The cells in our body receive information through our skin, the food that we ingest, the air that we breathe and from our perceptions of the environment.
Our reactions to the environment depend on the beliefs gained from our past experiences. We have all had different experiences in life which are why we think differently and have individual personalities. Depending on their perceptions some people find certain situations as scary, while others see them as exciting.
How does our environment effect us?
Our environment is constantly changing around us and we live life from one moment to the next. We can move from happy to sad or from daydreaming to alert almost instantly, our responses adjusting automatically to stimulus from the outside world. Thought changes to chemical and electrical signals that are passed quickly through the nervous system via neurotransmitters that instruct our organs and cells to respond. Happy thoughts release pleasurable endorphins like dopamine and serotonin whereas fear releases defence hormones like adrenaline and cortisol.
If we spend to long feeling fearful and anxious the hormones that are designed to protect us in the short term end up damaging our bodies with diseases like IBS, hypertension, heart disease and chronic illness. If we feel happy we feel great in our minds and body and we tend to be less prone to illness. This indicates that the mind and the body are connected. What we think is directly reflected in our health.
Western medicine has up until recently treated the mind and the body separately ignoring the effect of how we perceive our environment and our health. If you can make yourself ill by thought why can’t you make yourself well by reversing the process? This is a hard concept for many to grasp because we are taught that medicating is the only answer to physical healing. The evidence of mind based healing is there but it’s ignored.
What’s the science?
Your Autonomous nervous system, Endocrine system, immune system and neuropeptide systems communicate with the cells in the body and between themselves. They all respond to suggestions of the mind through the Limbic-hypothalamic system. Hypnotherapy communicates with the hypothalamus which is responsible for memory and acts as the central information exchange between mind and body.
Where does illness come from?
Quite often serious illness follows a trauma, a loss, a long period of stress or a life lived avoiding processing childhood abuse. The long livers in this world are usually happy, stress free individuals who love life and look for the good in the world, not highly stressed individuals.
This sounds well and good but how do we go about improving our health? Eat healthily, exercise regularly, look for the good in the world, relax more, process your past traumas and remove the negative things from your life.