Mind-Body Connection

My Friend!

Welcome to a new HEAL nugget. For many of us, weekends are the only day of the week where we can properly give a pass to the indulgences of the mind and the body. Be it that Netflix series we've been waiting to binge watch or that unhealthy meal we've been waiting to binge on. However, if you glance at your own experience at the end of any such 'cheat day', you'll realize that no indulgence ever remains isolated to the mind or the body. Netflix binges tend to end with a feeling of tiredness and unhealthy meals often later result in bad moods.

Why does this happen? And more importantly, how can we understand the 'Mind-Body Connection' better to lead a happier life? Let's explore this topic which is as under-recognized as it is crucial!

Your Mind and Body Are Connected If you recall a time when you were physically unwell, you might remember that those were the days when you didn't feel as sociable or 'in the mood'. Well, your experience isn't just limited to you. In a cross-cultural experiment, researchers found out that the same body parts get activated when people around the world feel specific emotions. In other words, all of us feel warmth in the face when we're angry. And all of us physically experience cold feet when we have, as the popular English phrase about feeling anxious goes, 'cold feet'. While this experiment talks about everyday emotions, it forms the foundation of something very critical.

Your Mental Health and Physical Health Are Connected If you're experiencing any mental stress today, just bring a little awareness to your body and you might notice the shoulder or the neck or the jaw tighter than usual. Tightening of the physical muscles is a common mirror of stress. And then, if you consciously relax those tight parts of the body, it might magically start to relieve you of stress and instate calmness. Why does this happen? Evolutionarily, stress was an adaptation to inform our forefathers that there's a survival threat around. And in survival threats, you get ready to fight or run. Hence the muscles become stiffer and the heart pumping increases to give the body the short-term burst of energy it needs. Such short term bursts, however, lead to long-term damage. Unfortunately, in today's time, the mind too often gets stressed at very small (and inconsequential for survival) things. This leads to quick muscle and heart wear & tear. No wonder as anxiety is growing as a global epidemic, so is chronic body pain and heart diseases.

Your Happiness and Longevity are Connected The above is also the reason why the famous book 'Ikigai' saw that the Japanese people they met on a particular island had 2 distinct characteristics: They Were Both Happier and Lived Very Long. In fact, research after research shows how people who are unhappy or depressed have shorter lifespans, sometimes by more than a decade. Over the past few years, the link between the stress we take and our proclivity for lifestyle diseases (including cancer) has only grown stronger. Your Habits and Well-Being are Connected

If this theoretical background feels interesting, you might wonder, how can you put this knowledge to use. Here are some ways (which hopefully become habits) with which its possible to bring health and happiness to everyday life:

1. Smile Wider and More Often: Take a few moments to have a wide-smile and while keeping that smile engage with an unpleasant or stressful thought. If you're like everybody else I've met in workshops and courses, you'll realize the immense difficulty in doing so. Why? Because the mind can't do what the body doesn't mirror. With that smile on, if you were to think of something pleasant, you'll notice it is much easier to engage. For when we smile on the outside, we mirror a pleasant inner state. All those times when our grandparents wanted us to smile - turns out it wasn't just for them but for us.
   

2. 1-Minute Body Awareness: Everytime you're feeling stressed or anxious, take a few moments to scan your body. More often than not, you'll experience tightness or discomfort that would ordinarily escape your consciousness. As soon as you relax your body, you'll start to notice you are much more in control of your emotions and ready to face the next moment with greater calmness. If our mind can tense up our body, our bodily awareness can tense down our mind!
   

3. Breath Deeper: One of the manifestations of a stressed mind is quick-short breaths. So what should we do? The exact opposite! Taking deeper slower breath consciously relaxes the body bringing us back to a state of ease. An exercise that works no matter who you are and what the stress may be!

Finally and perhaps the most important exercise is to keep telling yourself that you only have so many short-term bursts available in life and every one of them takes with it a part of your health. Unfortunately, since we've become habitual to stress, there is a conscious need to work on reversing the habits of the mind. Fortunately though, we have a tool to do that. One that is much more in our control. The body. For if you take care of the body, you'll take care of the mind. And together they'll take care of you. Shishir Arya