Your body is your subconscious mind ~ Candace Pert
When you feel sadness, you shed tears, when you feel fear, your breathing quickens and your gut may tighten. Loss of a loved one can literally cause heartache. The mind-body alliance and its connection to health and well-being has been established as far back as Hippocrates who praised the virtues of mind/body balance as a vital component of good health. Scientific research and the contemporary works of healers like Louise Hay, and Deepak Chopra have shown that the body’s reactions to one’s emotional state and the focus on one’s thoughts can be responsible for illness or wellness of any nature.
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The Brain and Emotion
Communication is established between the brain and the rest of the body through constant movement of hormones, neurotransmitters, and endorphins within the central nervous system, circulatory system and lymphatic systems that links the brain to every one of the massive 37.2 trillion cells in the body !
Within the chemicals that carry messages from the brain to the rest of the body, there are some whose specialty is transporting the imprints of emotion.
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Molecules of Emotion
In the 1980’s, the research of NIH neuroscientist and pharmacologist, Dr. Candace Pert, was responsible for major advancements in the understanding of how emotions and the body are connected. Dr. Pert’s work as the founder of Mind-Body Medicine discovered a link between the activities of neurotransmitters in the brain that carried chemical and electrical codes of emotions (peptides) to locations throughout the body. She named these peptides, ‘molecules of emotion’.
These neuropeptides change in response to feelings we experience. As they carry the chemical and electrical markers of emotions to receptor sites on every cell in the body, they actually change the body’s chemistry. Emotional information delivered from the neuropeptides is stored in these receptor sites.
Pert suggests that , “…unexpressed emotions are literally lodged in the body. The real true emotions that need to be expressed are in the body, trying to move up and be expressed and thereby integrated, made whole, and healed.”
Emotions are a Physical Reality!
An article from a Psychology Today blog post cites research that has shown how the repetitive nature of our thoughts (especially the more damaging negative or self-critical ones) contributes to a feedback loop of negative thinking that can alter brain chemistry and generate physical imbalances such as impaired function and disease.
An out of balance emotional state can reflect in the body as pain, high blood pressure, headaches, hypertension, immune system weakness, cancer or other disease. The field of neuroscience has identified where high stress, sadness, depression, fear and loneliness appear in specific areas of the body through real time body mapping of emotional experiences:
Watch this MRI mapping to see where emotions are experienced in the body
7 Simple Tips for Emotional Well-Being That Can Promote Balance in the Body
- Breathwork is the premiere approach for releasing emotions from the body and resetting the brain.
- Allow held emotions to be released through the feet by walking barefoot on the earth, (especially at the beach) or soaking the feet in Epsom salts and warm water.
- Change your body chemistry by smiling. Laughter and smiling releases endorphins that promote happiness and relaxation.
- Engage in physical exercise to dissipate built up emotional energy and body toxins
- Increase your body’s oxygen levels by breathing deeply for 10 breath cycles. This helps the release of both physical and emotional pain that reduces stress.
- Develop a practice of daily meditation to bring energetic balance to both brain hemispheres and create inner reflective silence to connect with your subconscious mind.
- Use guided imagery and other awareness exercises to access buried emotions and bring them to consciousness.
The Future of Your Emotional Transformation
You have the capability to shift the habitual thoughts that wear grooves in your thinking and keep emotions buried in your body. The interconnected system of your mind and body can become your ally in the pursuit of healing that brings old emotions to consciousness and restores body balance.
The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of the state of your mind
~ unknown
Recommended Reading –
You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett
Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert
