The Power of Thoughts

A simple thought. A few micromilliwatts of energy flowing through our brain. A seemingly innocuous, almost ephemeral event. And yet, a thought — or, more accurately, a carefully orchestrated series of thoughts — has a significant impact on our mind, our body, and our emotions.

Thoughts cause responses in the body.

Think of a lemon. Imagine cutting it in half. Imagine removing the seeds with the point of a knife. Smell the lemon.

Now, imagine squeezing the juice from the lemon into your mouth. Imagine digging your teeth into the center of the lemon.

Chew the pulp. Feel those little things (whatever those little things are called) breaking and popping inside your mouth.

Most people’s salivary glands respond to the very thought of a lemon.

For some people, thinking about the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard is physically uncomfortable. Try this — imagine an emery board or a double-sided piece of sandpaper. Imagine putting it in your mouth. Bite down on it. How move your teeth from side to side.

Goose bumps?

Thoughts influence our emotions. Think of something you love. What do you feel? Now think of something you hate. What do you feel? Now, something you love again. We don’t have to change our emotions — we change our thoughts, and our emotions follow along.

Now imagine your favorite place in nature. Where is it? A beach? A mountain? A meadow? Take your time. Imagine lying on your back, your eyes closed. Feel the sun on your face. Smell the air. Hear the sounds of creation. Become a part of it.

Feel more relaxed?

Most people who took the time to try these little experiments know what I’m talking about.

Those who thought, “This stuff is stupid. I’m not going to try anything as silly as this!” are left with the emotional and physiological consequences of their thoughts — perhaps irritability, impatience, or even hostility.

A few — because of their thoughts about articles containing sentences such as “Now imagine your favorite place in nature” — stopped reading already.

These people (bless their independent hearts!) proved the point as well as those who followed along with the “suggested” thoughts. The point: thoughts have power over our mind, our body, and our emotions.

Positive thoughts (joy, happiness, fulfillment, achievement, worthiness) produce positive results (enthusiasm, calm, well-being, ease, energy, love).

Negative thoughts (judgment, unworthiness, mistrust, resentment, fear) produce negative results (tension, anxiety, alienation, anger, fatigue).

To know why something as minuscule as a thought can have such a dramatic effect on our mind, body, and emotions, it helps to understand the automatic reaction human beings have whenever they perceive danger:

The Fight or Flight Response.

Human beings have been around for a very long time. One of the main reasons the human animal has survived as long and as successfully as it has is its highly developed, integrated, and instantaneous response to perceived danger: the Fight or Flight Response.

Let’s consider our not-too-distant ancestor, Grog. Grog is far more advanced than a simple caveman — he has learned to manipulate tools, to till the fields, and to build shelters. Grog is out tilling his field one day when he hears a twig snap in the underbrush.

Grog, because he has a fairly well-developed brain, remembers that one time when he heard a twig snap, a wild animal came out of the underbrush and ate his friend Thag. His brain immediately associates twig snapping with ravenous wild animals. Without even having to think about it, he prepares.

He focuses all his attention on the geographical area of the snap. His brain concentrates on the input of his senses. His mind whirls through possible defense strategies and paths of retreat. His emotions flare: a heady combination of fear and anger. Adrenalin, sugar, and other stimulants surge into his system. Blood is diverted from comparatively unimportant functions of the body — such as digesting food, fighting infections, and healing wounds — and rushes to the skeletal muscles, especially his arms and legs. The eyes narrow; the muscles tense.

He is ready.

Ready for what? To do battle or to run; to combat or to escape, “to take a stand and fight or take off out of here,” as Joni Mitchell put it.

Hence, the Fight or Flight Response. It’s an automatic, physiological response to danger — either real or perceived.

The Fight or Flight Response has been an essential tool for survival of our species. Back in Grog’s time, the more laid-back humans were, for the most part, eaten. These kinder, gentler folks might hear a twig snap and say, “Hark, a twig snappeth. 'Tis such a loverly sound.”

The next thing they knew they were dinner. This group did not, uh, persevere.

But Grog and his kind? Victorious. They got through the animal wars, and then, having seemingly nothing better to do, spent the last 5,000 years fighting one another in human wars. People with the most intensely honed Fight or Flight Responses lived to fight another day, and, more importantly from a genetic point of view, lived to reproduce another night.

The Grogettes played an important role in all this, too. The offspring of the women who could defend their young the fiercest and/or grab their young and run the fastest survived. The most protected children — who were most likely to make it to adulthood and reproduce — were the ones with the genetically strongest Fight or Flight Response.

In the past few hundred years — in the Western world, at least — the need for the Fight or Flight Response has, for all practical purposes, disappeared.

When was the last time you had to physically fight or flee to save your life?

I’m talking about you, not people you read about in the newspapers or see on TV.

The Fight or Flight Response, ironically, now works against our survival in these newfangled civilized times. The veneer of civilization is thin — a few hundred years papered over millions of years of biological evolution. The “beast” within is still strong.

When we are cut off in traffic, are spoken to unkindly, fear that our job may be in danger, have our landlord increase our rent, hear someone spout some doomsday prediction, are told the airline lost our luggage, or have a flat tire, the Fight or Fight Response kicks in with full force as though our lives depended on slugging it out or running away in that very moment.

Worse, the Fight or Flight Response is activated whenever we think about being cut off in traffic, think that our job may be in danger, think about our rent going up, think about someone’s dire predictions, think about the airline losing our luggage, or think about having a flat tire.

Even if none of these “disasters” (only one of which could be genuinely life-threatening) comes to pass, just thinking that any one of them might happen is enough to trigger the Fight or Flight Response.

The Fight or Flight Response is alive and well.

And it’s killing us.