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Your Catholic Neighbor: Dr. Anne Borik
Joyce Coronel/CATHOLIC SUN
Dr. Ann Borik, the founder of Sign Chi Do, has produced several DVDs that teach the stress-relieving prayer method.
Physician’s healing ministry flows through prayer
By Joyce Coronel, The Catholic Sun
April 3, 2008
As a physician, Dr. Anne Borik sees people when their bodies are hurting, but the lifelong Catholic is quick to point out that the mind is a key factor in many ailments.
Borik, a parishioner at St. Mary Parish in Chandler, says that stress affects and underlies many serious health conditions, including high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes. She also says it’s a trigger or a contributing factor for problems with bipolar disorder as well as anxiety and depression.
“If people can learn to manage stress by learning a relaxation technique, it unlocks the relaxation response in the body,” the internal medicine doctor says, describing a program of prayer she designed to help manage the chemicals in the body from a stress management perspective.
Borik, who is board-certified in both internal and adult medicine, graduated from Temple University in 1991. She worked at the Arizona Heart Hospital for seven years and is now a hospitalist at Mountain Vista Medical Center, a new 200-bed facility in east Mesa.
As a young child, she took an interest in karate, and by the time she was 13, had earned a black belt. Borik says she was always interested in how the human body works and that she became a doctor in order to minister to people.
“I believe it is a vocation — it’s more than a job. There’s a closeness to the human being that medicine has taught me and it’s made me grow in my own faith journey,” she said.
When Borik’s grandmother suffered a debilitating stroke some years ago, she needed physical therapy. Borik knew that the devout, daily Mass and rosary Catholic would never consider learning tai chi or yoga, in spite of the medical benefits those programs may provide. Borik turned to prayer and her own Catholic faith traditions to try to come up with a solution.
She developed a prayer program called Sign Chi Do that is based on Scripture and well-known prayers such the “Serenity Prayer.” Although some people might be turned off by the name, it’s actually very Christian in meaning, Borik said. “Sign” refers to the sign language aspect of the prayers, “Chi” denotes the Greek letter for Christ, and “Do” means both “the Way” (an early name for Christianity) as well as her designation as a “D.O.” or doctor of osteopathic medicine.
The prayers, which are set to music, incorporate exaggerated sign language gestures and are designed to trigger a relaxation response in the body, which studies show is beneficial to the body, Borik said.
Borik knows that many Catholics are suspicious of programs based on Eastern religious practices and is careful to delineate the difference between them and her own program. She says that one of the reasons she created the program was to empower Catholic Christians with a tool to embrace a relaxation technique.
“We don’t teach emptying the mind. What we’re doing is filling the mind with a word, an affirmation, a blessing and then signing that with movement,” Borik said. “As a Catholic Christian who doesn’t want to go to yoga, I want to bring the health benefit from a movement-oriented program and ground it in scriptural teaching and moving prayer. That’s what Sign Chi Do is.”
Borik will be a featured speaker at the National Association of Catholic Chaplains at their April 7 meeting in Indianapolis. She will also speak at the “Wisdom, Age and Grace” conference sponsored by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in May.
For more information, visit www.signchido.com.
How does your faith affect your work?
Honestly, it’s one and the same. There’s no separation between my faith and my work. I’m constantly praying as I’m walking through the [hospital’s] halls.
What’s your favorite quote?
“Be still and know that I am God,” Psalm 46:10. People only mirror themselves in still water, and in order to mirror God, we only do that in stillness. It’s an internal disposition of the soul; it’s not about trying to be still physically. It’s about internal stillness and being connected to God’s voice. When I experience that most is when things are moving the fastest, in the middle of a code, when I’m trying to bring someone back to life. That’s when I experience the most stillness in myself.
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