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5 Things You Need To Know About Your Mind-Body Connection

You accomplish your health and wellness goals by harnessing the power of your mind-body connection. Communication between your body and mind is essential for both your physical and mental health.

Medicine is based on the observable, measurable, reported physical symptoms of a patient who needs help. Still, this physical-chemical-biological view of medicine ignores the importance of the psychological effect that our thoughts can have on our health.

What Is the Mind-Body Connection?

The mind-body connection points to the relationship between the physical body and the thoughts, feelings, and mental processes within the mind. The concept suggests that mental and emotional states can affect physical health and vice versa. Both traditional healing practices and modern medicine have explored this idea. For example, meditation, yoga, and acupuncture promote wellness by balancing the mind-body connection. These techniques can help better manage chronic stress, depression, and anxiety. Each can negatively affect physical health, including increasing the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and other illnesses.

The mind-body connection highlights the importance of understanding and addressing physical and mental health concerns. By recognizing the link between our mental and physical states, we can better care for our overall well-being. That may involve engaging in practices that promote relaxation, stress reduction, positive thinking, and seeking medical treatment when necessary. By paying attention to our physical and mental health, we can achieve greater harmony and balance within ourselves, leading to a healthier and happier life.

emotional eating

5 Things You Need To Know About Your Mind-Body Connection

We are already well aware of how stress can affect our health. Higher cortisol can lead to poor cardiovascular health, for example. But our mind decides whether a situation should be perceived as stressful.

Managing stress, for those who know about the mind-body connection, is as easy as deciding not to be stressed out by what happened. Without the mind thinking that what happened was stressful, the body can relax, and the high blood pressure, etc. disappears.

When discussing the mind-body connection, we need to know that our emotions are somewhere between the mind and the body and should not be ignored. We’ve talked about trusting your gut because your body senses fear before your mind does.

In our waking days, we encounter a stimulus (a person, event, or conversation), and our body takes in information from our senses. Our gut (home of the gut instinct) makes a judgment call about the input from the senses and decides if it is safe or unsafe. Then our gut sends the information to the brain where we think about what happened and how we want to respond.

Five Ways to Improve Communication Between Your Mind and Your Body

Let’s examine five things you need to know about the mind-body connection to harness your total health potential.

1. Understanding how to use the mind-body connection can heal chronic pain

Dr. John Sarno, author of Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection, says the mind-body connection is vital in managing chronic back pain. Suppressed emotions, especially anger, can cause back pain. Dr. Sarno recommends being aware of your emotions and seeking to understand them is a good step to healing the emotional pain that you are storing in your body.

Researchers in the journal Holistic Nursing Practice have some advice for healthcare workers treating patients in pain. ‘Not understanding the patient’s past pain experiences, current emotional state, and personal and cultural meaning of pain can greatly decrease the health care provider’s ability to assess and treat the patient’s chronic pain.’

2. Suppressed emotions cause bodily symptoms

Sigmund Freud said that numbness or pain in the body can be the effect of a ‘subconscious process in which painful emotions were repressed and then discharged physically. He thought that the symptoms were symbolic and represented a discharge of emotional tension. It was his idea that the process of repression was a defense against the painful emotions. ‘

The neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot discovered in the late 1800’s that patients who suffered from sudden limb paralysis could be cured by being hypnotized. This was evidence that the mind could control the body’s experience of sensations.

3. You can improve your mind-body connection with exercises

You can do a few simple exercises to help increase the power of your mind-body connection. Here are a few things that you can do to help your mind-body awareness:

  • Progressive muscle relaxation
  • Body balance training
  • Massage
  • Guided imagery meditation
  • Relaxation breathing
  • Meditation
  • Yoga
  • Tai Chi

Other things that help include having healthy outlets for emotions, awareness of emotions, and having a spiritual connection.

4. Awareness leads to the ability to control the mind-body connection

The first step to understanding the mind-body connection and its power is to become aware of your body. The feel of your muscles and how you can move is part of that knowledge, but being able to sense the messages you are receiving from your gut and other organs is another.

Begin training yourself to recognize your feelings of hunger. Ask yourself on a scale of one to ten how hungry you are. Pause to listen to your body as you eat your food. After how many bites can you tell that you are no longer hungry?

5. It may be easier to control the body before controlling the mind

Thoughts often come from patterns in our past. For example, how our parents thought of us may be how we think of our children. Thought patterns are harder to force yourself to change than it is for you to control the movements of your body.

An article by the Cleveland Clinic says, ‘Research has shown that when you imagine an experience, you often have similar mental and physical responses to those you have when the event actually happens. For example, if you recall an upsetting or frightening experience, you may feel your heart beating faster, you may begin to sweat, and your hands may become cold and clammy.’

Most people know that they can control their breathing to reduce feelings of stress. Paying attention to the feeling of your breathing and heart rate can help you slow down your respiration rate and manage your body’s response. Rehearsing the feeling of calmness can help us use the mind-body connection to eliminate feelings of anxiety.

mind-body connection

Final Thoughts About Understanding the Importance of the Mind-Body Connection

The mind-body connection emphasizes the importance of addressing your physical and mental health concerns. Doing so can achieve greater harmony and balance within ourselves, leading to a healthier and happier life.

(C) Power of Positivity, LLC. All rights reserved

The Natural High You’ve Never Heard Of (And How to Get It)

There is a growing community of people obsessed with getting this feeling; if you enjoy this euphoric feeling, you might become one of them too. ASMR is something you may have never heard of before, but you have likely experienced the sensation in your body without being able to name or identify it.

ASMR: How To Get The Natural High You’ve Never Heard Of

The term ASMR describes a way to get a happy, tingly, and some say euphoric feeling without sex or drugs, and people are seeking more ways to get this feeling. There are discussion groups, YouTube video channels, and dedicated fans continuously seeking new ways to get this sensation.

Anything from a whispered voice to a crinkling piece of plastic can give you the feeling of ASMR. In this article, we will explore what ASMR is and how you can try to get the feeling for yourself too.

What ASMR Means

how to get high without drugs

You may have never heard of ASMR because it is a fairly recent term that has been used to explain a feeling that has probably been around for as long as humans have been. Let’s look at what ASMR means and why you might want to try to get it.

ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, which is not very descriptive of the sensation that you feel when you get it. The easiest way to describe it is a meditative, pleasurable state that is calming but exciting at the same time. The excitement comes from the sensation that people describe as tingling, chills, or a pleasurable headache that spreads down your spine.

Here is the explanation of the reason for the long name:

  • Autonomous – spontaneous, governing oneself, within or without control
  • Sensory – about the senses or sensation
  • Meridian – signifying a peak, climax, or point of highest development
  • Response – referring to some experience triggered by something external or internal

Have you ever felt chills when someone moves their fingers lightly stroking down your spine? That is the ASMR feeling we are describing. The sensation might end in your neck or shoulders, but it can travel down to your arms and legs also.

This spine-tingling, scalp-tingling, goosebump-raising feeling is described as a gentle mind and body high without using drugs. ASMR is possibly related to the pleasure centers of the brain.

Ever get the ASMR feeling when listening to music? Researchers studying the ecstatic effect that some people get when listening to music found that people who were taking a medication that blocked the opiate receptors in the brain had reduced ability to experience extreme pleasure through music.

wake up same time

How to Get The ASMR Feeling

Triggers for ASMR vary from person to person, but there seems to be a group of external stimuli that are more likely to create the ASMR feeling.

Here are a few common ASMR triggers:

  • Listen to a whispering video with headphones on
  • Getting a haircut
  • Crinkling plastic wrappers
  • Watching Bob Ross
  • The sound of folding paper
  • A light scalp massage
  • Light touch on your back, neck, or shoulders

Search for a few videos online, and you are likely to find several channels to help you try to experience this sensation. Here is a YouTube video of one whisperer who may help you feel what it is like.

Other things you can do to enhance your experience of ASMR:

  • Practice mindfulness
  • Meditate
  • Keep the room temperature cool
  • Avoid medications that reduce the effect of opiate receptors

How ASMR Affects Your Health

Researchers studying ASMR found that it helped relieve some of the symptoms of depression for people, although the effect was temporary. They also found that ASMR reduced symptoms of chronic pain.

They also found that many people who could trigger ASMR had synaesthesia. Synaesthesia is when one sensory pathway is stimulated (as in the sense of hearing) and triggers the sensation in another (as in the feeling of the skin being touched).

The same researchers who studied the effects of ASMR on depression and pain also say ‘Reports of ASMR experiences also appear to share some features with the state of ‘flow,’ which is the state of intense focus and diminished awareness of the passage of time that is often associated with optimal performance in several activities, including sport.’ Enhancing our performance is one great way to use the euphoric feeling that ASMR gives us.

It is possible that in the future, researchers will be able to reliably create an environment that will reliably trigger ASMR in people. That means it could help enhance people’s moods, reduce pain, and enhance concentration.

What Does Your Temper Reveal About Your Personality?

If you’ve ever been told that you have a hot temper, you might wonder what that means about your personality and how others perceive you. Anger is a normal emotion for us to have when we encounter frustration, delay, difficulties, or anything that blocks our progress.

What Does Your Temper Reveal About Your Personality

Anger is usually what we mean when we refer to your temper. People do different things to manage their level of anger.

Anger is almost always a result of you not getting your needs met. When someone is disrespecting your needs, you feel a tightening in the space below your lungs and above your belly button. That gut feeling and other physical signs are the symptoms that your temper is on the rise.

project anger

Symptoms of anger in the body:

  • Tightening in the stomach
  • Skin feels warm with a flush of blood rushing to the surface
  • Perspiration on palms, forehead
  • Muscles begin to twitch and flex
  • Your jaw clenches
  • Your fists clench
  • You stop listening
  • You’ll increase the volume of your voice
  • You lean your head toward your victim
  • You make steady, glaring eye contact

After you experience these symptoms for a while, BOOM! You may find yourself erupting like a volcano at someone if your temper is out of control. Let’s look at the styles of temper and what they reveal about your personality.

Related article: 9 Comebacks For Dealing With a Manipulator

Explosive Temper

Just as the list of symptoms above tends to escalate, so does your temper. Your level of frustration at which you explode is fairly low. People tend to avoid you due to your tendency to react so aggressively with anger.

Ronald and Patricia Potter-Efron, authors of Letting Go of Anger say that there is tremendous research that shows that some people’s brains are not as good at controlling anger as others. The prefrontal cortex of the brain is where anger is controlled and scientists can see lower activity in this area of the brain for some, but not all people.

If you believe that you are the kind of personality with an explosive temper, try to practice counting to 3. Common knowledge used to be that you would count to ten to calm yourself down, but Ronald and Patricia Potter-Efron say that as little as 2 seconds is enough to let the initial anger pass. Go for 3 seconds, just in case.

If this doesn’t work, therapy may be the best solution for an explosive temper personality. Researchers who gave combat veterans with PTSD and anger difficulties 6 weeks of anger management therapy with an in-person counselor and via teleconferencing found that both groups benefitted from the counseling by having fewer personal anger-related difficulties in their lives.

Internal-focused Temper

Self-directed anger is when you focus your temper on yourself. You might call yourself bad names or express your disappointment in your own behavior. Internal-focused anger sounds like this in your mind:

‘You’re so stupid for doing that.’

‘Why did you do that, you idiot”

‘This is never going to work.’

‘Clearly they blame you.’

‘You can’t do anything right.’

Turning anger inward is bad for your self-esteem. To fix this, you need to start questioning ‘Why do I believe that about myself?,’ ‘Who told me that I’m an idiot?,’ and ‘Why would I treat myself that way when I would never do that to another person?’

Related article: 5 Ways to Manage Anger

Avoidant Temper

If you are the type of personality who says ‘I can’t deal with this right now’ and puts on a happy face in spite of your rage, you have an avoidant temper style. Ronald and Patricia Potter-Efron say that women in particular are susceptible to this pattern.

Rather than expressing your anger in a healthy way by saying what you dislike, you smile and deal with things not going your way. To change this long-ingrained style of pleasing people from early childhood, start practicing saying ‘I need you to ____’ without adding ‘I’m sorry but…’ or ‘It’s just that I really was hoping…’

Passive-aggressive Temper

This style of anger is the sarcastic, joking type that is common in funny movies. You might think people would appreciate it more, but it just comes off as back-handed and cruel when you are honest about your feelings but you disguise it just enough to sound like you’re trying to be nice. You aren’t fooling anyone.

The best thing to do here is express your emotions honestly as you already were, but remember that you’re creating a new story by discussing with positive intentions to solve a problem, rather than using anger to achieve your goal.

even-tempered

Irritable Temper

The little things really get to you and it all feels like it’s little lately. If every little thing seems to tick you off, you probably are the type of personality that is irritable fairly often.

The clerk dropped your change on the floor. The barista pronounced your name wrong. You hit every red light on the way. If every little thing seems to go wrong for you and makes you angry, you have an irritable temper.

Some great things you can do to overcome irritibality is remember one thing: We are ALL human and we all make mistakes. Surely someone could be irritated by you, so ask yourself, “how would I feel if I were being treated this same way right now?”.  You’ll quickly cease this type of anger when you expand your perspective on the issue…

(C) Power of Positivity, LLC. All rights reserved

10 Words To Never Say On A First Date

You are on a first date. Everything is going well and suddenly you learn all about your date’s exes, medical background and their emotional roller coaster of a break-up. You have yet to learn something of value about your date, but you have passed the point of TMI and beyond. In a study by the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Arthur Aron researched individuals in new relationships and what brings them closer to establishing other dates. He asked about the subject matters that were great in creating unique dates. Certain controversial topics aid in the process of getting to know each other. When you avoid certain words, and start to share personal views, experiences, and opinions, the interest increases. There are certain words that should be avoided that create doubt, fear, and instability.

Related article: 7 Signs It Won’t Get Past The First Date

Here are 10 words to never say on a first date if you want a second one:

1. Maybe.

This word sounds like someone who has the inability to be decisive. “Maybe” leaves a lot open for suggestions. When you hear someone on a first date answer with “maybe’s” it’s as if they aren’t sure of what they want. You probably want someone who is sure of what they want out of life, or has some nice goal-oriented ideas.

2. Break-up.

No one really wants to hear about your break-ups. They don’t want to hear how horrible the experience was and how you got here. In many cases, you feel as if you are the rebound individual that will pay for that previous relationship. It’s best to just leave the who drama of the past out of the first few dates. Your date definitely does not want to hear about your heartbreaks.

3. Ex.

Exes are past experiences. Leave them in the past. Don’t go around sharing on your first date about what your ex did or didn’t do. Don’t share how you went to the same restaurant. Too much comparison lets your date know that you aren’t ready to move on. You are trying to establish a healthy impression, so bringing up the exes in no way gives you brownie points.

4. Googled.

Being told that you were Googled is a little unnerving. Are you a hacker? Are you obsessive? Research being done before you get to a date is fine, but don’t share it so openly on your first date. Yes, in no way do you want to date a sociopath, but the idea is you made it to the date and that type of sharing doesn’t always go well. No one wants to know that you’ve checked their credit score!

5. PMS.

We’ve come a long way in our society, however hearing about your menstrual cycle is still a no-no on first dates. Men are still a bit squeamish about a woman’s reproductive system. This is one of those words that is too much information on first, second and third dates.

6. Debt.

Money is a very private matter and shouldn’t be discussed on first dates. And, when you over share about your debt, well that’s a disaster in the making. Debt says a lot about you. If that person doesn’t know you, it will create judgment about how you take care of your personal life. It’s best never to bring up what you owe or don’t owe on a first date. It’s also wise not to start asking anyone questions about their salary, expenses or finances in general.

7. Kids.

If you don’t have kids yet and start a date asking how many kids your date wants without even having your first kiss, most likely you will be seen as psychotic. No one wants to feel that they are participating in plan parenthood on the first date. It’s hard to establish comfort and humor on first impressions. Bringing up the subject of a future baby is pure tension.

8. Single.

You are on a date, but you share that you enjoy being single. You are having a blast as a single person. Why bother to plan for a second date. Most certainly your date will see that you don’t need anyone in your life. Continue to enjoy the single life!

9. Diet.

You go out to eat on a date and you start mentioning about your weight and diet. Weight fluctuations and body image is always an uncomfortable subject. There is a time and place to discuss nutrition and its benefits, and it isn’t on your first date, unless you are dating someone who is indeed a personal trainer or a nutritionist.

10. Therapist.

We all go through emotional issues in life. We have been brokenhearted and have returned to normal equilibrium, but to share your therapy sessions on your first date is a turn off. Your emotional stability will be in question. For the most part it will be a rejection. You don’t want to end up the subject of conversation to that person’s therapist, but you will when you don’t call for a second date.

We place a bunch of unnatural expectations when we meet someone for the first time. Find subjects that interest you and call for great intellectual conversations. You get to decide how much you want from this person by showing up and sharing the best parts of you. Dating is difficult, so avoid the negative parts and make it a memorable evening.

Sometimes it takes a heartbreak to shake us awake & help us see we are worth so much more than we’re settling for.” ~ Mandy Hale,The Single Woman: Life, Love and a Dash of Sass 

Doctors Explain How Laughing Literally Changes Your Health

Smiling, joking, and giggling; some of our most joyful moments can be explained by how laughter affects our health. Some people have loud, contagious laughs, some snort, and some titter daintily and cover their mouths.

In the body, laughter is nothing more than a repeated contraction of the diaphragm, located below the lungs. You might laugh at a joke or a funny memory or watching someone fall down on a funny video. These are external stimuli that cause you to react with humor.

Doctors Explain How Laughing Can Change Your Health

Sometimes laughter is something we accidentally do. We have the ability to engage in both voluntary and involuntary laughter. Involuntary laughter is emotionally driven and can come even when we are feeling fear or anger. Involuntary laughter has also been called nervous laughter.

The act of laughing can change your mood quickly, which is one of the ways that doctors explain how laughing can change your health. Negative moods can be changed to positive ones, which are better for our health.

1. Reducing the impact of pain

Cancer Treatment Centers of America uses laughter therapy for their patients who are undergoing treatment for cancer. They explain the therapy and its effectiveness this way:

‘For years, the use of humor has been used in medicine. Surgeons used humor to distract patients from pain as early as the 13th century. Later, in the 20th century, came the scientific study of the effect of humor on physical wellness. Many credit this to Norman Cousins. After years of prolonged pain from a serious illness, Cousins claims to have cured himself with a self-invented regimen of laughter and vitamins. In his 1979 book Anatomy of an Illness, Cousins describes how watching comedic movies helped him recover.’

Related article: 10 Signs Cancer May Be Growing In Your Body

Laugher is a good diversion because patients are unable to focus on their pain while they experience laughter therapy. The positive feelings that laughter gives to cancer patients can last for hours.

2. Heart and blood vessel health

Researchers studying the effects that laughter has on our health say that laughing has beneficial effects on blood pressure and vascular tone. They also say that endorphins are released by the pituitary gland when we laugh.

The endorphins activate opiate receptors that in turn produce nitric oxide. Nitric oxide helps protect the heart cells and it is also responsible for opening the blood vessels.

The nitric oxide produced as a byproduct of laughing can change your health by reducing the accumulation of plaque in artery walls that can lead to heart attack and stroke. Researchers also found that laughing reduced vascular inflammation. The scientists say ‘Mirthful laughter may serve as a useful and important vehicle for the promotion of vascular health.’

3. Improves mental health

Depression, anxiety, and frustration are all negative emotions that have been helped by laughter. If you find yourself experiencing a negative emotion, try laughing off the situation or even laugh at your own reaction. The less you can hang on to negative emotions, the less mental and emotional stress you will have, which is another way that doctors explain how laughing can change your health.

laughing improve mental health

4. Promotes social well-being

People rarely laugh when alone so it seems that in order to get some good laughs, you will need to seek the company of some good-humored friends. Laughter can improve your romantic relationships as well because it indices good feelings which we associate with the person we are laughing with.

Related article: 5 Habits of Deeply Connected Couples

The social nature of laughter means that we are connecting positively to others when we laugh. Meaningful connections with other people are important to complete our total health and happy well-being.

4. Improves immune health

As we have already mentioned, laughter helps with inflammation in the blood vessels. Inflammatory diseases are becoming more widely studied. It is possible that if laughter can be shown to reduce inflammation in blood vessels, it could help with other inflammatory diseases.

Laughing can change your health in other ways that improve your immune health. Research has shown that watching comedy movies can increase the blood levels of interferon-gamma in the male participants in the study.

Interferons are signaling proteins in the body and they are produced to fight off illness. Viruses in particular are susceptible to being killed by the immune-boosting power of interferons. They help the body to activate a host of immune system fighters like macrophages and natural killer cells and they assist in the production of antigens.

Researchers say ‘Interferons have become a line of pharmacotherapy in viral infections, systemic carcinomas, hepatitis B and C, in addition to the development of antiretroviral drugs.’ While a doctor can prescribe a medication to fight your illness, and you should see one if you have health concerns, laughing with friends is an alternative solution to change your health for the better.

(C) Power of Positivity, LLC. All rights reserved

7 Messages From Your Higher Self You Should Never Ignore

Our higher self, intuition, or whatever you prefer to call it, wants us to know certain things in life in order to comfort, guide, and illuminate us in the best possible way. Many people have started awakening to their higher selves recently as the Golden Age continues to unfold, and they’ve started to question everything they once perceived as truth. We can gain access to our higher selves through meditation, yoga, or simply sitting in silence, to name a few ways.

The higher self reveals many truths that we may not have recognized before, so the next time you tune into yourself, remember the following things.

7 Things Your Higher Self Wants You To Know

flow state

1. Don’t forget to love yourself, always.

Loving ourselves opens the door to pretty much everything else in life. If you don’t cultivate self-love, you will have nothing left to share with others, and nothing left to give yourself. If you want to develop positive relationships with others, you must first fill your cup with love so you can attract others who also have their self-love glasses full. Loving yourself doesn’t have to mean acting selfish and being self-absorbed; in fact, loving ourselves is actually selfless, because without this, we would have no energy to help change the world in a positive way.

Your higher self wants you to always love yourself, no matter what happens in life.

2. Meditate as much as you can!

Many studies have proven just how much meditation can heal your life, as well as connect you to your higher self! So, if you have just five or ten minutes in the morning before work, or in the evening before bed, make it a point to tune into your inner world and just notice the awareness and bliss that you feel from this. Meditation doesn’t require anything except your full presence, and willingness to accept whatever comes up during your practice. We connect the best to our higher selves and otherworldly realms during times of peace and quiet, so don’t forget to meditate whenever you have free time; your soul will thank you greatly.

3. You deserve the best in life in every situation.

We often put ourselves in situations we don’t really want to participate in, for whatever reason. Maybe we want to gain acceptance, or not cause a scene, or try to fit in, or something. In reality, though, if you don’t honor your highest self and do what’s best for your soul every day, you are living out of accordance with your true essence. Make sure you tune into your higher self often to figure out what you need in any given moment.

4. You have special gifts.

Never think that you’re anything less than extraordinary. Although mainstream society seems to put people into boxes and encourage the herd mentality, never give up on what makes you unique. Your highest self wants you to explore all of your talents and gifts, and never surrender to “normal,” no matter how easy it seems to do so. Taking the path less traveled may not result in popularity, fame, or wealth, but it will always result in a happy heart and soul, which matters much more in life.

spiritual energy

5. Don’t forget to make time to play!

We have made life so serious that it hurts sometimes. Sure, we have bills to pay, and of course, we have responsibilities to tend to. However, why do children seem to make playtime a priority, and adults make it an option? Nothing in life should ever get in the way of what makes your soul happy, so if you have to schedule playtime in, do it! All work and no play make for a dull, unhappy existence, so enjoy your time here while you can.

6. Turn the negatives into positives.

We can’t get anywhere in life by being negative, so remember to always see the good in any situation. Your higher self wants you to know that you always have guidance and protection, and to not allow yourself to dwell too long in negativity. It will eat away at your soul, so try to remain positive even when it seems difficult.

7. Live and let live.

Sometimes, things just won’t go our way. People will hurt us, we might lose our job, or a relationship may end unexpectedly, but this doesn’t mean we should harbor negative feelings or hold a grudge simply because we didn’t get what we wanted. Life doesn’t give you what you want; it gives you what you need, so try to look at it from the perspective that everything that happens to you will help your higher self in the long run.

(C) Power of Positivity, LLC. All rights reserved
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