Negative Thoughts and the Body
The Fight or Flight Response puts a body through its paces. All the resources of the body are mobilized for immediate, physical, demanding action — fight or flee.
All the other bodily functions are put on hold — digestion, assimilation, cell production, body maintenance, circulation (except to certain fight-or-flee skeletal muscles), healing, and immunological defenses.
In addition, the body is pumping chemicals — naturally produced drugs, if you will — into the system. The muscles need energy, and they need it fast.
Grog was luckier than we are in this respect. Often he would actually use these chemicals by running them off, climbing them off, or fighting them off. In our civilized world, we usually don’t. At most we bang our fists or throw stuff (which only hurts our hands and breaks things).
Occasionally we yell, but that’s not physical enough. Our body has armed itself to fight or flee for its life — but usually we just sit and seethe.
The repeated and unnecessary triggering of the Fight or Flight Response puts enormous physiological stress on the body.
It makes us more vulnerable to disease (the immune system being told, “Hold off on attacking those germs — we have wild beasts to fight!”), digestive trouble (ulcers and cancers at the far side of it), poor assimilation (preventing unnecessary nutrients from entering the system), slower recovery from illnesses (conquering a disease is less urgent that conquering a wild beast), reduced cell production, sore muscles, fatigue, and a general sense, as Keats put it, “that if I were underwater I would scarcely kick to come to the top.”
Sound bad? It gets worse.
The emergency chemicals, unused, eventually break down into other, more toxic substances. Our body must then mobilize — yet again — to get rid of the poisons.
The muscles stay tense for a long time after the response is triggered — especially muscles around the stomach, chest, lower back, neck, and shoulders. (Most people have chronic tension in at least one of these areas.) We feel jittery, nervous, uptight.
The mind always tries to find reasons for things. If the body’s feeling tense, it wonders, “What is there to feel tense about?” Seldom do we conclude (correctly), “Oh, this is just the normal after-effect of the Fight or Flight Response. Nothing to be concerned about.” Usually, we start scanning the environment (inner and outer) for something out of place. And, as I mentioned before, there will always be something out of place.
The mind’s a remarkable mechanism. Given a task, the mind will fulfill it with astonishing speed and accuracy. When asked, “What’s wrong?” it will compile and cross-reference a list of grievances with blinding swiftness and precision. Everything everyone (including ourselves) should have done but didn’t and shouldn’t have done but did is reviewed, highlighted, indexed, and prioritized. All this elaborate mental labor sparked by a sensation in the body.
Naturally, this review of negative events prompts a new round of Fight or Flight Responses, which promotes more tension in the body, which promotes more mental investigation into What’s Wrong?
Do you see how this downward mind/body spiral can continue almost indefinitely?
It’s not surprising, then, that some people make a decision deep inside themselves that life is just not worth living.
But what if there was a way to go through life with a renewed sense of purpose, with strength and confidence -- without all the chaos and stress?
Would that be of interest to you?