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Episode 181 - Emotions That Are Making Your Body Sick

1 day ago7 min read

1/5/25

 

Did you know that there were emotions that can make you sick? Did you ever wonder why you kept getting a cold, or sore throat, or vertigo, or even gut issues during a stressful period in your life? Well, researchers are discovering a strong connection between our emotions and our immune system. When we have something going on in our life – relationship conflict, financial problems, a bad report from the doctor, grief – and we experience prolonged negative emotions, like anger, shame, fear, self-loathing, sadness, confusion, or even being annoyed or irritated. These emotions can make you sick.


Negative emotions cause our minds to stress. When stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline stay elevated for too long, they weaken the immune system. When we don’t use the tools and strategies to shift our thoughts toward a healthier mindset, our immune system weakens, making us more vulnerable to various illnesses. Then, left unattended, the mind becomes fragmented. A fragmented mind is where the emotions of the primal brain and the logic and reasoning of the pre-frontal cortex are not integrated in an experienced event. So, the stress these kinds of emotions put on the mind effects the way your cells function and could make you more susceptible to inflammatory diseases if you’ve not attended to integration or defragmentation.


Dr. Dan Siegel, a clinical professor and co-founder of the Mindfulness Research Center at UCLA, says that what you do with your mind and emotions changes your health at the molecular level. He says epigenetic controls within the cells of your body can be altered. It influences enzymes, telomeres, and non-DNA histones and methyl groups that help prevent or make you susceptible to inflammatory diseases.


Now because today epigenetics is not included in the high school biology curriculum in most countries, it’s likely that unless you’ve purposefully studied epigenetics on your own for whatever reason or the focus of your higher education is genetics, you might not be too familiar with it. So, simply, epigenetics refers to how your behaviors and your environment can cause changes to your cells that affect the way your genes work - if certain genes are turned on or off, expressed or not - at a cellular level in our bodies. Our DNA is not altered, but the way our cells function are. And a specific change in cell function can cause inflammatory diseases, which include certain forms of diabetes, certain forms of cancer, multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases, and of course, heart disease. Some researchers are even including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease to this list.


So again, epigenetics refers to how your behaviors and your environment can cause changes to your cells that affect the way your genes work. Now, as students of the brain, we know that our behavior - what we do or don’t do, those actions – our behavior is coming from our emotions. And how we are experiencing our life, or how we are experiencing our environment, the results we get, comes from those actions…which comes from our emotions that come from our thoughts…that comes from our core belief system. Whew! That’s what we call the Belief Cycle.


And, if you’re one of my past or current coaching clients, now you know why I keep telling you to use the tools I’ve taught you. We know the effect these tools have on our minds for immediate relief. But now scientists are figuring out more long-term, lasting, and critical changes that are being made in our whole being -- mind and body – when we choose to process through our thoughts and emotions. Yes, just as the brain is created for Neuroplasticity – the ability to be wired and then rewired – the way our cells function by those epigenetic controls can be reversed. I’ll put a link in the show notes to a white paper written by Dr. Danielle Simmons titled Epigenetic Influences and Disease if you want to nerd out on that a little more.

 

So, more and more scientific studies show that chronic stress weakens the immune system. For example, one study I found recorded that individuals grieving the loss of a spouse may need up to a year for their immune system to recover. Long-term caregivers often have suppressed immune function compared to the general population. Survivors of trauma and individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have elevated stress hormone levels, as do students facing intense academic pressure. In all of these case studies, the effects of a weakened immune system was evident. The study also found that prolonged stress, loneliness, and unresolved emotional pain can lead to slower wound healing and longer-lasting infections.

 

So, how do we deal with those negative emotions we’re feeling so that we make sure it’s not tanking our immune system? Dr. Siegel suggests the use of mindfulness to integrate the mind. He defines mindfulness as being fully aware and accepting of present experiences, rather than resisting or avoiding emotions. Psychologists have linked unresolved emotions to increased anxiety and mental distress. But by acknowledging emotions—naming them, understanding their source, and discovering the thoughts we’re thinking that are creating the emotions —it begins to quiet the amygdala and nervous system so that we can gain greater self-awareness that opens us up to pivot any lie-based beliefs. We learn to regulate our emotions, instead of letting them run away with us, keeping us drowning in a sea of fear, insecurities, rage and anger, shame, hopelessness, and sadness. By practicing mindfulness, we can reduce the stress those emotions put on our minds that leads to stress-related illnesses.

 

I want to point you to Episode 54 - Can You Trust Your Emotions? where I go into more detail of what it looks like to resist, react, and avoid your emotions. I’d also point you to Episode 2 - Mind, Body, Spirit Wholenesswith information from Dr. Bessel Vander Kolk’s book, The Body Keeps The Score that how and why those emotions you’re not dealing with, those emotions you’re resisting and avoiding, will manifest somewhere in the body in many different forms like physical pain, or ulcers, or disease.

 

So when you’re feeling an onslaught of negative emotions, when they are persisting for days, weeks, you need to have the tools at hand to attend to them. I have a plethora of tools for my coaching clients, but in episode 171, I’ve given you five of them. Five powerful tools to bring balance to your brain and get you out of the spinning, emotional chaos that keeps you from moving forward. Please go back and listen to that one and work through your emotions using those tools. If you get familiar with them and use them regularly, then your brain will begin to automatically go through the processing of the emotions when they come. Remember, the brain likes to operate in patterns, so this is a beautiful and helpful pattern to get your brain into.

 

Also, this is a great time to tell you about a workshop I’m doing – for free on Zoom - focusing just on emotions. That will be on Monday, February 24th at 2pm Central. We will discuss things like the origin of emotions – how our bodies use chemicals to create different emotions – and how you can, on purpose, create different chemical cocktails of emotions. How to move from emotional childhood – which most of us were conditioned to live in this state and still do until we’re taught differently – how to move from emotional childhood to emotional adulthood. We will talk about how to manage your emotions around difficult people. And how to live in peace while someone else is emotionally out of control. And we’ll talk about those five tools I offered you in episode 171 more in detail, plus several more that will help you process through your thoughts and emotions. You’ll need to register for that workshop at triciazody.com/emotionsworkshop and get the Zoom link sent to your inbox. Or just click the link in the show notes to register.

 

Okay, back to it. So, besides mindfulness, there are other things that you can do to enhance immune function. Positive, meaningful experiences, such as spending time with loved ones and laughing, volunteering, creative hobbies, or spiritual practices can increase and strengthen your immune system. Engaging in relaxation activities like massage or listening to music. Studies have also shown that having a sense of purpose, strong social connections, and regular positive interactions with others can boost the immune system and reduce inflammation. The positive emotions that come from these meaningful activities can improve immune function and overall well-being.

 

Friend, your emotions do more than affect your mood—they can make your body sick. Managing stress and addressing difficult feelings can strengthen your immune system and improve your quality of life. So next time you’re feeling like your immune system is low, take a minute to access whether or not it’s due to negative emotions you haven’t processed through and dealt with. Then take charge of those epigenetic controls at the cellular level by working through the belief cycle to change your behaviors and the way you experience your environment. This is just one more way God has created our minds to heal our bodies, and you have the power to do so.

 

Hey, thank you for being a regular listener to my podcast. If you like these concepts, please get my book, Another Beautiful Life: A Christian’s Journey to Finding Peace and Hope in Brokenness. In it I go a lot deeper into many of the concepts we talked about today. You can get that on Amazon.

 

Have a wonderful week, friends. See you next Wednesday for the next episode of Another Beautiful Life.

 

 

SHOW NOTES:

 

Did you know that there are certain emotions that can make you sick? When we are experiencing negative emotions for long periods of time, it has a direct effect on our immune system.


In this episode, we’ll nerd out a little bit on how our negative emotions impact the way our bodies’ function. Well even identify some of the diseases that can immerge from these chronic, negative emotions. Then I’ll give you a solution! Yes, you can reverse any damage done to your immune system at the cellular level. God has designed your mind to heal your body. Join me so that the negative emotions you experience don’t make you sick!


Resources Mentioned:

·       Epigenetic Influences and Disease by Dr. Danielle Simmons https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/epigenetic-influences-and-disease-895/)

·       The Body Keeps The Score by Dr. Bessel Vander Kolk

·       Another Beautiful Life: A Christian’s Journey to Finding Peace and Healing in Brokenness by Tricia Zody https://a.co/d/hoPKsBO


For more tools, questions for reflection, and resources to help you on your journey, download the Listener's Guide for this episode: https://www.triciazody.com/guide


Are you wondering how Life Coaching works? Would you like a free, 30-minute session? Click this link to set up a Consult Call: https://calendly.com/triciazodylifecoach/30min

 

Register for the FREE Emotions Workshop – Feb. 24th at 2p Central: triciazody.com/emotionsworkshop

 

 

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