Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Look forward with excitement
Do you have something exciting or enjoyable to look forward to? If you do, that's wonderful, but if not....maybe you should start thinking or even arrange something just so you an look forward to it. There are lots of reasons why...
Having something to look forward to raises our spirits; it changes our mood and makes us happier than we are already. In fact it's good to have a series of things to look forward to and also for events to be planned well in advance so we can look forward to them for even longer. You might well ask 'what on earth am I going on about'....
It's quite simple and comes down to that little cocktail of chemicals that is running around our body. When we think of pleasant things we create endorphins, the happy 'drug' that changes our mood. By getting 'excited' about things we create more of these endorphins which not only make us happy but they act as a neutralising agent to all that stress we accumulate in our lives. We have a stress-related molecule called "corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) which is a central and common molecule in the entire stress response within the brain -- that is, before the rest of the body gets in the act via adrenalin. And of course, looking forward to exciting events and thinking happy thoughts all occur in the brain too.
Research has shown that we can only think of one thing at a time. Even when believe we are 'Multi-tasking' our brain is actually switching off from one topic in order to think of another; we rely on our muscle memory and subconscious instincts to keep one 'task' going while we think of something else. But we actually only think of one thing at a time. One way of banishing worrying thoughts and reducing stress is to think of things that we DO like. We can't just 'not think' of certain worrying things. OK, don't think of bananas for 10 seconds. What are you thinking of?.....bananas for sure. But if you think of green cabbages, you are not thinking of bananas are you?
Our physical body and our emotions are inextricably linked up and one affects the other. If we smile or laugh we create endorphins, but if we stoop and slouch and pull our mouth downwards we start to feel unhappy or sad. If we realise our Lottery numbers have won the Jackpot we'll jump for joy, if the girl we fancy accepts our offer of a first date we 'float on air', when we're in the first blush of love, our cheeks are rosy and we're in the bloom of health, but if our cat dies then we slump downwards in sadness. As Peanuts so wisely said, if you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, the last thing you should do is stand up tall because you'll start to feel better!
You may be thinking, if you've got the future in mind all the time, you're not being 'present'; you're not in the Now. Well, I believe in being in the 'Now' as much of the time as possible, but this can be looked at in different ways. For instance, we can know where we are right this moment; sitting in this chair, we can find contentment with all that we currently have and experience; we can feel gratitude for all that is wonderful in our life, the shirt on our back, the two eyes we have to see, or if we're unlucky, the one eye we still have to see; we can be grateful for our friends, the meal we last had, the sound of birdsong outside the window. We can do all this and also consider what we would like to experience; we can look forward to certain events. We can 'see' these future events from the perspective of where we are right now.
Being happy helps us be healthy and if we're sick we can laugh ourselves well again. Having something to look forward to gives us a little bubble of excitement that lifts our spirits, puts a smile on our face and promotes healing and continued good health.
Think of something to look forward to. Smile at the idea. Feel great. :-)
Comments
Peanuts was indeed very wise and I have much to look forward to :-)
Posted by: Stella | October 3, 2007 10:03 PM
HI Stella,
Indeed you do have lots to look forward to! I think your plans are most exciting! Noel
Posted by: Noel | October 4, 2007 7:52 AM