The Medicine of Meaning
- Dr. Howard A. Friedman MD, founder of HHOM LLC
- Oct 16
- 3 min read
10-16-2025
By Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D. | Veteran | U.S. Army Medical Corps | Internal Medicine | HHOM LLC
Poem — The Compass Within
When the world tilts ,and maps no longer guide,
meaning becomes the compass
—a quiet pull toward what still matters.
----Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.
Introduction
Meaning is not an abstract idea—it’s a biological stabilizer. Viktor Frankl, Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor, described humanity’s deepest drive as the will to meaning. In the concentration camps, those who could still locate meaning endured longer.
Frankl taught that life’s motivation is not pleasure or pain, but purpose—the freedom to choose our attitude, even when all else is taken. Meaning holds the self together when circumstances fall apart. It’s what lets the nervous system return to calm rather than collapse.
The Three Gateways to Meaning
Frankl described three pathways through which meaning enters human life:
Creative Values – finding meaning through creation: a task, a deed, a contribution.
Experiential Values – finding meaning through experience: love, art, nature, beauty.
Attitudinal Values – finding meaning through courage: choosing one’s stance toward suffering.
In the camps, Frankl saw that suffering ceased to be suffering the moment it found purpose. Nietzsche’s words summarize it well: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
Biochemistry of Meaning
When life feels meaningful, stress hormones such as cortisol and epinephrine fall, while immune markers rise. The parasympathetic nervous system—the body’s rest-and-repair mode—activates, lowering heart rate and blood pressure and supporting recovery.
Meaninglessness keeps the sympathetic system over-activated, driving inflammation, fatigue, and disease. Choosing a life of meaning, therefore, is not merely psychological—it’s biochemical medicine.
Clinical Reflection
Across decades of practice, I’ve witnessed patients who regained health not from a new drug but from rediscovered meaning—a reason to rise, a role to fill, a relationship to nurture. Once meaning re-enters the story, the body begins to follow. When biology loses its why, medicine alone cannot restore balance. Meaning is the immune system of the soul.
Closing Poem — The Choice
You can’t erase pain,
but you can rewrite its sentence.
Choose what the story means—
and watch the body follow.
Dr. Howard Friedman M.D.
—Dr. Howard Friedman MD
Board-Certified | Internal Medicine | Veteran | U.S. Army Medical Corps
Founder of Howard’s House of Medicine (HHOM LLC)
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: Why does meaning act like medicine?
A: Because meaning stabilizes the nervous system. When we understand why we’re enduring something, the body interprets that as safety rather than threat. This quiets cortisol, restores heart rate variability, and reawakens immune resilience. The “will to meaning,” as Frankl described it, doesn’t just heal the mind—it realigns physiology.
Q: How can we find meaning when life feels aimless or painful?
A: Meaning rarely arrives from outside—it’s cultivated through choice. We can begin with Frankl’s three gateways: creation, experience, and attitude. Whether writing a letter, noticing beauty, or choosing courage in hardship, each act reclaims authorship of our own story. That authorship itself becomes medicine.
Q: What happens in medicine when patients rediscover meaning?
A:Symptoms often soften. Chronic fatigue lessens, blood pressure normalizes, and energy returns. In my years of internal medicine, I’ve witnessed that no pill restores balance faster than purpose. When biology rediscovers its why, treatment becomes partnership, not prescription.
Love the concept of meaningfulness portrayed as medicine! Thank you!