Your body and mind are one!

First, an explanation:

When you have a worrying, anxious mind, your body is anxious too. Your mind and body affect each other, moment by moment. Your body experiences your emotions, but it influences your emotions too.

This dynamic interplay between mind and body is a crucial new understanding of modern psychology. We now realize that being aware of your body can help you to rebalance your emotional life -- even help you to overcome the psychological legacy of trauma!  

And science shows the reverse too. Your mind, the way you think about things, can influence your physical health. For example, the health of your heart can be very sensitive to a habit of hostility.

Note: the following posts are all based on mainstream, peer-reviewed research -- science that's relevant to you as a woman in the second half of life. Science that helps you answer: 'How best can I care for myself?'

Your Mind & Body are Not Separate!

We usually think of the mind and the body as separate, don’t we? That just seems to make sense. 

For example, right now my mind is busy thinking about this email, but my body is busy with something else — digesting breakfast!  

Soon my body will interrupt me, insisting that I get a cushion or visit the washroom. My body has its own plans, and in the end, it usually wins. 

That’s especially true if my body gets sick. When that happens, I experience my body as a problem — it's a project that my mind has to figure out, to fix or change. After all, even if my mind wants health, my body can refuse!  

So, that’s just how it is. In life, there seems to be a big gap between the mind and the body.  

And that’s what our culture has long believed: the idea that mind and body are somehow separate. In fact, that’s been an important question in western philosophy — the 'mind-body problem'.  All the way back to Plato, philosophers have wondered: 'How do the mind and body relate to each other?'

But now, science is dismantling this question. We have evidence that mind and body only seem to be separate. Mysteriously, there's a level where they meet in unity. Mind and body are one.  

Your mind is influenced by body-states, and your body is influenced by mind-states. In fact, a mind-state is a body-state. At least that’s what recent science is showing.  

In these blog posts, we’ll start by looking at how your body can be affected by common mind-states — especially your habits of attitude. Surprisingly, the way you usually look at things could be affecting your physical health! 

So, let’s see what science has to show us…