There are so many people who eat well, train well, sleep well but are still sick or unhealthy. If training and feeding the body right was all that mattered, then health should be at its peak, isn’t it? In reality, that’s not the case. Mind and body aren’t separate entities, they are one. Health is an outcome of your physical, mental and emotional self, and how balanced they are with each other. There is constant communication between your mind and your body in more than one way.
Through thoughts: Almost every single disease has its connection deep down to our emotional health. What our mind thinks, imagines and sees, is sent as a signal to the body and the body responds to the signal by manifesting every one of these thoughts. While a negative thought or frame of mind can impact our health in a negative way, positive thoughts and feelings have healing powers. There are more than 60,000 thoughts that pass our minds every day, but we should be aware and use certain techniques to use its power in our favour.
Let’s take the example of weight loss. People with weight issues often lament, criticise themselves, complain and feel negative. It’s important to understand that these negative thoughts culminate into similar negative signals. If we continue to feel fat, lethargic and ugly, then that’s exactly how we will be. Through the power of our mind, we should start visualising and picturing ourselves exercising, eating a healthy breakfast, a healthy lunch, a healthy snack, a healthy dinner, etc. We should create a mental image of what being fit and reflect on it every day. This will change the negative thoughts to positive simply by visualising how an ideal day and self looks like. This is how one can use the power of thoughts to manifest into our physical self.
Through the gut: The gut and brain have an intricate connection. In fact, the gut is called the second brain and is connected with the brain via a system of nerves called the Enteric Nervous System. It is as real as the autonomic or central nervous system. A stressed mind can change the way our body digests and assimilates food, evacuation process, gut microbiome, the release of acids and digestive enzymes, gut integrity and more. What we eat is only half of the story of good nutrition, the eater’s mind, feelings, thoughts and beliefs impact how the body digests and metabolises the meal. Similarly, a gut that’s clogged, slow, inflamed can lead to mental fogginess, anxiety issues, memory loss, depletion of vitamins and minerals that affect brain health in turn, etc.
Through hormones and neurotransmitters: Many hormones and neurotransmitters produced in the brain can relay their effects into our physical self and vice versa. In our physical bodies i.e. gut, we generate a couple of feel-good neurotransmitters such as serotonin, GABA and dopamine, and they are responsible for making us feel good and upbeat.
Through the vagus nerve: The connection between mind and body becomes clearer when you look at the Vagus nerve—the longest cranial nerve that passes from your brainstem through your esophagus, lungs, kidney, and abdomen into your stomach and gut. This means that there is a mind-body connection with all these cranial nerves that start from our brain and go through almost every part of the human body.
With so many connections between the mind and body, it is impossible to compartmentalise one from the other. You cannot just treat your physical self without taking your mind into the equation of healing nor can you only treat your mind without taking your physical self into the equation. The author is a Mumbai-based holistic lifestyle coach