How do thoughts affect your health?

In our previous article, Holding Health is Healing Health, we discussed the benefits to holding your health  and a key principle to ensure that you are holding your chiropractic adjustment for as long as possible. This article is intended to elaborate on the three key areas of health that will maximize your holding time and allow your body to thrive in the best possible environment- for as long as possible. Sometimes, even if a chiropractic physician is applying the correct applications and analysis of the neurology, you still may not hold an adjustment as quickly or as long as intended. For this reason we will look at the potential Thoughts, Traumas, and Toxins, known as the “Three T’s” in your lifestyle that could be affecting your health. 

Thoughts:

 Thoughts are generated within the brain above and have action upon the body below. Thoughts which are not positively congruent to one’s health will surely affect the physiology. For this reason, a lifestyle based on positivity, optimism, love, and hope are most essential to the ultimate effect of holding a correction. One of the most detrimental instances that a thought can play in the role of healing is in times of self-reflection and self-talk.

 “Placing judgement on oneself and others will only communicate to your body to come into agreement with those thoughts.”

Here are 5 Thought processes that need to STOP right now!

1.   Stop telling yourself that you are sick. It is not in your destiny or genetics to become sick, to have high blood pressure, diabetes, or any other disorder for that matter. Your thoughts are the only thing making it so.

2.  Stop looking in the mirror to focus on your reflection. You need not focus on your weight, your color or appearance. Instead, focus on the attributes that you love about yourself both inside and out. Focus on becoming healthy and along with that comes the weight loss, higher energy, improved mental clarity, and clear skin!

“Optimistic expectations but negative fantasies favored weight loss. Subjects who displayed pessimistic expectations combined with positive fantasies had the poorest treatment outcome.” – Journal of Cognitive Therapy and Research

3.  Stop saying can’t, won’t, and not. Instead rephrase the statement with what you can do,  will do, and are doing.

4.  Stop worrying. Live in the now and not in the past or future. Everything you have done in the past has created who you are now, that cannot be changed. The only way to change the future is by changing the environment you are in NOW. 

5.  Avoid statements like never, always, and impossible. These words are absolutes and are not very specific nor are they real. All things are possible.

 Close your eyes and imagine a time in your life that brought you great happiness. Studies show that just by thinking of these times, your cortisol (stress hormone) goes down and endorphins are released within the brain which facilitate healing. In contrast, studies also show that focusing on negative emotions such as sadness, anger, or worry will increase cortisol levels and tension in the body.

“Stressful daily events were associated with increased cortisol secretion, the magnitude of the effect depending on whether the event was still ongoing and on how frequently a similar kind of event had occurred previously.” – The Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine

Any amount of mental stress can and will eventually spill over into the physical realm. Through the process of neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, your thoughts will literally alter your body’s chemistry and physiology. This means that your brain will begin to harmonize chemical reactions, modify muscular and organ tissue tone, optimize the release of hormones, and deliver an overall balanced state of health.

As you now know, every thought that we create effects our physical well being. When they become part of our habits and character, they undoubtedly create the destiny of our health. Our next blog is focused on Traumas and ways to reduce environmental exposures that may be lowering your ability to hold health. As always…stay humble, give gratitude, and share the love!