Renee Snider, Articles, Wellness - mind-body-spirit, information.

The Healing Power of Your Mind using Visualization

Visualization Helps Accelerate Healing

You have heard this saying .....A picture is worth a thousand words - well it's worth more than that!

We have heard that familiar saying before. It does ring very true in the case of visualization. Visualization, a form of self-hypnosis, is a self tool that can be used to accelerate rapid recovery and healing ( among many other uses). When we supply our mind with positive pictures (imagery - the language of the mind) and careful wording suggestions, visualization can shift thoughts and emotions that in turn effect our body!

The belief system we have is based upon the accumulation of verbal and non-verbal suggestions that have been gathered throughout our life experience. Repeated patterns and associated acknowledgements, scoldings, and rewards help to create within our subconscious our own Internal Focus of our world, our reality. In essence, we become what we think. Every thought we think, has an emotion and that emotion directly has physical effects in our body . In healing, repetitive use of positive visualization allows access to our mind-body connection and communication pathways.

This lets the mind and body work together to foster the healing process of the body on a physical level. What is the mind-body connection and how does it work? When we have an emotion it generates a feeling that turns into a physical sensation. For example: You are watching a horror movie, you feel frightened and then get a chill up your spine. In this case you were getting a negative suggestion through your sensory perception (sight and sound), that produced an emotion of fear which turned into the physical sensation of chills up your spine. Visualization uses positive images to produce positive emotions that manifest into positive physical sensations in the body! You are choosing to consciously affect your physical self in a positive way....by your choice!

Sounds simple, but does it work? Can what we think actually have an effect on healing? Bodies do react to the thoughts you make. Our psychological/emotional state affects the endocrine system. For example, the emotion of fear is related to adrenaline. If no feeling of fear exists there is no adrenaline and the same applies in reverse- no adrenaline, no fear. They work in relationship to each other. Wherever a thought goes there is a body chemical reaction.

Considered the emotional center of the brain, the hypothalamus gland transforms emotions into physical response. The receptor of neuropeptides, the hypothalamus also is responsible for various automatic functions of the body that you do not have to consciously think about. An Amazing process of our human body. This little gland sends messages in our body to regulate your internal body temperature, balance blood sugar, affects appetite responses and is in charge of the adrenal and pituitary glands, heart, lung, digestive and circulatory systems. It is a gland with enormous responsibilities of intricate functions.

Neuropeptides, are the chemical messenger hormones. They relay emotions back and forth between the mind and body. They link perception in the brain to the body via organs, hormones and cellular activity. Amazingly, these little messengers influence every major section of the immune system, so the body and mind work together seamlessly as one.

The brain is a highly efficient system that is connected to every cell in your body by billions of connections. It is divided into two sides - the left, logical side (words, logic, rational thought) and the right creative side (imagination and intuition). Day to day circumstances usually are met in a logical, left brain mode; however by yielding to the right, creative side of the brain we actually restore balance in the brain. This allows access to the mind-body connection to achieve what you want. The right side of the brain automatically steers you to your goal. It totally accepts what you want to accomplish without giving an opinion and acts upon it without judgment. That is why visualization targets the right, creative side of the brain and not the left, logical side.

A simple process - positive thought is essential to producing positive results. While on the opposite side - negative thoughts and emotions lower the immune system, while positive thought and emotions actually boost the immune system. We now know that thoughts affect our physical, mental and emotional bodies. So being conscious of what we think and visualize can shift a unhealthy body in a an improved state of well-being. A self tool worth learning about and sharpening!

To learn more about visualization, your mind-body connection and how you can improve your thoughts, life and well being contact Renée Snider.