2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
“Explain to me how the psyche affects health, otherwise I do not understand this connection,” one woman writes to me.
I see that she sincerely wants to understand, but does not see the connection. Therefore, the phrase "all diseases from the nerves" can bounce off a person like a ball when playing squash, precisely because he does not understand its meaning and does not see the connection between the mental and the physical. And she is. And now there is a lot of scientific evidence on this issue. I will try to explain this connection in this article and describe the algorithm for the effect of emotions on the body.
You know, a person has two types of worldview - kaleidoscopic and mosaic.
So, with a kaleidoscopic perception, a person sees events that, according to his idea, are not connected with each other in any way - he does not have a system through which he perceives what is happening. And a person with a mosaic perception - on the contrary - has this system and all the events that happen to him in his understanding are somehow connected with each other. He understands some connections, some - no, but he knows for sure that some kind of picture should emerge and one element is somehow tied to another.
The human body works in exactly the same way, in which thought influences feeling, which, in turn, affects the body. How does this happen? That is, everything is connected in our body.
Our entire body is an integral system. And the integrity of this system is ensured by balance - that is, the calm and correct work of all its elements.
Each element of the system must both strain and relax. This is how all the organs in our body work. A heart that drives blood: tension - relaxation. Muscles that contract and relax with any movement. The diaphragm, which, like a piston, opens and compresses our lungs as we inhale and exhale. But what can I say - wakefulness and sleep - emphasize the need for alternating tension and relaxation in a person's life.
What happens when this balance is upset and everything else happens?
Imagine that you are under stress. You are not doing well at work and with your family, and you are nervous about loans or a project in progress. Likewise, the children do not obey and another quarrel with her husband.
What happens in your body under stress? Your blood pressure rises, your muscles contract, a lot of adrenaline is produced, your breathing quickens, and a number of other changes occur.
Why is this happening?
The story is that stress for a person is a danger to which he reacts instinctively. From our ancient ancestors we inherited a number of biological reactions that at that time ensured their survival. That is, if a beast attacked an ancient man thousands of years ago, then the reaction in his body should have helped him protect himself. Increased pressure, adrenaline injection, muscle tension signaled the mobilization of the whole organism and the person was ready to act. Either attack, or run away, or pretend to be dead - freeze. It took a couple of seconds to make a decision and the body had to go into protection mode instantly.
We also react to stress in the same way. Only our stress is different, more civilized or something.
But, be that as it may - who knows, perhaps the unpaid loan frightens us now more than the wild beast of ancient man.
In general, we figured out the occurrence of the reaction.
The mobilization response is very important - it allows us to muster our strength and act.
But what's the problem then?
The bottom line is that when the mobilization reaction becomes chronic, that is, we are constantly stressed, it starts to harm us. Imagine that you get up in the morning and understand that the debt has not been paid, the job is bad, and there are quarrels with your husband. You get up the next day - the same thing. And so - for many, many days. If the situation does not change, or you do not change your attitude towards it, you get stuck in the same type of reaction of chronic stress. That is, you have mobilized your strength to somehow react to the problems, and you are stuck and do nothing.
The ancient man could, I repeat, defuse his tension in several ways - attack, run away, pretend to be dead. A person attacked only when he realized that he could win. He ran away when he realized that he could run away. But he pretended to be dead when neither the first nor the second option worked. What is this option - to pretend to be dead? It was assumed that the predator will not notice or will not be interested in its prey, since it considers that it is dead - it does not move.
This is how our ancestor often escaped from danger. But then this tension subsided. He would come to his cave and relax.
When modern man is in a state of chronic stress, this means that he is constantly mobilized and behaves as if he is standing in front of a predator all the time. When a stressful situation or his attitude towards it does not change, the stress reaction becomes habitual and it is already difficult for a person to relax. He got used to being in constant tension.
What happens to the body when the muscles are constantly constrained, the pressure is increased, the circulation of blood and lymph is impaired? The body is malfunctioning … An organ is not adequately supplied with oxygen due to overstrain of certain muscle groups, for example. Somewhere nerve endings are overly pinched for the same reason. If this situation continues for a long time, psychosomatic illness is a matter of time.
More than 10 years ago, I myself faced such a phenomenon as psychosomatics.
At that time, I was in constant stress - problems at my unloved job, a professional crisis, and the crisis in the country - all this caused daily stress. Over time, I found that I feel pain when I eat. I literally could not "digest" the situation I was in. But then, I had no idea about psychosomatics and that my psychological state is the cause of the disease.
I passed all kinds of tests, visited different doctors, which led me to the diagnosis - esophageal reflux. This inflammation is caused by the fact that the sphincter, which is located between the esophagus and the stomach, does not function properly and allows the acidic environment of the stomach to pass into the alkaline environment of the esophagus. Thus, inflammation of the esophagus arose - the acid literally corroded this organ from the inside.
But why did this arise against the background of the fact that all organs themselves are healthy?
A characteristic feature of psychosomatics is that with healthy organs, their functioning is disrupted. Which, in fact, arose in my case.
As I have already described the algorithm for the onset of psychosomatic diseases, the reason lies in chronic stress and in the fixed reaction of stress to circumstances, which, in turn, led to the tension of all systems and the disruption of the healthy interaction of organs with each other. In my case, the "extreme" was the esophagus. Someone else will have a different organ. It all depends on the individual characteristics of the organism, genetic predisposition and other factors.
Where it is thin, there it is torn
I will note an important point. Even if you realized that your disease is of a psychogenic nature, it will still have to be treated and changed from two sides. And from the side of the body. And from the side of the psyche. If there is inflammation, for example, then psychotherapy alone cannot change the situation, because it has already “entered” the material world and has affected the body. This means that you need to heal the body and, in parallel, work with your mental state, so as not to trigger the painful pattern again.
After all, if we cure the disease of the body, and the chronic tension remains, then the hour is not far off when the disease will knock on us again. After all, we have not removed the root cause. Removing the root cause is either changing the situation that leads to tension, or changing your attitude towards it - that is, learning not to strain. So, if we do not remove the root cause, we will have a relapse.
Likewise, on the other hand, if we, realizing the psychogenic cause of the disease, immediately rush to change our attitude, completely ignoring the fact that the body has already begun to hurt, then no matter how we change our attitude, physical pain will not allow us to do it effectively and we will slip into a state of stress again.
Therefore - you need to work from both sides.
So, to summarize
The stress response to danger is the normal response of the body. She mobilizes all resources to cope with a difficult situation
The problem arises when this reaction becomes chronic. It is then that certain functions of the body can be disrupted, which, in turn, can lead to disease
If this happened and you know that the cause is chronic stress, then you need to treat it with medication - that is, by a doctor, and psychologically - by a psychologist.
How to avoid chronic stress in your life? How to prevent chronic stress from developing? How to relieve stress?
1. Sleep is the best medicine … It can be difficult to fall asleep during a stressful period, but you need to know that sleep is the best time to relax. Therefore, if you cannot sleep, you are excessively overworked, nervous or you have insomnia, try to relax an hour before bedtime to get into the kingdom of Morpheus without any problems: take a hot bath, watch a relaxing movie, do not read anything that makes you angry or annoying, meditate, go for a relaxing massage. In short, find your own way to relax, or at least not to strain extra. Then there is a chance that you will fall asleep peacefully. And this in a state of overvoltage is no longer a little.
2. Get more fresh air and breathe deeply. Deep breathing can often reduce stress. But you need to breathe correctly. In a stressful situation, a person's breathing is shallow, which gives a signal to the body that it is in danger, you need to run, defend. When we inhale deeply and exhale deeply, we kind of inform the body that everything is in order, you can relax.
3. Warm bath, massage - will also help us to relax, as it will create a feeling of comfort and safety. In a warm bath, we will be able to feel like in the womb, where we were not in any danger, and massage will help to remove body clamps. So the blood will quickly carry oxygen to those organs that are especially affected during this period.
4. Sports training - running, yoga, fitness … All this will allow you to work with the body. It so happened that the body took a blow, the cause of which was our psychological state. Therefore, the body needs to be restored and help it acquire additional resources. So, sport also helps to release clamps, improves blood flow and restores the correct pattern well: tension - relaxation. After sports, you will feel relaxation anyway. And, if you have a problem with this in everyday life, then sports will definitely help.
5. Working with thinking. Of course, in parallel you need to work with him. If we have not succeeded in changing the situation yet, then we need to change our attitude towards it. Yes, it happens that we become hostage to events and, except for accepting for a while with what is happening, there is nothing else to do. What to do? After all, what's the point of being nervous if we know that the situation that annoys us will remain unchanged for a certain period. The only thing that remains to be done is to change the attitude towards her.
Of course, all these questions are well worked out in psychotherapy, because each story is individual and it would be nice to find an approach specifically to yours, but you can also do a lot on your own.
Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist, psychologist and neurologist, a former prisoner of a German concentration camp, author of the book Say to Life: “YES!”, Said: “There is always time between a stimulus and a response to it. During this time, we choose how to react. And this is where our freedom lies."
It is important to always remember that we cannot influence the situation we are faced with, but we can definitely influence the attitude towards it.
At least - learn not to panic, learn to slow down and relax, learn to regulate the intensity of your emotional reaction. Likewise, we can definitely change the focus of our attention if we note exactly how obsession with a certain issue affects our state and well-being.
Sometimes these techniques are enough to wait out the troubled times and not undermine your health.
Let the phrase that was written on the ring of King Solomon support you in times of crisis:
Recommended:
Fear Of Loss: How Destructive Does It Affect Our Lives?
Each of us has some fears and phobias. And this is normal, since such states are necessary for us in order to warn us about a certain danger, to help protect ourselves in time. They are not afraid of anything - this is really not the norm. But fears are beneficial only if they work in an adequate manner.
3 Illusions That Undermine Our Mental Health
One day a miracle will happen to us, and we will learn to live with doubt. We all want to get some guarantees from life, but we forget one truth: life does not give any guarantees, but provides as many opportunities as we want. We are afraid of change because we are not ready for it.
Do Our Beliefs Affect Our Feelings?
How do our beliefs affect feelings and how they are expressed? Do feelings change under the influence of beliefs? Our beliefs affect our feelings. A person interacts with the world through sensations - this is how we receive signals from real life (through eyes, ears, scent, etc.
Say A Word About A Poor Parent Or What We Bring To Our Relationship With Our Children From Our Childhood
Our ideas about the upbringing of children stem not so much from pedagogical and psychological literature as from our childhood experience. From those relationships that we developed with our own parents. We can relate to this in different ways:
Our Future Is In Our Hands As Well As In Our Thoughts. Affirmations
What is affirmation? Affirmation is a short statement phrase that, when repeated many times, fixes the required image or setting in the subconscious of a person. Affirmations use the power of positive thinking to help us achieve our goals and are like little reminders within ourselves.
