Mind+Body Connection

cogito ergo sum – I think, therefore I am

Remember the butterflies in your stomach? Or when you had had a gut feeling about something! How about the time when you choked under pressure or when your stomach was in knots?

Emotions create physiological changes in the body. Stress is no exception. The mind is the substance that thinks, the conscious, thinking mind, analyses, and goes by logic. The subconscious feels and acts as a record keeper. Emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are not mutually exclusive. Unresolved thoughts and feelings are much like apps running in the background that will ultimately affect our optimal functioning and health. Dr. James Gordon, founder Center of The Mind-Body Medicine, says that all the body organs and all our emotional responses share a common chemical language and are constantly communicating with one another.

Evolutionary Mismatch: The hunter-gatherers lived under situations where it was required of them to fight and kill to eat and live. An active fight or flight system was vital to their survival. An event was followed by a reaction. This is drastically different from how we live today. Anything perceived as a threat or danger leads to stress. What are the factors that induce stress? The stresses of today are of unpaid bills, peer pressure, catastrophic expectations, fear of being judged, one’s self-concept, and image. Our thoughts and emotions can lead to the continual turning on of the stress response. Stress mobilizes us for action. Stress within limits sharpens sensory systems and improves performance. Hence, instead of living in a perpetual cycle of stress, there is a need to process and interpret our thoughts and emotions and understand how they affect our behavior and body. We humans represent the tale of opposing forces quintessentially. On one hand, ego guards the familiar and known to give a sense of security. On the other, we’re geared to learn new patterns and continually adapt and renew ourselves via neurogenesis and neuroplasticity.

The mind-body connection is not recent news, and by no means is new. Virtually every system of ancient medicine throughout the world treated the mind and body as a whole. Mind-body dualism was introduced only in the late 17th century and aimed at studying these two as separate entities. However, this was a rather reductionistic inquiry into health. In the 20th century, a change came about with researchers scientifically demonstrating complex links between the body and mind. We tie everything up to a physical cause, symptom, or condition in order to validate its existence, but again it’s vital to understand that a lot of what we experience is formless. We often view the body mechanically, like that which eats and digests, which is rather limiting. The Mind-over-Matter movement emphasizes expression and recognition of mental health. However, mental health is also being mistaken to be separate, and unrelated to physical health and wrongly so. The mind and body work with each other to attain homeostasis.

What do the mind and body mean to you?

In recent years, science has begun to recognize the significant connections through which emotions, mental facilities, and behavioral patterns directly influence our health. This forms the psycho-emotional roots of health and disease. The hurt, guilt, shame, the negativity, that we’re holding on to affect your body physically. The mind-body connection draws on both a physical and chemical level. The brain is the equips and allows you to experience mental states that are labeled the mind. This concept of the mind refers to processes and states including thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and emotions. Different states affect our biology in distinct ways since the nervous and immune systems share the chemical language of neurotransmitters. Events and emotions can manifest and trigger physical symptoms due to the interconnectedness of neurological pathways between the brain (emotional processor) with the spinal cord, muscles, cardiovascular system, and digestive tract. Remember when your heart felt like it was pounding out of your chest when you were under intense stress or that gut-wrenching experience? This intersecting nature of systems helps establish the mind-body connection that influences the maintenance of health or the development of the disease. For example, emotions like anxiety can trigger increased stress hormones in the body, in turn suppressing the immune system and setting the stage for infections. This connection is multidirectional. Emotions affect the way your behavioral patterns and the physiology of your body. Conversely, one’s perception of physical changes can influence their feelings and emotions.

The Placebo Effect is a classic example backing the mind-body link. A sugar pill or placebo with no active effect helps the patient feel better. Well, does this indicate the strength of their belief in the treatment process? Perhaps so. Scientists have studied and designed bodily maps of emotions, showing areas of the body affected in various emotional states. These regions are discrete, yet there is partial overlapping observed. Repressed emotions appear to be harmful to one’s physical health. A study showed that people who repress their emotions face disruptions in levels of cortisol compared to those who express their emotions well.

Your Body Feels Emotions. Emotions like anger, guilt, and resentment often lead to imbalance, taking us off homeostasis. Fear contributes to an upset digestive tract, tension can lead to headaches. Feelings of anger or insecurity can disrupt the regular heartbeat and flow of the breath. Checking in on your release valve, if you will, goes a long way in maintaining good health and wellbeing. When painful emotions are not explored and dealt with, they manifest as an underlying sense of anxiety physically disrupting the body’s natural ability to heal. In essence, pain is a combination of our physical sensations and emotions. Your beliefs may be leading you to disease.

Psychosomatic disorders: Psychosomatic comes from two words, mind; psyche, and body; soma. A psychosomatic disorder is a disease that involves both mind and body- to an extent most diseases are psychosomatic.

There is a mental aspect attached to every physical disease. The reaction and coping vary greatly from person to person. For example, a rash may not be a big deal to some people. On the contrary, a similar rash can add to the injury and make someone else feel more ill.
There can be physical effects and symptoms arising from mental illness. For example, in case of some mental illnesses, you may not eat well which can cause and lead to physical issues.

Some physical conditions are worsened by mental factors such as stress and anxiety. For example, these include tension myositis syndrome, psoriasis, eczema, stomach ulcers, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Stress causes headaches, migraines, insomnia, chronic, autoimmune diseases which are sometimes even chronic. The term psychosomatic disorder is also used when mental factors cause physical symptoms but where there are defined physical disease as such. Chest pain can be caused by stress, independent of any other physical disease.

Holistic Health and Healing: Health requires a multifaceted approach. To avoid the buildup of toxic emotions, you need to remain present and aware. By practicing mindfulness one can deal with all upcoming emotions as they are. Paying attention to these allows you to identify emotions and process them. Now, you’re responding instead of reacting. One way to effectively express, feel, and get your feelings out is to talk about them, with your therapist, a trusted friend, or by writing them on paper. Integrative psychiatrist James Lake, Stanford University, writes that extensive research has confirmed the medical and mental benefits of meditation, mindfulness training, yoga, and other mind-body practices.