Understanding Mind-Body Communication

Vijay Garg

Its a common thing for us to experience emotions directly through the body, for e.g when we go out to meet someone whom we love a lot, we walk lightly with our hearts pounding with excitement, whereas anxiety might tighten our muscles and make our hands sweat and tremble before an important job interview, Right? Numerous studies carried out over last decade or so have established that emotion systems prepare us to meet challenges encountered in the environment by adjusting the activation of the cardiovascular, skeletomuscular, neuroendocrine, and autonomic nervous system.

This link between emotions and bodily states is also reflected in the way we speak or behave, for e.g: a young girl who is about to get married in a week’s time may suddenly have cold feet and experience nervousness. Similarly those lovers who have had a bad breakup and are heartbroken, may experience a shiver down their spine on hearing their favorite song being played somewhere.

Although emotions are associated with a broad range of physiological changes, it is still hotly debated whether the bodily changes associated with different emotions are specific enough to serve as the basis for discrete emotional feelings, such as anger, fear, or happiness ? Before jumping on to any conclusion, we need to understand that the mind and the body are closely linked and affect each other. To put it in simple words, it means that our thoughts and feelings can affect our body directly and they can very well have an effect on what we think, what we feel and what we do.

So how does this whole mechanism works? According to neuro medicine experts, the brain and the body are constantly sending messages to each other and these messages tell the brain and body to make changes and adjustments to the way they are working. For example, if your eyes told your brain that a car was travelling towards you at speed, it would send a very fast message to the body to step back out of harm’s way. Similarly, if your stomach was empty and your body needed fuel, your brain would listen to that message and send you in search of food. So, in short, the mind and the body are in constant communication to keep you healthy…