EMOTIONS AND YOUR HEALING SYSTEM by Art Brownstein, M.D.
Emotions are packets of mental and physical energy that move through and attempt to move out of your body, much like a river whose water steadily moves toward its greater destiny the ocean. The word emotion comes from the root emote, which means to move out.
Your emotions have a profound impact on your physical health, and they play an integral role in the functioning of your healing system. Your emotions are connected to your endocrine system, which includes your pineal, pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal glands as well as your pancreas and reproductive organs. During emotional experiences, powerful hormones are released into your bloodstream from these various organs, and these hormones have far-reaching effects on your body and your healing system.
For example, when you are in a highly excitable state, either feeling of exuberant joy or intense fear, your adrenal glands release epinephrine (adrenaline) which constrict blood vessels, accelerate heart rate, increase blood pressure, and affect lung and kidney function. Cortisol, which can suppress your immune function, is also released at these times. All of these functions are critical to your healing system. Insulin, which regulates sugar metabolism, is also produced in response to certain emotions, especially when you are feeling frightened, angry, or under stress. These are just a few of the more commonly known hormones associated with your emotions, but you can see what a profound effect they can have on your healing system.
Being in touch with your feelings, understanding what they are and what they mean, is important for your health of your healing system. When you are in touch with how you feel, you usually feel energized and alive. When you are out of touch with your emotions, you tend to feel separated from life, isolated and lonely. Feelings of loneliness and isolation create stress, which, if sustained can have harmful repercussions on your healing system.
Clear evidence now exists that suppressing emotions can be damaging to your health and your body’s healing system. Repressing emotions goes against the natural laws of the universe that require the natural energy of emotions to move out of your body to see conscious expression. Numerous studies have shown that people who continuously suppress their emotions are more likely to fall prey to serious illnesses, including heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, autoimmune diseases, and other chronic conditions. Other studies have shown that people who are able to access their feelings and express themselves enjoy better health and greater longevity. Rather then suppressing your feelings and emotions, most medical experts are now recommending that, to prevent illness, it is important to get in touch with your feelings, whatever they are, and then learn to express them in healthy ways.
Healthy feelings create sensations of comfort and ease in your body. Some healthy feelings are joy, happiness, peace, contentment, serenity, satisfaction, and love. Because they release powerful hormones, these feelings are extremely beneficial to the health of your body’s internal environment, and they can keep your healing system vibrant and strong for many years. Of course, the most powerful healthy feeling of all is love.
Because feelings are located in our bodies, there are really no negative feelings or emotions, though this probably sounds like a contradiction. Feelings just are, and they cannot be judged on any level by anyone. Even anger, pain, and sadness, generally considered to be “negative” emotions, can be appropriate and beneficial, especially when we acknowledge and release them from our bodies in a timely and sensible manner. The problem occurs when we do not release these emotions, but rather, as we discussed before, we hold onto and contain or suppress them. Under these circumstances, suppression of so-called negative emotions can be harmful. Healing often occurs when the roots of the unhealthy emotions are exposed and then released from your body.
