How Emotions Influence our Thoughts and Astonishingly our Health

Emotions are energy, movements of energy. Furthermore, humans are emotional creatures and our behaviours are often shaped by how we feel. Our emotions, good, bad, indifferent, fuel our lives, often more than we think. Three of the biggest factors that cause disease in our lives are the emotions we hold onto, the stress we have in our lives and the food we eat. All of these lead back to how we feel most of the time. Let’s explore this a bit further.

All our unresolved negative emotions reside in our subconscious or unconscious mind. Even though they are hidden from our conscious mind, they powerfully direct our life. They influence what we think, choose and ultimately what we do and how we behave. If we fail to recognise and take charge of our emotions, they can linger, sabotaging our success and stopping us from reaching our full potential. To make meaning of our emotions, we talk about how we feel. We evaluate our feelings with our thoughts, both of which influence each other, and these decide our fate. Moreover, what we do or don’t do next.

What type of thoughts do you have when you feel angry?

Remember a time you felt angry. What thoughts were you thinking and did you fuel your own anger? What happened next? Finally, what result did this produce and how did this impact other people?

Daniel Goldman has written extensively on Emotional Intelligence (EQ). Emotional Intelligence is a key trait of leaders and a skill we should all strive to master. Understanding our emotions is not simply a matter of showing empathy. It’s about mastering responses to situations. Furthermore, it is about recognising our impulses. Do we let our feelings of motivation or lack of motivation define what we do? How do we relate to others? How persistent are we in what we do? Do we give up when the going gets tough or do we persist? Do we let our emotions, thoughts and feelings pull us off course? The answer to all these questions relate directly to our level of success as well as how good our mindset for success is.

Recognising that we need to elicit some level of emotional mastery and control, is the first step towards creating better results. The next step is to take action. The good news is that there are easy and effective techniques in the field of Neurolinguistic programming and MBraining (MBIT – Multiple Brain Integration Techniques.) These effective tools help you manage your thought patterns, feelings and resulting behaviours. Furthermore, this helps to relate and connect better with others.

Emotions cause feelings which can increase stress or reduce it

We all need a bit of stress to keep us moving and to motivate us into action! However, most people are far too stressed. Holding onto emotions associated with stress not only make us feel bad, it creates ill health and disease. Stress produces high levels of cortisol in our body. Amongst other things, it makes us old before our time! I don’t know about you but I certainly do not want to age before my time, do you? Many people get stressed because they worry about things that haven’t even happened!

Moreover, worrying is like praying for something you don’t want. Feeling “stressed” just means you are running a strategy that is not working, so it needs to be changed. Next time you feel stressed, stop for a moment, simply focus on your breathe and take two minutes to consciously breathe in and out.

This takes your attention inside and away from your overthinking head. When you calmly breathe you help reduce the stress chemicals. Once calm, ask yourself the question, “What is the one thing I need to do right now?” Focus fully on just that one thing. It will allow you to start moving forward again. Furthermore, it is better to be moving forward, however slowly. Remember the tortoise and the hare? Finally, know that a journey of a thousand miles begins with just one small step. If you need help with stress management and strategies, then please give me a call.

Emotions and Food

Much of the food we eat is processed and has a myriad of added chemicals. This affects the functioning of our internal systems, organs, metabolism and overall health. Many of these processed foods cause allergies, obesity and  other modern day illnesses, heart disease, diabetes and cancers. Furthermore much of our eating is fuelled by our emotions and how we feel. Take a moment and consider how many people you know who have been affected by some sort of cancer, heart disease or other debilitating illnesses. Many of these so called “diseases” were very rare or didn’t exist years ago.

You have probably heard of the saying, “You are what you eat.” When you add this to my favourite, “You become what you think about all day long,” you can see how these are related to our overall health. What food are you putting in your body (and what are you thinking?) We all have choices, and what choices are you making? Do you eat lots of takeaways, breakfast on the run, snacks, potato chips, and convenience food? Could you fuel your body better? Hippocrates said:

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” Hippocrates

Most of us have forgotten this is what the purpose of food really is. However, the key to increasing healthy eating is to become aware of how your emotions influence what you eat. It’s common to have feelings driven eating habits.

When you take time to understand how your mind works, what you are thinking and feeling you have keys to manage your emotions better. Furthermore, to master your mental state, calm your busy head and take more purposeful actions. Self development and personal growth are keys to mastering our emotions which are absolutely connected to what we think and what we eat.