Psyche can be defined as a person’s mind, soul, or spirit. It is the center of thoughts, motivation, and feeling. Our psyche consciously and subconsciously directs our body’s reactions to both social and physical environments. The body and mind work together in tandem when it comes to healing.
Mind over matter is a phrase that refers to; one’s ability to use willpower to overcome a physical problem. It runs much deeper than that! Not only can we overcome physical problems but physical ailments as well. When we receive a cut or a bruise our body heals them and we usually think nothing of it. It is just something we know that happens.
Our Own Magical Medicine
It seems as though any injury sustained on the surface of our vessel just goes away without a thought. This is actually something instilled in us from childhood, we get a cut or a scrape, we clean it, put on a bandage, and are told it will go away. This is because our body is designed to repair itself.
Our immune system is the body’s defense while our cells are like the healers. Cells repair damage to our body, they repair themselves, and the also regenerate when there are cells that become damaged and die. Our body’s repair system can fix much more than just the outer layers; it can heal us all the way to the core.
I often hear the question, “If our body repairs itself how do you explain disease?” A disease is a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location of the body that is not a direct result of an injury. When it comes to healing, our body needs a little help along the way it simply cannot do it all. Unfortunately, when it comes to incurable diseases the only thing we can do is work on healing the symptoms produced.
Western medicine is full of prescription drugs without any alternative. Every prescription drug has side-effects and they can be devastating. Often times the only true thing happening is the symptoms are either addressed or masked. Eliminating the core issues and working toward healing what ails is the key to survival. There are many natural alternatives to curing disease, again it comes down to whole-body healing.
How Our Psyche Helps Us Heal
Having the right frame of mind is extremely important when it comes to healing. Simple techniques such as meditation, being optimistic, focus, and a positive mindset work if you work them.
An amazing documentary on Netflix titled Heal takes us on an in-depth scientific and spiritual journey showing us how our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs have a massive impact on our health and the body’s ability to heal itself. Believing that something you’re doing is helping can cause incredible things to happen.
Of course, there’s a little more to it, we can’t just believe our illness is cured and it goes away. A proper diet, lifestyle, exercise, and mindset are just some of the things we can do to help ourselves. We have to provide the proper environment in all aspects in order for our body to work its magic.
Let’s look into some basic connections between our psyche and our health.
- Positive vs. Negative Mindset: If you wake up in the morning and you have a slight headache. You can get all negative about it and consider how bad your day is going to be causing your body to go into the negative zone. Your pulse increases along with your heart rate and before you know it that slight headache has gone full blown and you hate your life atm. Or you can go with a positive approach and get your mind right. Stay calm, take some deep breathes, and try to envision the healing cells working their way through the body repairing the issue causing the headache. Try both techniques for yourself and let me know how that works out.
- Meditation: Meditation can be used and utilized for so many things. Overall, it is a major step in the right direction when it comes to our health and healing. Meditation not only reduces stress but according to a Harvard Neuroscientist Sara Lazar, it can totally change your brain for the better. Mental and emotional health plays a large roll on our physical health. Depression, anxiety, and stress have the ability to bring down our immune system. Stomach ulcers, headaches, nausea, and many other symptoms can be caused by stress; left to its own devices stress can actually be a killer. Simple breathing techniques and meditation can help clear our psyche leaving space to heal.
- Journaling: Writing in a journal can help clear your mind. It allows you to empty things from within into a notebook. I see it as a way to unload everything welled up inside of me and it’s pretty healthy. Dream journals, stress journals, and happy journals all have a way of helping us heal.
If you look at these three elements alone you can start to see a cycle play out. Our mind and body affect each other in positive and negative ways. I am a strong believer in whole-body health. We must have a healthy environment for our body to thrive and succeed and this includes our exterior environment, as well as our interior. Our body can heal itself as long as it has the right environments in order to do so and this includes our mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical.
Eat right, play hard, work smart, and believe in yourself, as well as, your body. What we believe we can achieve! Happy healing my friends!
