What is the mind, body connection?
I bet that at some point you may have heard of the mind body connection. You may have heard a few things about it yet haven’t given it much thought. Maybe you have wondered what it actually is.
Your mind can influence a great deal of things in your life. The biggest one in my opinion is how it effects your body. Much of how you think and feel ends up showing on your body. For instance if you have ever felt embarrassed your face may get a little red. You are nervous speaking in front of a large audience and your mouth gets dry. Maybe you get anxiety sometimes and it feels like you are having a heart attack. You are depressed and you feel physical pain. You get scared and you feel your stomach jump. These are all physical symptoms related to what your mind is thinking and saying. Your mind is telling your body to react to the stimulus it encounters.
Repeated stress can become chronic symptoms and they are not good for the body. Your body is supposed to react to what is going on and then stop. Just like when you get and injury. It gets red and hot (inflammation) you clean it, put a band aid and a topical antiseptic on and it starts to heal. No more redness no more pain. The symptom is over. This happens within your body too. Stress can lead to chronic inflammation with in your body and never turn itself off. This creates a number of problems within your body and can manifest as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure for example.
Some people may say “it’s all in your head.” It is actually manifesting from your mind into your body in forms that you can see and feel and it is real. How the mind works to regulate your body is fascinating. We can choose to help our body by doing things that keep it from going into overdrive. Let’s talk about a few.
Mindset: Shifting how you think about a situation and choosing strategies to help deal with difficult areas of life. Choosing to talk about positive things rather than complaining, for example.
Meditation: This relaxes your mind and body. You can take as little as 2-5 minutes a day to just listen to you breathing. This will actually do wonders for the cells in your body. Plus it adds to your awareness of yourself and what you are feeling.
Gratitude: Look around you and see the many things you have in your life. Be grateful for just waking up.
Experience nature: You don’t have to live in the woods to experience nature. There are many places to find even the smallest piece. Just be out, moving and seeing what beauty there is in nature can fill your body and mind with positivity.
Limit exposure to the news: There is so much craziness going on in the world. Being bombarded with negativity will make your stress level skyrocket. Shut it off. If you like to know what is going on fine. Just try not to make it an all day thing. It will wear on you.
This is just a tip on the iceberg in helping you to keep your mind and body in a healthy state. These things take time and practice. Sometimes it takes support from others. Take some time today and see if you can incorporate ways to help with your mind and body connection.
