Positive thoughts, believes, life attitudes and moods such as optimism, gratitude, inner peace and joy, cause positive physiological reactions. Old proverb: “Healthy spirit in healthy body”, might have to go under certain modifications.

The idea about healthy, balanced and optimistic spirit results with healthy and vital body is getting more popular. It is not about the new age philosophy but rather about firm scientific facts. Our thoughts affect functioning of our organs and entire body.

Increased secretion of gastric acid in situations when we think about the situations that make us angry, are familiar to all of us. But not many people are familiar with scientific researches that suggest clear relation between negative thoughts and different disorders in our body, as well as positive thinking and orderly operation of the bodily functions.

New scientific knowledge

In the east, this idea is known for ages and is widely accepted, but in the west it is still relatively new and still is the issue of conflicts in the scientific community. Many old schoolscientists find it very hard to dismiss idea that the human being is just a machine, and that his thoughts are just result of chemical and electrical reactions of nerve cells caused by stimuli from the environment.

However despite this, with the goal of spreading the idea of relationship between body and mind, there are many institutes around the world today, many scientific centers and dedicated funds for the project for this purpose.

Newer scientific discipline named psychoneuroimmunology is founded in order to support this kind of research. Many researches on this matter show that positive thinking, believes, life attitudes and moods such as optimism, gratitude, inner peace and joy, cause positive physiological reactions. On the other side, pessimism, resentment, anger, fear have been proven to negatively affect human organism.

How thoughts affects the body?

Even though the principle by which thought affects the physiology is not still completely defined, it is known that positive thinking affects neurons in brain causing chemical changes that lead to decrease in stress hormones, while negative thoughts have contrary effect. Lower level of stress hormones leads to stronger immune system and bigger ability of body to fight free radicals that can cause damages of cells and tissue.

Those reactions relate to thoughts (and emotions as their results) that are present for a loner time. It is suggested that negative modes that last for shorter time period, do not jeopardize human health. This means that body has its own system of protection that activates with these states. That is why suppression of negative thoughts and emotions is of no use for our organism, but rather can help emergence of disorders an illness.

Purity of mind is next to godliness!

Some of the benefits of positive thinking, with stronger immune system, are lower risk from cardiac diseases and problems with digestive, respiratory, endocrine and other body systems. Beside the effect on our physiology, emotions affect our instinctual capabilities as well.  For example, we are more creative, intelligent and focused if we are satisfied, grateful and compassionate.

With the aim of positive thinking development, we first need to aware our thoughts. By doing this we can consciously interrupt negative thinking patterns and replace them with positive ones. This does not mean that from the awaked state of self – loathing we should enter the state of happiness. This transformation can happen step by step, upgrading each thought with the next one that help us feel better.

Researches also confirm that implementation of one of the available techniques of relaxation and self-orientation, like yoga techniques of mediation and breath awareness, affects positively on mood and stops unwanted and potentially harmful stream of thought, and positively affects our health and longevity.