We just received this very insight­ful essay on stress man­age­ment and brain health writ­ten by Lan­don, a home­schooler and par­tic­i­pant in Susan Hill’s writ­ing work­shop. Susan asked her stu­dents to write about impli­ca­tions of recent brain research.

Enjoy the arti­cle and the long week­end (at least here in the US) and Relax…

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Stress Man­age­ment for Your Brain Health

– By Lan­don N

Thou­sands and thou­sands of web-like neu­rons linked together form a spongy mass inside a skull. This mass, called the brain, is what con­trols the body and the thoughts that run threw it have a notable effect on the heath of an indi­vid­ual. In addi­tion to thoughts, fear, stress, and emo­tions also have a strong effect on health. So then, health depends on more than just eat­ing right and exer­cis­ing; it depends on our men­tal state as well.

Thoughts have more power in the body then most peo­ple know. The brain and health are closely con­nected, and usu­ally if one mal­func­tions, so does the other. In fact, some sci­en­tists have traced about 87 per­cent of ill­nesses to thoughts (Leaf 2007). Even if that per­cent­age high, I do think that thoughts def­i­nitely have an effect on health. In addi­tion to shap­ing our health, thoughts also shape our atti­tudes. As an ancient proverb says, “For as he thin­keth in his heart, so is he. This means that if some­one is con­stantly think­ing neg­a­tive thoughts, he will tend to be some­one with poor health and vice versa. If not prop­erly dealt with, bad thoughts can slowly build up and could cause dam­age to the brain. This is very impor­tant for peo­ple to know since it could help them to have bet­ter health and there­fore a bet­ter life. In addi­tion, if they knew this they would be spared the pain of being pol­lut­ing with bad thoughts. That is why this is the most impor­tant thing for peo­ple to know about the brain. The pub­lic should know that the true cause of their ill­nesses could be noth­ing more than a buildup of bad thoughts over the years.

Fear, stress, and emo­tion are also directly linked to health and the brain. For exam­ple, fear starts as harm­ful thoughts, which are cre­ated in the brain, and which in turn, can cause stress. Also, any­one who has been afraid at one time or another knows that fear is stress­ful. The mouth gets dry, the hands get clammy, and the nerves get jumpy. Liv­ing in a con­tin­ual state of fear is very unhealthy because it wears greatly on an individual’s health. So then, fear can be unhealthy because it causes stress, which is unhealthy in exces­sive mea­sures. In some cases, over­stressed chil­dren have a 30% higher chance of devel­op­ing some kind of can­cer in their early 30’s (Leaf 2007) Also, when some­one is too stressed, the den­drites in the brain can actu­ally shrink caus­ing their mind to “go blank” (Leaf 2007). In addi­tion, it has been found that stress can cause peo­ple to gain weight and take vital min­er­als from the bones. Emo­tions are also very impor­tant to the health of a per­son, and stud­ies have shown that emo­tional pain can slowly turn into phys­i­cal pain as well. Peo­ple who are angry all the time can have many more health prob­lems then some­one who is not. And those who hold on to a past wrongs and refuse to for­give only hurts them­selves both emo­tion­ally and phys­i­cally. As the psalmist said, “Refrain from anger and turn away from wrath; do not fret–because it leads only to evil.” With this in mind, we should not hold grudges or be unfor­giv­ing; the only one hurt the one who holds the grudge. One can hide or bury his feel­ings and not deal with them, but be sure those buried emo­tions will come to the sur­face again when they don’t expect it. So many things are directly linked to the brain and health and they are impor­tant because they have a strong effect on our lives.

Though the brain is made up of thou­sands parts, each small thought has a con­se­quence of its own. Stress, emo­tion, and fear also have an effect on the brain, and there­fore the health. The most impor­tant con­cept for peo­ple to know about the brain is that thoughts affect health and that health is the guardian of life.

Related posts on Stress management

- Relax­ing for your Brain’s Sake.

- Stress and Neural Wreck­age: Part of the Brain Plas­tic­ity Puz­zle.

- Stress Man­age­ment Work­shop for Inter­na­tional Women’s Day.

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