THE MIND AND THE BODY ARE ONE!

It is commonly believed that the mind and the body are two separate entities that are completely independent of each other. Is that really true though?

Have you ever had a sleepless night before an interview for your dream job? Or felt an immense sense of calm after delivering a speech successfully? If you have experienced these phenomenon before, you probably have experienced the mind and body connection.

Contrary to common belief, the mind and body are closely connected to one another. That is why, the negative and positive emotions that we experience, have a physiological component to them. The mind and body connection is the reason why you feel a pit in your stomach and sweaty palms before a math exam that you are anxious about. Just imagine getting a glimpse of your crush or significant other after so many months of lockdown. I’m pretty sure that even the thought of seeing them after so long makes you feel butterflies in your tummy. This is another proof that the mind-body connection is very real.

Unfortunately, Mental health isn’t given as much importance as physical health in our country. The main reason for this is that people believe the mind and body to be separate entities that are completely independent of one another. This is a huge misconception. One’s mental-health affects his or her physical health and vice-versa.

Research has proven that experiencing significant stress is one of the main causes of cancer. Research has also proven that cancer patients who possess a strong will to live and get better are more likely to actually recover or at-least live a better life even while battling the illness.

What is stress? Stress is our bodies biological response to a perceived threat. Stress responses can manifest in the forms of fight or flight. A fight response refers to confronting the stressful reaction head-on whereas, a flight response refers to avoiding the stressful situation and fleeing from it. A fight or flight response consists of a mix of cognitive, emotional and physiological reactions.

More often than not, we tend to assume that a fight or flight response is triggered by an external event. However, most of the time, the way in which we perceive an external event or the meaning which we give to the external event is the actual reason for our fight or flight response.

As I mentioned earlier, physical health problems are considered more important than mental health problems in our society. Often times, unpleasant emotions and thoughts that we have are ignored, suppressed or just expected to go away on their own. Unpleasant emotions or thoughts are often the first signals we receive that convey to us that something might be wrong. However, we tend to ignore those and only pay attention when we start experiencing a physiological symptom.

Our society is partly responsible for this because we have been brought up with the notion that “Feeling emotions is a sign of weakness”. Especially so for men because a man who accepts and expresses his emotions openly is considered less manly than others who deny their emotions and emotional needs. Research shows that rates of depression, mood disorders and anxiety is higher in men. This maybe the reason for the same.

Being aware and accepting of your emotions is an important part of being a healthy person. People who are emotionally healthy use healthy ways to cope with their emotions and don’t shy away from accepting them.

Sometimes, significant life events like moving to a new city, losing a job, getting married or divorced, getting a promotion can temporarily disrupt emotional balance and that is completely normal. However, when your emotions start getting the better of you, start hampering your everyday functioning and begin manifesting themselves in the form of physiological symptoms, attention needs to be paid to them.

A lot of times, after medical investigations, doctors fail to find an organic, biological cause for some physiological symptoms. They may prescribe medication to control these symptoms, which may do away with these symptoms in the short-run. However, there is a high possibility that another physiological symptom with no organic cause may occur again soon.

This is an indication that the problem is deeper than it looks. The problem is not actually physiological, but psychological and emotional.

Back-pain, change in appetite, diarrhea, constipation, excessive sweating, sexual problems, a dry mouth, feeling exhausted often, sleep problems, high-blood pressure, palpitations, sudden change in weight etc. are some physiological symptoms that may point at imbalance or problems at the emotional level.

Accepting your emotions, coping with them in a healthy manner, being grateful for the good things in life, having an optimistic mindset, identifying irrational thoughts and core beliefs that we hold and working actively towards changing them to more rational and realistic ones can help maintain good mental and physical health and over-all well-being.

The first step to embark on this journey is to accept that the mind and body are a single, intimately connected entity rather than being two separate entities that are independent of each other.