Are You Worried Sick?

Hello, and thanks for your interest. If you’ve noticed, my last few series of posts have concentrated on: our intellectual, spiritual and physical nature as well as the importance of our inner voice. It's important to understand that these aspects of our nature do not work independently of each other and in a void. They must all work together as a team in order for us to experience life to the fullest.

In the mid-1900s the medical industry believed that our mind was completely isolated from our body. Doctors treated mental issues separately from physical issues. They did not believe that the mind could affect bodily functions. Since that time there has been a tremendous amount of research, which proves our mind plays an important role in the health of our body.

Now, before you get up in arms and say, “Al thinks all illness is mental in nature.” let me assure you that’s not true. I believe no matter how physically or mentally fit we are it’s possible for us all to be afflicted by illnesses of opportunity. I also believe that a positive outlook on life provides the medicine we need to quickly bounce back from these illnesses. Conversely, I believe that fear, anxiety and worry cause an overwhelming majority of our sickness and diseases. Let me share with you what I mean.

Medical experts are finding that there’s a definite relationship between chronic stress and heart disease. In many cases they have found that long after stressful events have ended many individuals will relive them over and over again in their mind. And as stated in earlier posts, our brain, not being able to distinguish between real and imagined events, signals our bodies to increase the amount of adrenaline in our bloodstream. This prepares us to fight or flee from events that aren’t present. The events may not be present but the effect adrenaline has on our body is real non-the-less.

The Mayo Clinic has determined that long-term activation of the stress-response system  and the subsequent overexposure to adrenaline and other stress hormones  can disrupt almost all our body's processes. This puts us at increased risk of numerous health problems, including: heart disease, sleep problems, digestive problems, depression, obesity, memory impairment, worsening of skin conditions, etc. That’s pretty depressing isn’t it?

I'm sharing this information with you because I care and also know that every cloud has a silver lining. Our silver lining is if our mind had something to do with creating our health problems then it can also be helpful in curing them. It’s never too late and we can begin healing ourselves NOW by using our mind to take direct control over our response to the events, circumstances and situations occurring in our life.  We don't have to wait for or depend on others to do this for us. As soon as we change our minds we will change our lives.

Our age, current health, ethnicity or socio-economic condition does not matter. One day spent in the light of knowing what to do and doing it is better than 1000 days spent in the darkness of ignorance. We’ll explore this subject more in future posts. Until then here’s hoping that you live today and every day passionately and with purpose.

Thank you and God Bless!