You might have heard or read before
about the mind-body interactive relationship or the relationship between
psychology and physiology. It is said that certain chemicals that enter our
body do not only affect our physical health, but our mood and state of mind
too. According to the BBC, scientists at the University of Bristol have found
that carbon dioxide can raise our stress level measured by the rise in
heartbeat and blood pressure. The same can be said about the different diseases
that attack us.
On the other hand, psychologists
often mention that our modern social system and work environments turn on the
same acute stress response with all the hormones secretion that our primitive
ancestors needed to be prepared for fight and flight when faced with a physical
threat to their life. Nevertheless, this type of response is often useless to
the type of problems we have in our modern life. When you get trapped in a bad
traffic jam, or when your boss keeps piling up files on your desk and does not
appreciate you enough, or maybe yells at you sometimes, you’re not likely to need
those hormones, and yet you get them. And because you won’t use them they
become poisonous to your body.
My guess is that what I have said
so far is familiar to you in general. And I’ll go further in my guess and
assume that when I tell you that meditation helps you in finding back your peace
of mind and tranquillity, you will say “yes, I know”.
It has been studied a lot this interactive
relationship between body and mind/physiology and psychology by scientists and
other authors, and yet it looks to me that the influence of the body on the
mind is almost non-arguable and more (easily) acceptable than the influence of
the mind on the body, at least in some aspects of it. I don’t know if you have
heard some people talk about curing physical diseases by mental exercises and
practices. Neither I want to claim something like that now, but I have tried out
something interesting and would like to share it with you.
One day I overate at lunch and
felt extremely full. Then I sat at my computer for a little less than an hour
doing some work, and then I decided to go out. I felt the pressure of the food
still in my stomach bothering me when I move a lot, and as I did not have a car,
I had to walk for 15 minutes to the nearest bus stop to where I was. “What can
I do?”, I asked myself.
One thing came in mind,
mindfulness meditation. Sounds strange, doesn’t it?
I sat on my chair, settled into
my posture and started focusing on and keeping track of the physical sensations
in my stomach in particular, and in general, I kept an eye on any other
physical sensations that could arise elsewhere. With full acceptance and non-interference with whatever I was feeling, in the first 5 minutes, I felt
like if the tissues behind and around my belly button were getting cut with a
knife. Gradually, this feeling disappeared and, instead, I had a feeling of slow clockwise rotation,
from up to left to down to right, covering a circle of 1 inch radius almost
around my belly button too. This feeling also lasted for around 5 minutes from
the start till it completely disappeared. After that, I only had the normal
feeling of pressure which was due to the big amount of food which had been lying
there. And on the top of the 15 minutes, I was feeling more than 90% fine.
I got up, put my cloths on and
left. I kept some attention to the sensations in my stomach and walked the 15
minutes to the bus stop. And because I was feeling even better, I decided to
keep walking as far as I keep feeling good, and guess what, I did not stop till
I reached my destination feeling 100% good. It took me an hour to do so. Isn’t
it interesting?
Now, I am neither suggesting you
to overeat or harm your health by any way, nor encouraging you to avoid seeking
professional help when you have a physiological problem. This is my own experiment
which happens to be a success. But I strongly believe that our mind has that
great positive influence on our body if we learn how to nurture it the right
way.
Till later, goodbye,
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