The mind-body connection is a term that so many of us have heard and understand on a surface level. But we don’t always understand deeply what that truly means and what the implications are to your health and enjoyment of life.
You are moments away from feeling and experiencing your very own mind-body connection. Once you have and reflect on the experience, it will help you to understand why it is important and how it relates to your everyday life.
We’re all busy. Not enough hours in the day. Most of us are just getting on and doing.When this is the case, we’re not really paying attention to our thoughts. They’re just left to their own devices to free-run. Unchecked. As you are about to find out, they could be the one thing you’ve been needing to focus on
Is The Mind-Body connection Real?
On the surface, it appears totally logical that your brain and mind think about things, solve problems, daydream.
Whilst our bodies are just functioning. Your heart is beating, you’re breathing, if you have a cut, your body repairs it, and so on.
They’re different areas with their own jobs. However, there is more to it than that…
Would you like to experience the mind/body connection yourself? Rather than me just saying, yes, it’s a real thing. Feeling and experiencing it for yourself brings greater depth to your understanding. Once you experience it first-hand, you will know how real the connection is and the effect it is having on you.
A Mind-Body Experience
Make sure you are somewhere that you can pause and reflect for a moment on your own with your feet flat on the floor, and feel your feet on the ground. Close your eyes-After you have read the next few lines and know what you are doing, of course!
Take a moment to think of a person, an event, or a situation that makes you feel really angry, irritated, or frustrated. Just really tune into that moment and feel the emotion. Bring it to your full awareness. How does that feel? Where do you feel it in your body? How do you feel now? Now we’re going to change that around to the good side, the happy side.
Think about a person, event, or situation that makes you feel really happy, brings a smile to your face, and maybe makes you laugh out loud. Somebody or something that you really love and appreciate in your life. Something that you’re really grateful for and just tune into that. And how does that feel? Where can you feel that in your body? How do you feel as a whole? Did you feel the difference between the two?
Emotions and How They Affect Your Body
Within seconds, you’ve just had a mind-body experience. You’ve experienced how just a thought, something that’s not even happening right now, can change how your body feels.When you felt angry or irritated, you may have felt tension somewhere in your body. Maybe your breathing changed, your face tightened up or your teeth clenched.
There will have been a number of physical changes that accompanied the emotion. All of those changes would have been completely different when you had the happy thoughts. You probably felt calmer, and lighter and you breathed deeper and more slowly. You may have even had a smile on your face, too.
Every thought you have creates a feeling, and those emotions help to bring more thoughts aligned to that feeling. It’s a great dance between mind and body.
The Difference A Thought Creates In Your Body
Positive feelings are healing and restorative for the body. Negative feelings are stress-inducing and can create physical symptoms and illnesses.
Now you’ve done that experiment, can you imagine what feeling angry or irritated all of the time could do to your body?
The Effect of Negative Emotions
Just to give you an overview of what emotion does, let’s take anger as an example. Anger increases, amongst other things, cortisol levels in your body. Prolonged increased Cortisol levels can then lead to:
- High blood pressure
- Type II Diabetes
- Suppressed immune system
- Osteoporosis
- Depression and anxiety
Can you see how interlinked the mind/body connection is?
And can you see how only treating symptoms can prevent you from correcting the root cause?
The Effect Of Positive Emotions
The antidote is positive emotions. When you feel happy, you release chemicals such as serotonin and Oxytocin. When these are circulating around your body, you:
- Sleep better
- Your blood sugars are under better control
- You feel fuller and have less chance of cravings
- There is less inflammation
- Your digestion is better
You just generally feel better about yourself. How amazing. We are walking around with our very own medicine cabinet all day, everyday.Is it time to start accessing that and having more of the goodies?
Energy In Motion = Emotions
What’s important to note at this point is that we’re not saying that you should never experience negative emotions. They are an important and necessary part of daily life and growth as a person. The issue from a mind-body perspective is when you get stuck with predominantly negative emotions.
If you stand back and observe your most common emotions during the course of a normal week, what are they for you? What is your emotional default setting? Do you want that to change?
Getting Your Mind Body To Work In Your Favour
It would be really easy to say. Just be happier. It’s not always that simple, though, I appreciate that. Life happens. But, you choose to notice how you feel day to day and decide if that is how you would like to continue or not.
Left unchecked, 80% of your thoughts yesterday will be the same today and continue forever more.
It all begins with taking a step back and observing yourself. This new knowledge may have already triggered a new level of awareness which means you’ll start to make some different decisions. You may start to notice how people, events, and situations make you feel.
What Can You Do Today To Feel Happier?
Choose to do more things that you love and enjoy. Can you at least commit to 10 minutes every day? That could be taking time out for a bath, reading a good book, watching a programme that makes you laugh, going for a walk, or singing along with a smile on your face to your favourite uplifting song.
What simple things can you do more of? That’s the best place to start. If this has whetted your appetite for more information, then head over to our page dedicated to helping you manifest more of what you want and fills you up from the inside out.
