Psychosomatics: the influence of thought on the body

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

We put a lot of effort into avoiding stress, lowering blood cholesterol, unclogging clogged arteries, increasing lung capacity, and avoiding the effects of overeating and air pollution.

You can spend a lot of money and time trying to extend your life, making it healthier and more active. Read the latest health publications, drink vitamins, eat healthy foods, jog and go to sports clubs.

But let's try to figure out what role our thinking plays in all this. How can something as intangible as thought affect such dense matter as the body?

It is from this influence that psychosomatic medicine comes. Of course, not all ailments are of psychological origin. Illness can overtake us no matter how we think, feel and act. However, the way we think can have a significant impact on our health.

Thinking affects:

• the amount of stress experienced
• health behavior

Obviously, if you eat better, exercise well, sleep enough, avoid smoking and other drugs, and take precautions against sexually transmitted diseases, you will greatly increase your chances of staying healthy. If your thoughts affect your health in these two key areas, then it follows that increasing constructive thinking can improve your health.

How thoughts affect your body

Why can your heart beat faster when you have to perform in public? Why can we blush when we are embarrassed? Why can our muscles tense when asked to do something we don't like?

Emotions include a psychological response as preparation for certain actions. When frightened, the body is mobilized to flee; when we are angry, our body prepares for an attack; when we are in a state of depression, the body is mobilized (or demobilized) to evade action; and when happy, it reorients itself to be more active.

If we could assess the state of the body in moments of strong excitement, we would note the changes occurring simultaneously: muscle tension, increased heart rate, decreased salivation, release of sugar and adrenaline into the blood, increased blood clotting, blood outflow from the skin, especially on the hands and legs.

All these reactions have evolved in the course of evolution to prepare a living organism for action in critical situations.

Rapid breathing and heartbeat make it possible to act more energetically. Muscle tension mobilizes them for intense exertion. The release of sugar into the bloodstream provides an immediate flow of energy, and the flow of adrenaline increases the activity of other important systems.

In times of danger, the body does not need an inflow of energy to the digestive organs, which supply energy of "long-term action"; moments like this need a quick burst of energy. The increase in blood clotting and its outflow from the surface of the body reduces blood loss in the event of injury.

The influence of thinking on physiological processes is so great that there is no need to prove it using sophisticated laboratory equipment.

All that is needed for this is to take a close look at yourself. When we are excited - for example, before a performance or an important exam - our fingers become colder (you can check this by placing your hands on our temples). We can break out in cold sweat and feel dry mouth (because salivation is part of the digestive process, which stops at this time). Changes in the rhythm of heartbeat and breathing can often be noted. We can also note that as a result of muscle tension, coordination of movements has deteriorated and we are not able to draw an even line. All these changes are caused by just disturbing thoughts. By changing our thinking, we can change our reactions.

Thoughts can cause not only fear, but also anger, along with its characteristic physiological reactions. Please note that when a person is angry, the body tenses, the movements become sharp, the voice is loud, the face turns red and sometimes the hands and teeth clench.

What caused this stimulation of the whole body? They are just thoughts, caused by the interpretation of someone's words (which in themselves are just expressions of thoughts).

Someone said something, that is, he produced sound waves, which in themselves are harmless until they are interpreted by the person to whom these words were intended.

Immediately after that, response thoughts of this kind will appear in his brain: “How dare he talk about me like that! I will make him take his words back, no matter what it costs me! These thoughts evoke intense emotions, complemented by appropriate physiological responses. If you are used to constantly reacting in this way, then you are probably putting your body under a fair amount of stress and can cause it much more harm than your opponent.

The tendency to blush when embarrassed is a highly visible physiological response. When we interpret something as “shameful,” blood rushes to the face. People rarely blush alone, in their room. It is a social reaction caused by sensitivity to the opinions of others.

If thoughts and interpretations cause sadness or depression, muscles lose tone, movements slow down, speech sometimes becomes so quiet and devoid of any intonation that it is difficult to understand. These physiological responses prepare the body for passivity and inaction - states caused by thoughts of helplessness, hopelessness, and weakness.

The influence of consciousness on health and illness

We have established that there is an inherent intimate connection between thoughts, emotions and physiological reactions. In this regard, it would be strange if thoughts did not affect our health in any way. An example is the effect of mood and emotional states on blood sugar levels in people with diabetes. Blood sugar regulation does not only depend on a balanced diet, exercise, and insulin injections. Irritation, stress, conflict with others, and sudden changes can cause sudden changes in blood sugar levels, which can lead to diabetic coma, insulin shock, and chronic complications such as heart problems, kidney disease, or loss of vision.

There is nothing imaginable about the nature of psychosomatic disorders. Psychosomatic disorders are not imaginary illnesses at all. These are real physiological disturbances caused or exacerbated by prolonged stress, which may be caused by a maladaptive way of thinking. Psychosomatic medicine does not deny the influence of other factors, such as heredity, diet, physical overload and toxic or contaminated environment, but adds psychological stress to them as another important factor influencing the disease. Psychological factors, like any others, can, to varying degrees, affect the health (or illness) of each individual person.

Numerous studies confirm that the way we think can affect a person's physical condition. It has been fully proven that people who are prone to pessimism, have low self-esteem, who believe that they are controlled by events, who perceive difficult situations with fear, who do not have significant achievements in their life baggage, are more likely to suffer from headaches, diseases of the stomach and spine than others.

How constructive thinking improves health

Research provides more detailed insight into how thinking affects health.

As a rule, those with constructive thinking report fewer common painful symptoms than representatives of the destructive type. They are less likely to suffer from respiratory infections, skin diseases, diarrhea, stomach pain, headaches, constipation and back pain. Those students who were distinguished by good constructive thinking were much less likely to seek help from the student polyclinic. In addition, they were more satisfied with their health, were less likely to get into dangerous situations, missed classes due to illness, and had fewer problems with overeating and using drugs and alcohol - evidence that they led a healthier lifestyle.

Not surprisingly, among the components of constructive thinking, emotion management is more closely associated with susceptibility to common painful symptoms. Those who do not handle their emotions well report many more symptoms than people who are emotionally balanced.

Personal superstitions also have a big impact on health problems. This is likely due to the fact that personality superstitions are closely associated with depression.

Thinking affects health in another way - through its influence on lifestyle and attitudes towards health. Well-organized people also suffer less from painful symptoms, although they are somewhat inferior to emotionally balanced people. However, they are even better at controlling destructive behaviors such as overeating. Disorganized people often struggle with their binge habit due to poor self-discipline.

This relationship between destructive thinking and unhealthy lifestyles is understandable. People who have low self-esteem, who are convinced that they are unable to influence their lives in any way, or who do not strive for a promising goal are not inclined to take care of themselves. Why all these troubles if I am still a worthless person and my actions cannot change anything?

People who think destructively may not go to the dentist for years, not take care of good nutrition, not get enough sleep and not exercise. They tend to seek short-term gratification and ignore the long-term consequences, which leads to binge drinking, smoking, drug addiction, erratic eating habits and unreasonable risks such as neglect of protective equipment during sexual intercourse. And when this behavior leads to illness, they may not be able to take constructive action to increase the chances of recovery.

How constructive thinking affects heart disease and cancer

The most dramatic evidence for the health effects of constructive thinking comes from killer diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Here again we notice how certain forms of destructive thinking, inducing the corresponding emotional states, contribute to the emergence of certain diseases. Intense and prolonged anger can increase your risk of heart disease.

Helplessness and depression, on the other hand, can weaken the immune system, making a person more susceptible to infections and possibly cancer. In both cases, there is a growing body of evidence that constructive thinking not only can help prevent the risk of disease, but is also an effective adjunct to its cure.