Roz Burnham, C.N.

Metabolic Clinical Nutrition

Natural Wellness Counseling

972-939-8448

Website: mysite.verizon.net/rozburnham

Your Emotions and Your Health

The mind-body connection is not a new concept. Through out the ages many ancient cultures described the effects of thoughts, feeling and emotions on the energy and health of the physical body.

In the second century B.C., The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine describes the mind-body connection in detail. It states that anger causes energy to rise, joy causes energy to slow, grief causes energy to dissipate, fear causes energy to descend, fright causes energy to scatter, exhaustion causes energy to wither and worry causes energy to stagnate.

Four Common Emotions

ANGER damages the liver energy. Frequent or persistent anger flares up the fire energy of the liver promoting more anger. This is seen in hot tempered people who have a short fuse and are easily irritated, intolerant, frustrated, aggressive, overbearing, or controlling. They are the hard driving, Type A personalities who have too much heat in their liver. They are prone to inflammatory conditions of heart disease, headaches, excess stomach acid, high blood pressure, and stress related conditions of nervousness, anxiety, and insomnia.

The problem is made worse by hot and spicy foods, alcohol, heavy red meat consumption and smoking.

FEAR damages the kidneys and adrenal glands. Any situation which threatens your security and produces ongoing stress or chronic worry will eventually weaken this area. Those who feel weak, fearful, unable to cope, overly tired, exhausted, anxious or nervous about their well-being are experiencing the long term effects of fear. Sudden and unexpected life changes such as a loss of a loved one, loss of a job or home, a life threatening illness, or an emergency produces high states of fear. We are constantly bombarded with media messages of fear about our health, jobs, money, and personal and national security!

ANXIETY is damaging to the lung energy. Notice how hard it is to breathe deeply when you are very anxious about something. The lung energy is constricted and the inspiration of air is shallow and the respiration is suppressed. Poor exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide occur. Feelings of panic about not being able to breathe properly increase feelings of anxiety.

Anxiety also affects the area of the nervous system that signals the digestive tract to operate smoothly and efficiently. The digestive tract includes the stomach where acid is produced, the small intestine which produces alkaline digestive enzymes, and the large intestine which handles elimination.

Signs of digestive anxiety include: bloating, heartburn, gas, upset stomach, slow or fast movement of food through the digestive tract, constipation, or irritable bowel problems.

GRIEF causes a rapid and massive loss of vital life energy which suppresses the adrenal glands and immune system. Grief is always accompanied by feelings of fear, anger, and anxiety. Grief follows the loss of someone or something so vital to one’s well being that the body goes into a state of shock to preserve itself. If one is mentally and emotionally healthy, eventually they are able to return to a highly functional status. However, if the person is not healthy and experiences this emotion, it becomes very difficult to ever fully recover. This is why one spouse may quickly die after the another spouse dies.

Grief also weakens the heart and lungs and predisposes a person to diseases of these areas. Often you see people stuck in the past and unable to live fully in the present due to the effects of unresolved grief.

Unresolved grief also affects the immune system causing it to malfunction. A healthy immune system is our protection from viruses, bacteria, allergens and a host of hostile pathogenic agents. The immune system can be weakened by grief making our body more vulnerable to the environment. The immune system may also be stuck in a state of hyper responsiveness producing auto immune conditions.