How you think affects your physical well-being. Depression often comes with a long list of physical symptoms that help to show just how real this connection is. If your thoughts aren’t healthy then your body is feeling it too. You need to understand the link between thought and your physical well-being and that you can exert a great deal of influence over both.
Depression Weakens The Body
Negative thoughts like those that go along with depression weaken your body. You can’t just feel stress, depression, and other unpleasant thoughts and have it be all in your head. Your body is controlled by your brain so any upsets in your brain make their way out to every part of your body.
Every negative thought weakens your body and if you think more than one negative thought a day then all these thoughts add up to mental health issues like depression and to physical ailments as well. The physical ailments that show up and when they show up will depend on the person but they can range from fatigue, digestive problems, and aches and pains to more serious health problems.
Happiness Is Part Of Being Healthy
If thoughts of depression make you unhealthy then it is logical to think that happiness is part of being healthy. Just as physical health issues will impact your mental health so too will mental health issues impact your physical health. In short, happiness is a necessary component of being as healthy as possible. You can eat healthy, exercise regularly, get plenty of sleep, and do all the other things that are a part of a healthy lifestyle but if your thoughts are negative then your physical well-being will suffer. You can’t really be healthy if you’re not happy. You can’t heal as quickly either.
Neuro Plasticity And Physical Healing
You now know that happiness is a requirement for optimum physical health but it goes further than that. If you want to heal from illness, injury, surgery, or anything else then you need to know that your thoughts affect the healing process. When you think happy thoughts then you really do heal faster. If you are dealing with depression during your healing process then you won’t heal as quickly. The patterns that you have created through neuro plasticity, the ones you can change any time you want, will assist or resist the healing process.
Healing Faster With Neuro Plasticity
It can be even more challenging to make your thoughts positive when you are healing because when you are healing from illness or injury you often just don’t feel well. But you can still use neuro plasticity to heal.
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atch funny movies or read funny books daily to use neuro plasticity to speed up the healing process. Even if you aren’t healing the body but are dealing with depression, these activities will help to heal your mind. It doesn’t matter how bad you feel or if that feeling is coming from your body or your mind when using neuro plasticity in this way will speed up the healing of both.
Your mental health and your physical health are inextricably linked. Depression takes its toll on your body as well as your mind and anyone who wants to be healthy needs to realize this. When it comes to thought and physical well-being if you want to take care of one then you need to take care of them both.
Annette Tonkin
Adversity Consultant, Physiotherapist and Author
About Annette Tonkin