Decoding the mind-body link
It’s a common thing for us to experience emotions directly through the body. For example, when we go out to meet someone whom we love a lot, we walk lightly with our hearts pounding with excitement, whereas anxiety might tighten our muscles and make our hands sweat and tremble before an important job interview. Numerous studies carried out over the last decade or so have established that emotion systems prepare us to meet challenges encountered in the environment by adjusting the activation of the cardiovascular, skeletomuscular, neuroendocrine and autonomic nervous systems. This link between emotions and bodily states is also reflected in the way we speak or behave. For example, a young girl who is about to get married in a week may suddenly develop cold feet and experience nervousness.
Similarly, lovers who have had a bad breakup and are heartbroken may experience a shiver down their spine on hearing their favourite song being played somewhere. Although emotions are associated with a broad range of physiological changes, it is still hotly debated whether the bodily changes associated with different emotions are specific enough to serve as the basis for discrete emotional feelings, such as anger, fear or happiness. Before jumping to any conclusion, we need to understand that the mind and the body are closely linked, and affect each other. To put it in simple words, it means that our thoughts and feelings can affect our body directly and they can very well have an effect on what we think, what we feel and what we do.
So how does this whole mechanism work? According to neuro medicine experts, the brain and the body are constantly sending messages to each other and these messages tell the brain and body to make changes and adjustments to the way they are working. For example, if your eyes told your brain that a car was travelling towards you at speed, it would send a very fast message to the body to step back out of harm’s way. Similarly, if your stomach was empty and your body needed fuel, your brain would listen to that message and send you in search of food. So, in short, the mind and the body are in constant communication to keep you healthy.
Shakespeare had rightly said, “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” The fact is that even though we are not faced with sabre-toothed tigers every day, life presents us with lots of situations which can be perceived as threatening that naturally trigger stress responses from within us. For example, if you climb a staircase instead of taking a lift to your fourth-floor apartment and immediately after entering home, you experience uncomfortable symptoms like a pounding heart and excessive sweating, you might instantly get this thought that “gosh, I’m not as fit as I used to be, maybe I need to see my doctor and get a thorough checkup”.
Now, suppose instead of having a negative thought on entering home, if you just sit down calmly and do a simple deep breathing exercise, you may feel completely fine in a few minutes and you would continue with your day as usual without any great change in how you feel. This example clearly shows that the same experience, if interpreted differently, can result in very different feelings and emotions. We must thus understand the fact that our mind has tremendous power over our body and it directs everything in our body. According to medical experts, a significant number of our diseases can be altered by changing the mind, as they often originate from there.
Today most of us are living in body consciousness resulting from the false identification of self with body. When a soul identifies with the characteristics of the body, we limit ourselves as being a male or female, young or old, ugly or pretty, black or white and so on. Such limited identities then influence our thoughts and actions. Body consciousness is the greatest challenge for the soul because it creates discriminatory attitudes and ego-driven complexes in our minds. We act and relate with other humans in a very limited way and such a limited consciousness gives rise to emotions like insecurity, fear, selfishness and hatred.
Thus, those who are ignorant of the soul are severely bound by their body and they think, act and live their whole life in a narrow limited way that makes everything in their lives limited. Hence, in order to live a liberated life, we need to realise the truth that we all are spiritual beings in a human body and birth after birth we continue to play different roles. Thus, by being soul-conscious, we can transcend our fears, attachments and vices, and we can also conquer the fear of death and any kind of physical loss, thereby experiencing our original qualities such as peace, joy and love in an unlimited way.
The author is a spiritual educator and columnist. He can be reached at nikunjji@gmail.com; www.brahmakumaris.com
According to medical experts, a significant number of our diseases can be altered by changing the mind, as they often originate from there