Why the Mind/Body Connection Matters

Imagine sitting down watching the nightly news and seeing something utterly disturbing. Another military strike in Ukraine, missiles flying over Palestine, or a story about a mass shooting that leaves your heart racing or your shoulders tensing up. So, you take a deep breath and slowly exhale or stand up and pace around the room. This is a prime example of how your mind affects your body and how your body affects your mind.

In the therapy world, this is called the Mind-Body Connection. Your mind and your body are not separate systems and are always working together. Your thoughts, emotions, and experiences constantly shape what happens in your body, and your body shapes how you think and feel right back. This is why therapists tell clients to pay attention to what is happening in their bodies during times of heightened stress, anxiety, or depression.

So, how does this work? Your body has a built-in survival system that protects you. When something feels unsafe, whether it’s a real threat or just a stressful thought, your nervous system shifts into survival mode. You go into fight-or-flight or freeze mode when the smoke detector part of your brain activates, telling your body to react to danger. The problem is that your body doesn’t always know the difference between danger and stress. So even thinking about something overwhelming can cause your heart to race, your breathing to change, and your muscles to tense.

The logical response to this phenomenon is to try to think our way out of it. Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy. You might tell yourself that you are safe, it isn’t a big deal, or you need to calm down, but your body doesn’t listen. In The Body Keeps the Score, the author Bessel van der Kolk states, “The rational brain is powerless to talk to the emotional brain out of its reality.” In other words, when your “smoke detector” is going off, your thinking brain isn’t in charge, so logic alone isn’t enough.

While your body is freaking out, it is also always listening. Your nervous system is always asking, “Am I safe right now?” It answers that question with your body, not just your thoughts. As Stephen Porges says in his book, Polyvagal Theory, “Our nervous system is constantly scanning for cues of safety or danger.” This happens without thinking about it. Which means you can feel anxious when nothing is wrong, feel shut down even when you want to engage, or feel overwhelmed when you know you should be fine. Your body is responding to what it senses, not necessarily to what you logically know.

Now that I have covered the why, I can move on to “How do we fix it?” You know that using our thoughts isn’t enough to calm down the brain, so what do you do now? This is where you use your body to tell your brain to calm down, so your body will calm down too. It sounds a little confusing and repetitive, right? I promise it will make sense as I go on. Here are some examples of how to use your body and remember, these aren’t just coping skills, they are ways to communicate directly with your nervous system:

·       Slow your breathing using techniques such as 4-7-8 breathing or box breathing. This tells your body that it’s okay to come out of survival mode.

·       Relax your body using progressive muscle relaxation techniques. The reduction in tension in your body sends signals to your brain that you are safe.

·       Move your body. This releases built-up stress energy and can release feel-good endorphins if you opt for exercise.

The bottom line is that you don’t have to fight your body to heal. Your body isn’t the problem; it’s the messenger. Instead, you can use it! When you learn to listen to it and respond in ways that create safety, everything begins to shift. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” you can start asking, “What is my body trying to tell me?” Furthermore, instead of focusing solely on your thoughts or feelings, learn to include your body in the healing process. Because real change doesn’t just happen through understanding, it happens through experience as well.

Remember: Healing begins when you stop working against the system and start working with it.