You Are Your Best Healer (part 2) - Mind

How our emotion affects our body?
Many things in our life could disrupt our emotional state, which could lead to feelings of stress, sadness, anxiety, or even depression. Many of us don’t realize even when nothing dramatic happens in our life, just regular busy schedule could also cause stress, which we may not realize since we could be so used to it. Often, many of us try to avoid knowing or acknowledging our emotional state. But avoidance is not really the resolution because those poor emotional states are affecting our body. Eventually, we will start experiencing physical symptoms.
 
These poor emotional feelings could put our body in a sympathetic state constantly. Sympathetic nervous system is an involuntary autonomic nervous system which stimulates our body’s response to flight and fight. Our body speeds up, tenses up, and becomes more alert, and possibly shuts down the functions that are not critical to survival:

• Increases muscles contraction. Long term muscle contraction could fatigue our muscles and cause soreness.
• Increases the heart rate
• Dilates bronchial tubes
• Dilates pupils
• Decreases stomach movement and secretions
• Decreases saliva production – saliva helps to moist the food we eat and also produces some enzymes to break down starch.
• Releases adrenaline
• Increases the conversion of glycogen to glucose for muscle energy
• Decreases in urinary output

 
Then eventually, our body’s immune system could be weakened. We will be more likely to get colds and other infections during emotionally difficult times. Also when we are feeling stressed, anxious, or upset, we may not take care of our health as well as we should. We may not feel like exercising, eating nutritious foods, or taking supplements or medicine that our doctor prescribes. We may abuse alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs. Some of physical conditions could be consequence of poor emotional health include:

• Soreness of your back or back pain
• Chest heaviness/tightness or pain
• Extreme fatigue
• General aches and pains
• Headache or migraine
• High blood pressure
• Insomnia (trouble falling asleep or staying asleep)
• Lightheadedness or feeling cloudiness of your head (hard to focus or think)
• Heart Palpitations
• Shortness of breath
• Stiff neck
• Spontaneous sweating
• Upset stomach
• Change in appetite
• Weight gain or loss

 
How our body affects our emotion?
Our mind and body cannot be easily separated. Have we noticed minor things like toothache or headache, can make us feeling cranky or irritable. The bottom line is that none of us likes to be in the poor physical state. It is just un-pleasant to feel discomfort on our physical body.
 
What to do to balance our mind and body?

• Things to quit or avoid:
  • Smoking – many smokers may think smoking helps them to destress. In reality, it actually could cause many physical conditions such as heart disease, excessive thick yellow mucus which could lead to coughing, lose taste buds on your tongue which could make you not able to taste delicious food. The smell of cigarette could be a turn-of on your partners from wanting to have intimacy.  Although quitting smoking takes a lot of will power, think of the benefit and the positive changes it will bring into your life.
  • Having excessive alcohol – too much of alcohol could affect our nervous system, our digestion, and cause a lot of burden on our liver function. Although I do recommend moderate wine which could help with our blood circulation and destress us.
• Things to be adopted into our life:
  • Exercise – doesn’t only control our body weight, but it also stimulates our body to release a hormonal chemical called endorphins. Endorphins can reduce our perception of pain and also trigger positive feelings in our body.
  • Healthier diet – Do we know that 90% of the happiness hormone called serotonin is actually produced in our gut? Serotonin in our body is believed to help regulate mood and social behavior, appetite and digestion, sleep, memory and sexual desire and function. Keeping a balanced diet and bacteria in our digestive system could help maintain a healthy amount of serotonin in our body.
  • Tea to help you destress or relax
    • Lemon Balm
    • Agarwood Tea
  • Tea to help you to boost up your mood (please consult with your primary care doctors)
    • St. John’s wort – avoid being under the sun if you are drink it all the time.
  • Supplements to boost up positive mood (please consult with your primary care doctors)
    • 5HTP - nutrition serotonin precursor
    • phosphatidylyserine – helps the brain stem regrow
    • melatonin – helps you sleep better
  • Meditation 
  • Regular acupuncture sessions 
  • Regular massage sessions 
  • Take a bath with Epsom Salt - very good for relaxing muscles 
  • Some essential oils are also very good for relaxation or anxiety 
    • lavender - Please do not use it if you have breast or ovarian cancer because it affects your estrogen level 
    • sandlewood - very good for calming your mind and relaxation. You could also burn sandlewood incense

These are just some suggestions for your reference. There are many other ways of balancing our mind and body. Just be mindful of how our body feels. When we feel tension, or pain, our body is trying to let us know. At the time like time, it is important to pay attention to our breathing. Often mindful breathing could also relax us and help our mind and body being connected.