Consciously directed healing
The human body is a self-sustaining and self-repairing entity. When you cut your hand, when you blister your foot, or when you burn your tongue, you know — and you take it for granted — that somehow, miraculously, your body will heal itself. All it needs is time.
This miracle is possible, because our bodies are equipped with resources more vast and more incredible than most people ever realise, let alone think about. Doctors know these resources inside-out — they're called cells. We have billions upon billions of cells, forming the building-blocks of ourselves: each of them is an independent living thing; and yet each is also purpose-built for serving the whole in a specific way, and is 100% at the disposal of the needs of the whole. We have cells that make us breathe. Cells that make us digest. Cells that make us grow. And, most important of all, cells that tell all the other cells what to do — those are known as brain cells.
In the case of common muscle injuries, it's the tissue cells (i.e. the growing cells — they make us grow by reproducing themselves) and the brain cells, among others, that are largely responsible for repairs. When an injury occurs, the brain cells receive reports of the location and the extent of the problem. They then direct the tissue cells around the affected area to grow — i.e. to reproduce themselves — into the injury, thus slowly bringing new and undamanged tissue to the trouble spot, and bit-by-bit restoring it to its original and intended state. Of course, it's a lot more complicated than that: I'm not a doctor, so I'm not going to pretend I understand it properly. But as far as I'm aware, that's the basics of it.
However, there are many injuries that are simply too severe for the body to repair by itself in this way. In these cases, help may be needed in the form of lotions, medicines, or even surgery. Now, what I want to know is: why is this so? With all its vast resources, what is it that the human body finds so difficult and so time-consuming in healing a few simple cuts and bruises? Surely — with a little bit of help, and a lot more conscious concentration — we should be capable of repairing so much more, all by ourselves.
More brain power
There is a widely-known theory that we humans only use 10% of our brains. Now, this theory has many skeptics: and those skeptics pose extremely valid arguments against the theory. For example, we may only use 10-20% of our brains at any one time, but we certainly use the majority of our brains at some point in our lives. Also, brain research is still (despite years of money and effort) an incredibly young field, and scientists really have no idea how much of our brains we use, at this point in time. However, it still seems fairly likely that we do indeed only use a fraction of our brain's capacity at any given time — even in times of great pain and injury — and that were we able to use more of that capacity, and to use it more effectively, that would benefit us in numerous manifold ways.
I personally am inclined to agree with the myth-toting whackos, at least to some extent: I too believe that the human brain is a massively under-utilised organ of the body; and that modern medicine has yet to uncover the secrets that will allow us to harness that extra brain power, in ways that we can barely imagine. I'm certainly not saying that I agree with the proponents of the Quantum-Touch theory, who claim to be able to "heal others by directing their brain's energy" — that's a bit far-fetched for my liking. Nor am I in any way agreeing with ideas such as psychokinesis, which claims that the mere power of the brain is capable of anything, from levitating distant objects to affecting the thoughts and senses of others. No: I'm not agreeing with anything that dodgy or supernatural-like.
I am, however, saying that the human brain is a very powerful organ, and that if we could utilise it more, then our body would be able to do a lot more things (including the self-healing that it's already been capable of since time immemorial) a lot more effectively.
More concentration
As well as utilising more of our brains, there is also (even more vexingly) the issue of directing all that extra capacity to a particular purpose. Now, in my opinion, this is logically bound to be the trickier bit, from a scientific standpoint. For all practical purposes, we're already able to put our brains into an "extreme mode", where we utilise a lot more capacity all at once. What do you think conventional steroids do? Or the myriad of narcotic "party drugs", such as Speed and Ecstasy, that are so widely sought-after worldwide? Upping the voltage isn't that hard: we've already figured it out. But where does it go? We have no idea how to direct all that extra capacity, except into such useless (albeit fun) pursuits as screaming, running, or dancing like crazy. What a waste.
I don't know what the answer to this one is: whether it be a matter of some future concentration-enhancing medicine; of simply having a super-disciplined mind; or of some combination of this and other solutions. Since nobody to date has conclusively proven and demonstrated that they can direct their brain's extra capacity to somewhere useful, without medical help, I doubt that anything truly amazing is physically possible, with concentration alone. But whatever the solution is, it's only a matter of time before it is discovered; and its discovery is bound to have groundbreaking implications for medicine and for numerous other fields.
Future glimpse
Basically, what I'm talking about in this article is a future wonder-invention, that will essentially allow us to utilise our brain's extra capacity, and to direct that extra capacity to somewhere useful, for the purpose of carrying out conventional self-healing in a much faster and more effective way than is currently possible. This is not about doing anything that's simply impossible, according to the laws of medicine or physics — such as curing yourself of cancer, or vaporising your enemies with a stare — it's about taking something that we do now, and enhancing it. I'm not a scientist or a doctor, I'm just someone who has too much time on his hands, and who occasionally thinks about how cool it would be for the world to have things like this. Nevertheless, I really do believe that consciously directed healing is possible, and that it's only a matter of time before we work out how to do it.