“What you are thinking, feeling and believing is changing the genetic expression and chemical composition of your body on a moment-by-moment basis.” — Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk (author of The Body Keeps The Score).
There is an emerging field of research (which is not necessarily new, but is only now becoming more mainstream) which shows that our environment influences genetic activation.
Our wellness is not just determined by what is going on within us, but also on the atmosphere around us. The genius of physicians like Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk and Dr Gabor Maté (and many others) have thankfully been successful at bringing to light the reality that we need to look at the bio-psycho-social factors at play when addressing dis-ease in the body.
Instead of narrowly looking at symptoms as stand-alone occurrences, the whole scope of a person's experience needs to be considered to properly tend to presenting issues, whether they be physical, emotional, mental or spiritual.
This is a big topic, and I'll address more dynamics to this issue in future posts. For now, let's focus on considering 'stress' and how it plays a role in 'recovery' and/or 'healing', and how this influence is actually good news....
Stress Hormones and body repair
DHEA is the most common hormone in the body. This hormone is associated with cell repair. It's produced by the adrenal glands.
Cortisol — the stress hormone — has the same chemical precursors as DHEA, in that, DHEA turns into Cortisol.
Too much of Cortisol in the system can affect muscle mass, cause bone loss, and impedes generation of new skin cells. It can also contribute to memory loss and learning impediments.
DHEA will adapt depending on the needs of the body in every moment. If the body is in a constant state of fright, flight or freeze (from real or perceived or residual threats), the chronic, ongoing levels of Cortisol required to tend to these issues (real or imagined) suck biochemical resources away from cell repair.
From Dawson Church (Author of The Genie in our Genes)
“If our system is flooded with stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol for a few minutes, in response, for instance, to a near collision with another car on the freeway, the incident quickly ends as a biochemical event. However, if we hold onto resentments and emotionally painful thoughts for extended periods of time, the very biochemicals that are meant to save us during an emergency become toxins.
Long-term exposure to cortisol and other stress hormones has a host of bad effects. It suppresses immune response, reduces bone formation, decreases muscle mass, reduces skin elasticity, and damages cells in the brain responsible for memory and learning.
If, on the other hand, we quickly release our stress and return to a biochemical baseline, we restore normal cellular operation, and that’s vital to our longevity as well as our health. The same precursor hormones are used by the adrenal cortex to make both cortisol and DHEA. Just as cortisol has negative effects long term, DHEA has positive effects. It has “protective and regenerative effects on many of the body’s systems, and is believed to counter many of the effects of aging".
Now for the good news...
In the same way that the body will respond to your thoughts as if the event is real and happening now, it will also respond to imagery generated from within in the same way — which is exactly what we do in hypnosis.
In fact, the potential influence of undergoing intentional processes of imaging for body repair has the potential to be far more reaching, in that, by using the imaginative faculties of your inner vision, we’re activating and connecting directly with the Limbic brain (also known as the emotional brain and 'the gateway to the subconscious') which governs our parasympathetic nervous system (responsible for 'rest' and 'restoration') using the language it understands — imagery, sensation/feeling and symbolism.
This processing centre of the brain is linked to ‘direct experience’ and deals with the body’s immediate responses which are unfiltered by the conscious, reasoning mind. You can try and talk or think your way in or out of truth — but the body knows immediately. Many of us are programmed to overrule these initial instincts for a variety of reasons. You can read more about that here.
These somatic instincts never go away though — but it does take some intention to recalibrate to the messages coming direct from the body. The key is in the gateway of our senses — seeing, sensing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feelings connects us to these somatic messages and tempers those stress responses so DHEA has the chance to do what it needs to do to aid recovery.
“The stressful thoughts that lead to the secretion of stress-related.. (hormones).. impede our evolutionary-derived natural healing capabilities. These thoughts are often only in our minds, and not a reality. The biochemical and genetic effects, as far as your body is concerned, are the same.” — Herbert Benson MD.
To be continued.
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