Your brain controls how your body feels. Choose to see the positives in a situation and your body will immediately feel better.
Your brain controls how your body feels. If you are scared, angry or happy, your body releases different hormones to help you cope with how you are feeling. If you are always scared, your body will think it needs to defend itself and release the hormones (including adrenaline) your body needs to execute the “flight or fight” response. These hormones gives the body the immediate boost it needs to fight an attacker or to run away — it is a survival mechanism in our body that originated many years ago and the reason our species has survived until today. However, in modern times, we do not face the same fears or challenges of survival that our predecessors faced, yet many of us feel scared, anxious and angry every day for things that are much less critical than facing death from a predator, war or famine. When we feel this way, it engages our fight or flight response in our bodies when we really don’t have to fight or run. This constant heightened state of fear and anxiety is not healthy for the body.
When you are in a constant state of stress, you wear down your body and are prone to getting sick. So don’t hurt yourself by excessively worrying about things you cannot control (i.e. like an upcoming doctor appointment, what your spouse is doing when you are not with them, what will happen tomorrow at work). However, if there are things that are causing you stress and they are in your control (i.e. like changing your job or decreasing your interaction time with a negative person), then take some action to make the changes you need to do to mitigate this stress. One highly effective skill to reduce stress and anxiety is to not let it bother you (aka mind over matter) however that is a lesson for another time.
What you need to understand right now is that your mind controls how you feel and how you feel affects your body. You can make yourself sick by constantly worrying and feeling anxious. You gain nothing but pain by worrying. Worrying doesn’t make tomorrow’s outcome any better…tomorrow will come rain or shine….and you will survive it, you always do (and you have to remind yourself that you are not going into a battlefield, you are not fighting a lion in the jungle, you are not facing famine)…so lighten up that load on your shoulders. Yes, you need to go to work and deal with many tasks and people you may not like, but you would do it over hunting for food in the wilderness like our ancestors. So put your worries into perspective (they likely are not life or death situations) and try to avoid having your body feel the extreme fears of survival like our ancestors did. Put into perspective the challenges of modern life and understand that our modern challenges are not so life-threatening…and worrying about them does not change the outcome. You need to remind yourself that you will get through it, you will survive the day, you always do. Therefore, do not fear it and try to enjoy the day! Your body will immediately feel better, grow stronger and will thank you for it!
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