99 Tribute to Dr. Herbert Benson Leader in Mind-Body Medicine and Author of the Relaxation Response

Welcome to the Mind Body Space Podcast, where you can boost your resilience just by listening. You'll get research-backed tools to stress less, be happier and healthier while you work toward your highest potential. Hi, I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD. I'm a board-certified physician and a mom of two amazing kids. Over 10 years ago, I left one of the most prestigious medical practices in New York City to specialize in mind-body medicine. Since then, I've had the privilege of teaching my Science of Resilience program to students who are curious and motivated to learn how to thrive in an increasingly complex world. Today is a special tribute episode. Two very special colleagues and friends join me today, Dr. April Hirschberg and Dr. Roe Rawlins, to pay tribute to the groundbreaking pioneer, Dr. Herbert Benson. A Harvard-trained cardiologist, he was the founder of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine. His book, The Relaxation Response, sold more than 4 million copies. Dr. Benson did robust research on the field of mind-body medicine at a time when this was looked upon as something completely non-scientific. In fact, even now, the mind-body component is an afterthought in modern medicine. Dr. Benson did research with Dr. Wallace, and he coined the term the relaxation response in the very same laboratory where Walter Buchanan had researched the stress response. The relaxation response was the complete opposite of the fight-or-flight response, opposite of the stress response. Throughout his research, Dr. Benson found that any word or phrase repeated over and over could elicit the relaxation response because it's a natural physiologic phenomena. All of us have this within us. In fact, one of the mantras he used with the Harvard medical students was "one," just the number one. And when I trained at his institute, he had us choose a word or phrase that calms us, or something from our religion or prayer. Basically, he leaves it up to you to choose. So this tribute is to Dr. Benson, who gave all of us here today and the millions of people around the world the scientific backing on how powerful the mind is over our bodies. Dr. Benson passed away on February 3rd. He was 86 years old. We're here to remember him and to celebrate his life. Today I am joined by my colleague and friend, Dr. April Hershberg. She's a psychiatrist boarded in psychiatry and neurology. She did her residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Earning her MD at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. And Dr. Robert Rawlings, who we affectionately call Ro. Dr. Rawlings is a cardiologist, and he's board certified in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease. He earned his medical degree and completed his internship and residency at Vanderbilt University Medical School. Okay, so today is a special tribute to Dr. Benson, who's changed so many of our lives. Including mine. And I just want to talk a little about how we each got here, how we found ourselves at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine. We became certified in the SMART program, which stands for Stress Management and Resiliency Training, 3RP, which stands for the Relaxation Response Resiliency Program. So I just wanted to talk a little about how each of us found our way there. So April, you are a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Please tell us about what you do and how you found out about the Benson-Henry Institute.

Sure. Okay. So I was at Mass General Hospital working as a psychiatrist. I had come to MGH to do my adult psychiatry training, and I had worked in the women's mental health program as well as the cancer center. And it was when I was at the cancer center seeing mostly women, um, with reproductive cancers and breast cancers, that I was introduced to the Benson-Henry Institute because of some of the work that Dr. Elise Park was doing. You know, she basically wrote the book, the 3RP book, and some of the research she was doing on women, it was a small study looking at women who are awaiting breast biopsy results, and so it was, they had 3 sessions and they were taught to elicit the relaxation response and, you know, they did a pre and post, and they found that they were able to decrease some of the emotional distress during that waiting period, which is such a highly stressful event. So I was in touch with her and, and had the opportunity to sit in on one of the SMART 3RP groups in the cancer survivor program at Mass General. And then, you know, one thing led to another, and I really just found how this would be something that could really enhance my own psychiatry practice teaching these types of skills to individuals so they could help themselves really, because I was struck by really what's taught, and I'm sure you were too, Juna, is that, that we often are, you know, we have so many opportunities to unfortunately practice the stress response, but none of us were really taught how to elicit the relaxation response or the parasympathetic nervous system to engage that. So So it really spoke to me, and I went on to get training through the SMART program and then became certified. And since about 2018, I've been delivering the program to the cancer survivors at Mass General. So I've stayed there and done that and done other things, of course. And then we met pre-COVID at one of the CMEs. So it was a great opportunity.

Yes, where we got certified. But how did Dr. Benson's work change your personal life? Was there a personal reason that you were drawn to this?

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting as it's not that I wasn't aware, but it is sort of an undercurrent throughout my life. My mom was a huge meditator and my mom was somebody that was a single parent back in the '70s. And I was the oldest. And she, I remember the relaxation response on our bookshelves and she meditated from an early age herself. And was very calm, present, and meditated throughout her whole entire life. And I was a skeptic, and it wasn't until I saw the science that Dr. Benson was able to put forth that I became more drawn to it and then started meditating myself. But it took me until I was at least in my 40s. So I was a late adopter. So, but now I do it pretty much daily, so.

So your mom used to be a meditator.

Yes, yes.

And you were exposed in that way, but you were resistant to it?

Very, that's a very good way to put it. Kind of classic, like anything my mom would do, I would do the opposite. But yeah, she had the cassette and still, you know, was doing cassettes long past when she should have been using a CD player or even an iPod. So it was part of her daily practice. So unfortunately she died in 2019, but now every day that I sit to meditate, I feel more connected to her and a connection to her that has continued.

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Do you share this with your children?

Yes. So my daughter, my daughter does, but she's 13 and still likes me. And my, no, my son is 16 and never really got into it. Um, because I did, like I said, I didn't do it like when he was, you know, very young. So it's been more a part of my life in the past, you know, 10 years or so. It's, it's something that he doesn't do, but he's certainly not averse to it.

Has it changed the way you parent or how you practice medicine?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, again, thankfully the science that Dr. Benson has offered really resonates with me personally. And I do talk to the kids about that because I think it's something that we all can learn from. So it's helped me personally feel much more calmer and deal with the stress of, you know, these past few years. I feel very fortunate. And one of the things Dr. Benson talked about is something called the three-legged stool. I don't know if you remember that from his lectures and him talking, and how we have a three-legged stool, or there should be a three-legged stool of medicine, you know, the medical interventions, the surgical interventions, and the self-care. And I think the self-care is what really has been lacking for many of us over the years, and I think this relaxation response piece is, is central to that and offers so much.

Yeah, he, he shows that picture of the three-legged stool where the third leg of self-care is broken or shorter.

Yes.

And so you're kind of off balance.

Yes.

And yeah, I agree. I mean, I was just on another podcast and I remembered this self-care as something that we didn't learn about in medical school. So I talked about how we learned everything about what goes wrong with us, you know, which was terrible for my hypochondriac anxiety state, but everything that can go wrong with the human body, right? And as a radiologist, I had to learn everything under the sun, every single disease which is really important. I mean, we have to know what can go wrong with the human body, and there's nothing like modern medicine to be able to fix some of the most dire diseases. But since we're clinicians, we would see people when they're sick or diagnosing them, but then they would leave, and we wouldn't know about the recovery or how they can stay well. And so that's why this fascinated me, because of the ability to prevent disease and stay well. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But Ro, I, you know, can you hear us, Ro? So Ro, why don't you tell us how you came to SMART? Go ahead.

My journey into SMART was actually, SMART program was actually much of an accident. I've spent most of my career as a practicing cardiologist with an interest in imaging. And so when I started my career, I explored echocardiography and nuclear cardiology, and then subsequently learned cardiac MRI, cardiac CT. And I spent my career trying to find out why people die and how to keep them from dying and how to predict those things. And, and it's kind of funny, but so my personal journey began when I was at a yoga conference a yoga research conference in Boston. And at that time, the Mind Body Conference was going on in the auditorium next to it. And it piqued my interest because it related to cardiology. And when I looked at the program, I started to get very interested. And so I signed up right there and then to join the SMART program. And The idea that Dr. Benson had about the stress response and the relaxation response was profound because having spent my career looking for why people die, I'd always been looking in the chest and I needed to look in the, in the head, in the mind and in the brain. And his work made so much sense to me when we looked at some of the predictors of how we come to be ill, how we come to die. And so I started a sabbatical based on this where I would study mind-body medicine. I took a year off, I went to Emory, I studied everything from Buddhist philosophy to taking 10-day silent meditation retreats. I certified in yoga and qigong and and Tai Chi, looking at the connection of the mind and the body. And in my teaching of the SMART program, what I found was that it was not only accepted, but it was embraced by the patients. That the patients got it more than anybody else. And when I look at the things that lead up to illness and see how much of it is self-inflicted and then look at the science that's now going on at Mass General in terms of the neurosciences as it affects the cardiovascular arena, it is profound. And so as we go up and up trying to develop more and more medications, what I see is an alternative strategy of enlisting the most powerful supercomputer on the face of the earth, the human brain, and then training it and using it to cultivate health and wellness. And as a result, happiness, cardiovascular benefits, reductions in all the risks of all the diseases that I treat can be altered in a way that is not only affordable but is actually universal. And for me, that has been something coming back into my practice that I've tried to incorporate into the day-to-day patient-to-patient interaction in a way that they can see what I have learned through Dr. Benson's original research. And then all of the people that he attracted around him, that he inspired, including you and all of the other smart providers, all of the people in Boston, but, but all the people around the world that we've met together that are affected so deeply by this program. So my indebtedness could not be more sincere or profound.

That's beautiful, Ro. Can you tell us something about how it affected you in your personal life?

Well, it led to a— it's kind of like a mandala where you create this iteration of self, and then you wash it all away. So relearning cardiology and relearning my own self through these teachings has been profound. And I've started a new job, I'm in a new home, my wife and I are happier than we've been in years. I have energy and enthusiasm. For not only participating in the care of my patients, but also in terms of continuing with the, the work that actually Dr. Benson started, is taking it into the real world, taking it into the day-to-day life of the people around me and the people that I can influence and affect. And that really is not only in my own self, but my family, my friends, it gives them a direction and hope that I hope they can see through my lens of the science that we have all studied together.

Well, that's beautiful, Ro. Could you mute now? We had to mute Ro because we have an echo issue. For me, I have told the story when I give lectures and stuff, but I was given a prescription for the first time by one of my own doctors for my borderline hypertension, and she wrote on the prescription, um, the Relaxation Response book by Dr. Herbert Benson. And that's how I came upon him, because she went to Harvard Medical School, my physician in New York City, Dr. Chris Creatura. She's amazing. That's how I found out about it. I was very hyperreactive to medications, and I didn't want to start meds right away because I was very borderline, and she said that this would be great for me. So that's how I started with the Benson-Henry Institute And obviously the rest is history. I changed career tracks and my kids, my husband, all of us are much better for me having learned all of these skills. Now I'm teaching it to as many people as I can. So again, we all owe this to Dr. Benson and his colleagues that has done so much amazing work at the Benson-Henry Institute. I wonder now if April, would you like to say a few words? In tribute to Dr. Herbert Benson?

Sure. I just, I wanted to say thank you, I think is the most profound thing I can say to him. And I wish I knew him better. I had only met him one time in person in a small group, and he certainly wouldn't have remembered me, but I did express, you know, I wrote a little note to the the head, the director, Greg Fritjof, and, and just conveyed my profound gratitude because I do think it is life-changing to be able to learn skills to help yourself, to help self-regulate and want to be able to give that gift to other people. And you had mentioned my kids and things. The other thing that is great and it has come out of the Benson-Henry Institute is something called Resilient Youth, just for your listeners to know about, because it sounds simplistic, but it can be taught, you know, to very young children. This, you know, what Dr. Benson termed the relaxation response, and it can have a profound effect. I guess I just wanted to say one thing is, as a psychiatrist, we listen, or I listen to so many people's history, you know, as an adult psychiatrist, and so much of the issues start when they're children. You know, they don't just pop up as adults. These things start when individuals are children, and I think the fact that Dr. Benson's work is now being sort of translated to a younger individual's language and being able to be provided to them and teach. And then what you're doing now, Juna Bobby MD, and what we're all doing is we're trying to teach this to as many people as possible. And that kind of goes back to him publishing that relaxation response book, because as is talked about a lot at the institute, is that he got some, some flack for that, for, for putting that out to the general public, because that wasn't really what an academic clinician would do. So I guess it's profound gratitude because that book was able to teach that to my mom and now I can teach that to other people. So it's, it's been a great gift for me and I have a lot of gratitude. So the longer tribute.

Oh, I love that. Thank you. Yes. I too have the same message as really just thanking him with deep gratitude because it changed my life. It transformed my entire life and what I do in life. I'm going on a podcast next week. It's called Bucket List Careers. So yeah, this is my bucket list career. This is something that I, I feel purpose in doing. And as for the— it used to be called the Education Initiative. I, I don't know if they're changing the name of it now for youth. I trained in that with Rana Chodnowsky.

Yes.

So I'm really excited for their new book. It's coming out. I've used all of these skills to blend it into books and planners for younger kids because like you said, I think, you know, we need to really look at prevention, especially, you know, it was a crisis before, but now after the pandemic, mental wellness is more important than ever. And there's a lot of research now that you can actually help prevent one of the most common disorders like anxiety and depression.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, you hear it all the time. I mean, again, certainly the relaxation response is huge. With regard to that, but so many of the other things that are taught within the SMART 3RP program, you know, the cognitive behavioral skills that are offered and the positive psychology. And again, positive psychology didn't even really exist when we went to medical school. At least it was on the cusp of when I was there.

So we were just stuck with our own negative thoughts.

Right, so that's what I mean. I think that absolutely those kinds of things to be able to teach those to children will certainly hopefully prevent many conditions. That's my great hope.

And you were teaching some youth also, right?

I've been working with my superintendent's wellness committee trying to get it into our school district because I think it's so important. Rayna has been out to our school district and presented, so I just think what they offer at BHI has been profound and helpful to so many school districts and now teachers, right? The teachers can really use these skills as well.

Yeah. Yeah, I love Reina. And Ro, do you have anything to say in tribute to Dr. Benson?

Um, yes. The thing that he is to me is so powerful is he was just an absolutely good human being. And when we look at the people we admire, the people that we respect, he was a phenomenal clinician. He was a incredible teacher and a researcher with true insight. But, and so we could call them triple threats, but he actually took it a step further. And he, at a time when it would have been very, very difficult for a researcher to maintain their integrity, he went out into the world to spread a message to people beyond the ivory towers. And so in India they would call him a hidden yogi. In Tibet they'd call him a bodhisattva. But he achieved a high level of moral, ethical goodness, you know, that he maintained through the whole— his whole life, to the very end of his life, and an enthusiasm and a happiness to share without restriction. And you have to respect people like that. They are the guiding lights because they speak the truth. They see it and then they tell us how to find it.

Thank you so much for that, Ro. That was beautifully said. And yeah, that reminds me, he is so courageous for having brought this out into during a time when people told him literally that it would ruin his career to continue doing research in this field. And then he always had a smile. I do remember that, Ro, like he was always smiling. He looked joyful and had a great sense of humor. And I will never forget the first time I sat in that room of, I think, 500 physicians and healthcare workers. And he, you know, guided us through a 10-minute relaxation response. And I just couldn't believe the stress melting away. And it was so transcending is what it was. I would say. So now you're both gonna have to come back. And so again, thank you so much for being here in tribute to Dr. Benson.

I hope to give you hugs in person soon, maybe next October, and but wherever it will be, Boston, I would hope.

Yes, definitely. I'm gonna be there.

Good.

And I'm actually going to be on the panel at the conference, so I'm definitely going to be there.

Oh, great, great.

And Ro, I hope you're going to join us there too.

He's giving the okay signal.

Thank you again for being here with me, April and Ro.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening. You can find out more about Dr. Herbert Benson at the Benson Henry Institute Mind Body Medicine site. There you can find out all about the wonderful work that they're doing there. You'll find a link to that website on the show notes below, as well as a link to his book, The Relaxation Response. Thank you for listening, and as always, please share this with anyone who you think might benefit. Until next time, this is Dr. Juna Bobby MD wishing you and your loved ones wellness.