Mind & Body in Mindset Monday

Anxiety & worry is the same thing. They`re both stress and they both do the same things to your body. I like the way Emily Fletcher, a meditation guru, explains what stress does to your body:

When your body is stressed it launches involuntarily into a fight or flight stress reaction. Your body gets ready for a predatory attack. Your digestion floods with acid to shut down digestion so you can fight or flee, your skin gets acidic so you dont taste very good when bitten. Your blood thickens and coagulates so you dont bleed to death if you get bitten, your bladder and bowel evacuate to make you lighter on your feet to fight or flee. Your immune system goes to the back burner because who cares if you get cancer when youre about to get attacked by a tiger. Your body needs all hands on deck when preparing for an attack from a predator. That is why your adrenaline and cortisol increases. Now what those two chemicals do to your body is a lot to get into but basically, it is belly fat, it is infertility, it is a decrease in brain plasticity, it is chronic inflammation, it is autoimmune disease. Basically, its like pouring acid into your body all day and every day. These series of chemical reactions are good for you if your demands are sabre tooth tigers. But if your demands are kids, in-laws, work, etc. Then this fight or flight has become maladaptive. It`s now disallowing us from performing at the top of our game.

This is why I take my mental health seriously. When I turned thirty I made the conscious decision to become a person with good positive thinking and good positive action. After my last nervous breakdown I realized that my life was not imbalanced, I was. I came to admit that I am all my problems. I needed to start owning my choices. Life isn’t happening to me, I am creating it. For better or for worse, I can’t be blaming the world my whole life. I have a long way to go to get to my mental health goals but I just want to share some of the things that I have learned along the way.

Ps
I don’t know what is going on with the red highlighted font up there lol

Last updated June 18, 2019