Can My Thoughts Really Affect My Health?

I was completely taken aback when a friend recently claimed, "I know exactly why I got cancer!"

She went on to explain how she realized that the stressful issues in her marriage had compromised her health and helped to create her illness.

My surprise comes from the fact that this particular woman describes herself as an atheist, and strongly believes that illness happens strictly at random.

As for the notion that "our thoughts influence our reality" she still considers it to be a steaming load of excrement, although now she is beginning to question her own internal biases.

She's not alone; many people believe their thoughts and feelings have nothing to do with their health, and how they feel.

When I suggested to her that we all can learn to control our thoughts to help ourselves be healthier, she responded with vehement anger that I certainly don't know what it's like to be ill.

Well, I do in fact know exactly what it's like.

When I look back to my battle with Ankylosing Spondylitis, I remember the anger, resentment, guilt, depression and other suppressed emotions I harbored. I didn't really understand these feelings at the time because I was in the midst of living them, while coping with the constant, chronic pain of a cruel and punishing autoimmune disorder.

If someone had told me then that I was in any way responsible for my own condition, they wouldn't have wanted to stick around for my answer.

At the time, heavy stress was constantly with me, which weakened my immune system and made my body susceptible to chronic illness. By releasing the deep-seated emotions and buried stress, I helped my body do what it was designed to d0 - repair itself in a timely manner.

Only now, years after recovering from Ankylosing Spondylitis, do I truly understand the role stressful emotions play in chronic conditions.

You might think the daily challenges of life are stressful, but it's not necessarily so. The way we respond to those circumstances is what causes stress, and stress is recognized as the primary cause of illnesses.

Stress is an emotional response that affects the body. When your body becomes so stressed that it begins to break down, your immune system can no longer repair the damage.

Under stress, the cells in your body don't take in proper amounts of oxygen, water or nutrients. They don't release wastes and toxins, and they don't communicate with other nearby cells to help keep you healthy.

However, when you stop creating the constant stress within your body, you allow your cells to move out of their defensive mode and into normal growth mode. Your immune system then works to rid you of illnesses and protect your from creating new ones.

Your body is the world's most perfect healing machine, when your cells are not forced into the defensive position brought on by mental and emotional stress.

Thoughts in the mind create changes in the body that can be easily observed. If you see or hear something that you find embarrassing, you might "blush" and your face turn red. It's a good example of the chemical change that occurs in the body in response to your thoughts. This is called the "mind-body connection."

Our thoughts produce physical reactions, many with predictable results. Sexual thoughts can create responses in the anatomy that are easy to observe; creepy thoughts will make your skin crawl and your hair stand on end. Scary and stressful thoughts cause us to secrete catecholamines, the stress hormones including cortisol and adrenalin that must be metabolized regularly to prevent ongoing tissue damage.

Conditions like hypertension, stroke, ulcerative colitis, heart disease and many other health challenges are clearly impacted by mental stress, establishing the fact that there's a link between our thoughts and the internal chemical reactions that affect how we feel and how we heal.

We feel our bodies respond to our thoughts and subconscious beliefs. Unfortunately, attitudes like anger, jealousy, resentment and guilt are the stressful emotions that create consequences to our health and well-being. These emotions deplete a lot of energy, energy we need to maintain healthy immune function.

Your body is designed to heal itself naturally and keep you healthy. Emotional stress is a problem which worsens the pain and symptoms of Ankylosing Spondylitis. Now researchers are learning how we can reverse illness when we first accept that we ourselves are the most powerful factor in our own health care.