The Chemistry of Healing
Health & Lifestyle
By Kaajal Luckraz, Pharmacist
Friday — Fri-nally!
Not cheugy-mummy* received a social media message from someone who claims to be an ex-colleague — Kasia — a heart-wrenching message saying she is not well and undergoing cancer treatment. Not cheugy-mummy thought her account was hacked and ignored the message. A few weeks later she realised she had Kasia’s phone number and messaged her — it turns out that Kasia was indeed reaching out…
(“Behind all the appointments, scans and treatment, there was still simply me. Something inside me felt drawn to reach out and after so many years without contact, at exactly the time I needed it most, that connection returned to life. Later I discovered how deeply human connection was helping me heal. Feeling supported reminded me that I was more than a diagnosis. Every message, conversation and hug helped me carry some of the emotional weight of the journey. Medicine was helping my body, but human connection was helping to heal the parts of me that medicine could not reach. Kasia”)
When we think of healing, we often imagine wounds closing, bones knitting together, or the disappearance of pain. Yet healing is far more profound than what we can see. It is one of the most intricate chemical processes in nature — a silent symphony of molecules, hormones, immune cells and electrical signals working in perfect synchrony to restore balance.
Long before germ theory, antibiotics, or modern pharmacology, Western medicine rested on a deceptively simple premise: the body already knows how to heal itself, and the physician’s task is chiefly to assist that process rather than override it. This is vis medicatrix naturae — “the healing power of nature” — a phrase attributed to the Hippocratic tradition of ancient Greece, and one that has quietly shaped, and repeatedly resurfaced in, Western medical thought for over two thousand years.
The Hippocratic Foundation
Hippocrates and his followers viewed health as a state of balance among the body’s four humours — blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Illness was disturbance; healing was the restoration of equilibrium. The physician’s role was supportive: rest, diet, fresh air, and time, deployed to help the body’s own corrective tendency along, rather than aggressive intervention aimed at forcing a cure.
“First, do no harm” — though not a direct Hippocratic quotation, it captures this same underlying humility about the physician’s proper role relative to the body’s own capacities.
Chemical Process of Healing
The moment our body senses injury — whether from surgery, infection, emotional trauma or illness — it launches a carefully orchestrated response. Blood vessels constrict to prevent excessive blood loss before widening to allow immune cells to reach the affected area. White blood cells release chemical messengers called cytokines, which coordinate inflammation and recruit other cells needed for repair.
Inflammation has acquired a negative reputation, but in reality, it is one of the body’s greatest survival mechanisms. Without it, healing simply would not occur. The challenge is not inflammation itself, but when it becomes excessive or refuses to switch off. Every stage is governed by chemistry.
My Pharmacist Formula to Heal
As a pharmacist, I witness healing every day. Medicines are remarkable tools, but they work best when they complement the body’s own extraordinary chemistry. Antibiotics eliminate bacteria, chemotherapy targets rapidly dividing cancer cells, antihypertensives reduce cardiovascular risk, and pain relief improves comfort. Yet alongside every prescription lies an equally important prescription that cannot be dispensed in a box: nourishing food, restorative sleep, physical activity, meaningful relationships, emotional balance and hope.
Nutrition to Heal: Nutrition also provides the raw materials for healing. Protein supplies amino acids to rebuild tissues. Vitamin C enables collagen synthesis. Zinc supports immune function and wound repair. Iron transports oxygen to regenerating tissues, while omega-3 fatty acids help regulate excessive inflammation. Every meal becomes an opportunity to provide the body with the building blocks it requires.
Exercise to Heal: Movement deserves equal recognition. Gentle exercise stimulates circulation, delivering oxygen and nutrients where they are needed most. It also releases beneficial chemicals that improve mood, reduce inflammation and support metabolic health. Healing does not always mean resting completely; often it means moving wisely.
Rest to Heal: Sleep remains one of the most underrated medicines available to us. During deep sleep, growth hormone peaks, damaged tissues regenerate, memories consolidate and immune function is strengthened. We often search for the latest supplement or breakthrough treatment while overlooking one of the most powerful healing interventions our bodies already possess.
Use Your Mind to Heal
Moments of safety, connection and hope trigger a different chemical environment. Oxytocin strengthens social bonds, serotonin supports emotional wellbeing, dopamine reinforces motivation, and endorphins naturally reduce pain. These molecules do not merely affect how we feel — they influence how efficiently our bodies heal.
In this context, practices that cultivate forgiveness, gratitude and emotional release may also support wellbeing. I believe ancient wisdom and modern science meet at a common destination: creating an internal environment where healing has the best opportunity to flourish. I shall share with you a few of these practices.
1. Dukkha: Suffering as a Starting Point, Acceptance.
Central to Buddhist thought is dukkha, often translated as “suffering” but closer in meaning to unsatisfactoriness or a persistent sense that things are not quite as they should be.
The First Noble Truth simply states that dukkha exists — illness, ageing, loss, and pain are woven into the structure of life itself, not aberrations to be indignant about. This teaching is best explained through the parable of the two arrows.
* The first arrow is the physical pain itself — the biological reality of injury or illness, largely outside our control.
* The second arrow is the suffering we add on top through resistance, fear, resentment, or the story we tell ourselves about what the pain means.
Much Buddhist practice around illness is directed not at removing the first arrow, which medicine already attends to, but at learning not to lose the second. This has real clinical relevance. Chronic pain research increasingly distinguishes between pain intensity and pain-related suffering, and mindfulness-based interventions — many drawn directly from Buddhist meditative practice — have shown measurable effects in reducing the latter, sometimes altering pain perception itself, even when the underlying physical cause remains unchanged.
2. At that intersection of life, many of us want to make amends with ourselves and others and are not able to do so. For that I like the Hoʻoponopono concept.
The traditional Hawaiian practice of Hoʻoponopono, meaning “to make right” or “to restore balance,” encourages individuals to let go of resentment and embrace reconciliation through the simple phrases: I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
3. While there is no scientific evidence that these words alone directly heal disease, the process of forgiveness, self-compassion and emotional acceptance may help reduce psychological stress.I also believe that we heal better in a group — may that be a group of family or friends or both. And Ubuntu teaches us just that. The Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu offers something medicine has been slow to formalise, though good clinicians have always sensed it intuitively.
“I Am Because We Are”
Ubuntu is often summarised by the phrase umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu — “a person is a person through other persons.” It’s a philosophy that locates selfhood not in the isolated individual but in relationship: I exist, and am made whole, through my connections to others. Applied to health, this reframes illness itself. A person does not fall sick in a vacuum; the disruption ripples through family, community, and social role. Recovery, correspondingly, is not something that happens to a body in isolation — it is something that happens within a web of relationships, and often because of them.
My Pharmacist Perspective
Medicine has come a long way. We now have precise molecular descriptions of the very self-healing capacities the ancient Greeks could only infer: the coagulation cascade, immune surveillance, tissue regeneration, homeostatic feedback loops governing everything from blood glucose to core temperature. The body genuinely does possess extraordinary self-correcting machinery — we simply now understand it at the level of cytokines and stem cells rather than humours.
This recognition has practical implications that shape modern clinical guidelines. Having practised both in the UK and Mauritius, I cannot help but make the contrast — caring is very different in both countries. Antibiotic stewardship programmes, for instance, are partly built on the recognition that many infections resolve through immune function alone, and unnecessary antibiotic use carries real costs. Evidence-based guidelines increasingly favour “watchful waiting” for certain conditions rather than immediate intervention, precisely because the evidence shows the body’s own processes often produce equivalent or superior outcomes with fewer side effects.
So we can trust the medicines. But also, along the way, trust the power of mindful practices. And the power of your mind.
Kaajal Luckraz attained her MPharm degree and qualified as a pharmacist at King’s College London.
* “Cheugy” is Gen Z slang for uncool or outdated trends. “Not cheugy-mummy” is a playful, self-aware way writers describe themselves as being hip, alert, and thoroughly on-trend rather than old-fashioned.
Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 28 August 2026
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