficult leasson for healers; we prefer that our patients always be happy. But unless we understand the place of unhappiness in the lives of those we serve, we shall have to endure more unhappiness ourselves, for that is the price always paid for severing the wholenss that is healing.
p.207 - "We are a part of a universe that is a work in progress; we are tiny patches of the universe looking at itself - and building itself...a clue that the mystery of creation my lie not in the distant past but in the living present." - John Archibald Wheeler
p.230 - Without mystery there is nothing to know; without knowing, the concept of mystery does not arise.
p.232 - The only people who get anywhere interesting are the people who get lost.
p.234 - Some religious folk pull back from "spirituality" these days because it involves, they believe, a freewheeling lack of rigor and discipline and a flirtation with superstition. But the antipathy toward spirituality may reflect, more than anything else, intolerance of mystery. But turning away from religious mystery is dangerous, for without an acceptance of ambiguity we risk becoming slaves to rigid rules that often lead to fanaticism and retribution toward "the other", as we have seen throughout history in religious wars and in the current scourge of religion-based terrorism.
p.235 - "There is no Excellent Beauty that hath not some strangeness in the Proportion." -Sir Francis Bacon
p.264 - "There are only two ways to live your life: one is as though nothing is a miracle, and the ther is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 1, 2015
I enjoyed this book well enough for a while, but I'll admit I only made it halfway through. I was hoping for a more in-depth, scientific read and this was pretty superficial and anecdotal. The discussions/arguments in each chapter were also fairly self-contradictory (e.g. "Optimism is good and makes you healthier! But a little pessimism is healthy too!" or "Taking risks is good for you! But don't take TOO many risks!") and left me wondering exactly what the point was.
April 28, 2021
This book is one of those little gems reminding us how to appreciate and live life to the fullest by appreciation of simple things.
June 7, 2020
This is a calming book full of interesting stories. If you are looking for a book to help you slow down and look at things with a new perspective then check out this book. Very much appreciated the notes section and references by chapter along with the index.
Great use of table of contents, index, and notes.
Great use of table of contents, index, and notes.
June 19, 2025
It’s been a minute since I read this one but I remember it talks a lot about hopeful thinking, staying positive. A lot of healing can be done by simply believing or wanting to be healed. Dont do drugs kids
April 21, 2025
The little things in life are not little. Lovely book.
May 29, 2008
As the title indicates, it is about the healing power of 14 "ordinary" things: optimism (attitude), forgetfulness (forgetting the pains of childbirth comes to mind), novelty, tears,dirt, music, risk, plants, bugs, unhappiness, nothing, voices, mystery & miracles. I think that mystery & miracles are both healing -- however, they are far from ordinary! From the bug chapter on he seemed to lose focus. (The bug chapter is not for the squeamish!)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 6, 2010
As the title indicates, this book is about the healing power of 14 ordinary things: an optimistic attitude, forgetfulness, novelty, tears, dirt, music, risk, plants, bugs, unhappiness, nothing, voices, mystery and miracles. It was a little too basic and obvious for me but then again it's helpful to remember that there is healing power in any and everything if you are will to look for it.
May 22, 2009
A look at what is most commonly overlooked in our lives. Things that hold the power to add great joy, comfort, or ease to our existence.
At first I thought this book was going to be a re-hash of the usual but it seemed to become more complex towards the end. Enjoyably so.
At first I thought this book was going to be a re-hash of the usual but it seemed to become more complex towards the end. Enjoyably so.
August 11, 2022
optimism, Fechner Law
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews