How to Stay Calm During a Confrontation, According to an Expert

Staying Calm During Conflict 

 

 

A psychologist explains why it’s so hard to keep a handle on your emotions when your buttons are pushed, and what you can do to have more productive conversations.

Stylist

• Aiden Wynn

If there’s one thing most people can agree on, it’s that life lately has been stressful. Everyone’s lives have undergone massive change as a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic and its ensuing restrictions, and perhaps none more so than relationships with friends, family and partners.

Lockdowns have meant that some are seeing their loved ones more than they ever imagined they would, with working from home and few options for getting out of the house meaning they are riding out the year practically in the pockets of those they live with. Social distancing, on the other hand, means that we are all unable to get too close to others, and I think most people have at least a couple of loved ones they just haven’t seen since restrictions kicked in in March.

It hasn’t been easy, and emotions have been running high. But, while anxiety, loneliness and sadness might be expected to creep in at a time like this, it’s worth noting that other difficult emotions like irritability and even anger can crop up, too.

These aren’t the easiest feelings to manage, because they are very often directed at others. So, even though you might miss the people you can’t see or understand that those you live with are going through the same things you are, it can be hard to get a handle on your frustration when they press your buttons. There’s a reason for that, though.

As Sarah Rozenthuler, a chartered psychologist and the author of How to Have Meaningful Conversations: 7 Strategies for Talking About What Matters explains, “specific threats in a social situation affect our ability to interact productively.”

She says that these threats, for example when you feel someone is insulting you or leaving you out, simulate similar brain networks to those that are triggered when your primary survival needs are threatened. This activates your limbic system, “which houses our emotional reactions.” This seeks to minimise the perceived threat “by avoiding a person or situation, or by attacking back.”

This, unfortunately, is an unconscious reaction, and one that is fairly easily triggered as Rozenthuler says that your limbic system “is more tuned to threats than rewards.” As a result, your ability to respond rationally or fairly is inhibited, making it all the more likely you will say or do something you regret.

But there are ways to ensure you don’t let confrontation get the better of you, and acknowledging the stressors that trigger that threat response is one of them.

According to David Rock of the NeuroLeadership Institute, there are five “key social threats that act as potential stressors”. These include having your competence undermined, feeling as though you’re being micro-managed, and believing a situation to be unfair. 

So, as Rozenthuler explains, “recognising these trigger points for what they are – threats to our social standing – helps us to manage how we deal with our ‘fight or flight’ response kicking in.”

What this means is that, by taking note of the things that tip you over the edge, you become more able to take stock of the situation, see it for what it is, and “remind yourself that there is no overt threat to your wellbeing or safety,” says Rozenthuler. 

She recognises that this is easier said than done, though, and that “re-engaging our ‘thinking brain’ when it has been hijacked by our ‘emotional brain’” takes time and practice to get right. If you’re a bit lost for where to start, though, you can try creating a brief pause when you find yourself in the midst of a heated conversation. Rozenthuler says that “taking a couple of deep breaths, counting to ten or getting a glass of water generates a ‘moment of choice’,” which “enables us to consciously choose what to do or say next.”

Put this into practice, and you could be on track to have far more productive conversations with the people you care about, rather than destructive confrontations. As Rozenthuler says, “no matter how provocative or perturbing someone else’s comments or behaviours are, we can learn to manage our triggers.”

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How to Identify Your 'Dominant Emotional Style' (and Why It's so Important)

Emotions 

 

Too much of a single emotion can lead to burnout. These strategies can help.

 

 Photo by Yasin Yusuf on Unsplash

 

By

Rachel Fairbank

During difficult times, we often find ourselves defaulting to a single, dominant emotion, even when another might be more “logical.” For example, your default emotion may be anxiety, which is what you’ll feel during the stressful times, even if a more appropriate emotional reaction might be anger, sadness, or frustration.

This is your dominant emotional style, said Alice Boyes, Ph.D., author of the book “The Healthy Mind Toolkit,” in a recent article she wrote for Psychology Today. In times of stress, a “dominant emotion” is the emotion we default to and is often linked to how we interpret and react to situations. Going back to the anxiety example, your reaction may be due to a tendency to blame yourself for situations; if your dominant emotion is anger, that might be due to a tendency to assume others are trying to hurt you.

Why being able to feel a range of emotions matters 

We default to our dominant emotion because that’s what we know and what is most familiar to us. However, it’s important to be able to experience a range of emotions, as this is often the key to a healthier, happier life.

One way to think about emotions is to think about all of the different emotions as being part of a balanced ecosystem. Within an ecosystem there are many different components, all of which are important for a healthy system. If this balance gets disrupted though, with one emotion becoming heavily dominant, then the overall health of the system gets thrown off balance.

As studies are showing, people who experience a broad range of emotions tend to have better mental and physical health, which includes lower rates of depression. One possible reason is that a mixture of emotions, even if they are negative ones, can help prevent a single emotion from completely taking over.

Two options for reducing your dominant emotion 

Feeling too much of one emotion is exhausting and can leave you burnt out. According to Boyes, there are two options that can help you step back from your dominant emotion.

The first option is to think through other possible interpretations of the situation. As Boyes notes, her dominant emotion is anxiety, where she will usually blame herself. However, when she slows down and evaluates the situation, trying to think through other reasons for what is going on, this allows her other emotions to surface.

The second option is to focus on the quieter feelings, the ones that have been drowned out by your dominant emotion. “If I tune into my smaller emotions, they rise to the surface more,” Boyes wrote. These other feelings can help you come up with different solutions to your problem, while also helping you to have a more balanced perspective.

As Boyes points out, these strategies for dialing down your dominant emotion can have a lot of positive benefits. This includes feeling a sense of relief, enhancing your creativity, identifying new ways to problem-solve, as well as motivating you to try alternative approaches that you might not otherwise think of.

As Boyes noted, when it comes to feeling these other emotions, “It’s okay if feeling your non-dominant emotions leaves you feeling unsettled and perhaps a little at sea. You can feel unsettled and still also benefit.”

How to calm your inner storm

Calming 

Click the link above to read this interesting article:

 

When your emotions become too painful and overwhelming, regain control using skills from dialectical behaviour therapy

by Sheri Van Dijk

 

 

 Photo by Marek Piwnicky

 

How to Overcome the Barriers to Self-Care

Self-Care 

 

Follow these expert tips to improve your relationship with your mind, body and emotions.

by Sarah John

 

For some, self-care might mean taking a hot bath. For others, it could be spending a night in with friends. 

Ask 100 people what self-care means to them, and you'll likely get 100 different responses. No matter the answer, we all seem to have one common theme with self-care — not doing enough of it. 

Job stress, family pressure, lack of time, limited resources and other barriers often keep us from a healthy, balanced lifestyle. For those who are low-income or are survivors of trauma, self-care might seem even more inaccessible. And with the pandemic, these stressors may be exacerbated.

We all know that self-care is important. So, why is it so hard to do? And how do we take back some control over our health and happiness — particularly if we're already in a spiral?

"I think we all want better lives for ourselves," says Jennifer Hooyman, a Minneapolis-based licensed clinical social worker and therapist. "But, (taking) the action steps is the hard part."

Rewire spoke with mental health experts about overcoming common obstacles to self-care in our lives and how we can start to improve our relationships with ourselves.

ICYMI: The Value of Self-Care and How to Start a Routine

Commit to starting today

One of the first steps in taking better care of ourselves is simply committing to doing it. 

Emily Hamilton, a California-based licensed clinical social worker and therapist, insists that self-care is essential preventative work for both physical and mental health. 

The key, Hamilton says, is starting small — even if it's just setting aside a few minutes each day for yourself. "You can start today," she said.

Our mindset is also important, she adds. If we fall off the self-care horse, we shouldn't engage in self-criticism.  

Set boundaries

A critical part of carving out time for yourself is setting boundaries. Brainstorm where you can cut back on responsibilities and commitments in your daily life, and then act accordingly.

Hamilton says she encourages her clients to use a physical planner with a rough schedule of their days, including not just work, but items like hobbies and meals as well. 

The pandemic has made it difficult for some people to recognize if they are overworking themselves. But if clients realize they are, say, skipping lunch for work very often, then it might be time to reclaim a boundary for that time. 

Kathi Fanning, director of training at The Center for Trauma and Resilience, says that when it comes to setting boundaries or seeking special accommodations at work, many employers are willing to be more flexible and empathetic than you might expect. 

She recommends approaching your employer with specific details of what you want them to do, being aware of what your own boundaries are, and coming to the table with a plan and compromises ready.

Get in tune with your emotions 

Learning to understand and validate your emotions can be a daunting task. It's tempting to rely on avoidance-based coping strategies, but gaining an awareness of your emotions is important for establishing a self-care routine.  

When life feels overwhelming, sometimes it's best to go back to the basics of self-care.   |  Credit: Thruer // Adobe

Hooyman recommends starting by asking yourself if you can routinely identify what you are feeling, and trying to learn to identify others' feelings as well.

"It's even in the little things," Hooyman said. "If you are watching a show or reading something, ask yourself: 'Can I tell how this person is feeling?'"

Therapy is also an option. Hooyman says the most important thing is finding a good therapist you trust and who makes you feel safe. 

"I treat therapy as: we are re-learning how to treat ourselves using compassion and a non-judgemental lens," she said.

Ask for help

The ability to establish a self-care routine during tough times might involve leaning on your social support network.

Hamilton recommends reaching out to friends to see how they are coping. Make a list of things they do that might be helpful to self-soothe in your own life.

Although you might feel wary about reaching out for help, Hamilton insists that it's not something to feel guilty about.

"We exist in villages for a reason," she said. "We have supports so that we can use them."

Go back to basics

When life feels overwhelming, sometimes it's best to go back to the basics of self-care. 

Hamilton and Hooyman both recommend taking a few minutes to do some deep breathing, a practice they believe is highly underrated as a coping mechanism. We also often overlook dehydration as a sign of fatigue, so be sure to drink water throughout the day.

Take time to check in with your body, mind and emotions by asking the following questions: Are you aware of what you're eating and how it impacts your body? Do you have quality relationships with the people in your life? Could you establish a relaxing morning and nighttime routine? Could you cut down on caffeine? What do you like to do for movement?

Self-care may seem abstract and difficult to achieve. But it is often merely a matter of taking an inventory of your life and figuring out how to respond to your environment in sustainable, balanced ways. 

And, if all else fails, remember that self-care is anything you do to help get you through the day. You don't have to be amazing.

"If you're just treading water to not drown, then that is (still) a success," Hooyman said.

Sarah John is a freelance writer based in New York City. Follow her on Twitter @sarahmjohn_, or reach out via email at sarahmjohn1@gmail.com.

Why Mental Self-Awareness Is Good for Your Brain

To be Aware 

 

 

Mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy, and other related practices all prioritize this form of ‘self-monitoring’

Markham Heid

Feb 11·5 min read

 

 

The human brain possesses a remarkable capability that most take for granted and few fully appreciate: It can watch itself work.

With effort, you can observe what your brain is thinking about and also what it’s doing with those thoughts — the feelings, ideas, emotions, and urges it’s producing. This capability falls into a category that psychologists sometimes call metacognition. (Basically, thinking about thinking.) And there’s evidence that practicing this sort of mental self-awareness holds immense therapeutic power.

“Introducing this idea of self-monitoring is one of the first steps in cognitive behavioral therapy,” says Michelle Newman, PhD, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Penn State University. “When you have a greater awareness of what the brain is doing, you can take a step back and take a more objective view of the world and your reactions to it.”

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is among the most evidence-backed and effective treatments for depression, anxiety, addiction, and related afflictions. And Newman says that the kind of objectivity that self-monitoring produces is a critical component of CBT in all its forms.

Mental self-monitoring also lies at the heart of mindfulness practices, which have moved to the fore in the battle against mood and substance-use disorders. “Something about observing our own thoughts changes our relationship to them,” says Judson Brewer, MD, PhD, a mindfulness researcher and associate professor of psychiatry at the Brown University School of Public Health.

‘Biofeedback’ Could Ease Headaches, Anxiety — and Maybe a Lot Else

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In quantum physics, there’s a phenomenon known as the observer effect: Scientists have demonstrated that certain subatomic particles change their behavior when under observation. And the closer the observation, the greater the change. Brewer says that something similar seems to happen when people pay closer attention to their own mind.

“When we start observing,” he says, “we find that we can’t be as caught up in, or identified with, our thoughts and emotions.”

How mental awareness interferes with negative thinking

Like a neglected bonfire, negative emotions tend to die out if they’re not continually replenished with negative thoughts.

“Thoughts don’t always give rise to feelings, but they definitely keep feelings going,” Newman says. “For example, you see something that’s unfair and you have an emotional reaction to it, and then your mind gets into this ruminative cycle where you think about unfairness everywhere, and those thoughts perpetuate the feeling.”

Along with this kind of emotion-shaded cherry-picking, a person’s thoughts can also become biased in ways that shape incoming information to one’s mood. “You can start discounting or discarding any information that goes counter to what you’re feeling,” she explains.

By paying closer attention to how all this happens in the brain — something that is achievable with practice — Newman says that it’s often possible to make helpful changes. You can learn to stop this whole process in its early stages and to redirect your thoughts in ways that suffocate negative feelings and the unhelpful or unhealthy behaviors they encourage.

Like a neglected bonfire, negative emotions tend to die out if they’re not continually replenished with negative thoughts.

While CBT techniques use mental self-monitoring to identify and address problematic thought patterns, proponents of mindfulness say that simply observing the mind’s inner workings can accomplish many of the same happy outcomes without the need to judge or effortfully reroute one’s thoughts.

“By default, most of us spend almost every waking second of our life thinking without knowing that we’re thinking,” says Sam Harris, PhD, a neuroscientist, author, podcast host, and early proponent of mindfulness meditation. “We feel identical to our thoughts, and so we’re held hostage by them.”

Don’t Worry, You Can’t Deplete Your Willpower

Self-control is all in your head

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Learning that we each have the ability to observe our own thoughts is Mindfulness 101, and a concept that Harris explores on Waking Up, his guided-meditation app. But one of the major insights that comes with practice, he says, is the realization that you and your thoughts are not one and the same. “Once you can get out of the stream of identification with thought, even for brief moments at a time, you can cease to suffer in many of the ordinary ways,” he says. “It’s tremendously freeing.”

This concept of identity-thought decoupling goes by a lot of names, including “ego dissolution.” And the benefits of creating some space between one’s thoughts and one’s identity comes up again and again in the research on mental wellness and treatment. For example, some studies — a lot of them conducted at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine — have found that psychedelic drugs may be a powerful form of treatment for depression and other mood or substance-use disorders. That work on psychedelics has identified both thought self-monitoring and ego dissolution as core components of the therapeutic experience.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the cultivation of mental self-awareness — whether through CBT, mindfulness, or magic mushrooms — is now at the center of psychology’s most prominent and promising therapeutic practices.

But while paying attention to one’s own thoughts has great potential to provide comfort and to prevent pain, that potential often goes untapped.

A little mindfulness may go a long way

There are countless ways to wield mental self-awareness to one’s advantage. The payoffs can be truly life-changing, but they require regular practice.

Even if you never make that kind of training a long-term part of your life, Brown University’s Brewer says that even a taste of formal practice — for example, an introductory mindfulness course — may offer some durable insights. “I don’t know that that’s the case, but I suspect it is,” he says. “Once we know that we can pay attention in this way, I think that helps us notice when we get stuck in these negative thought loops.”

This noticing, he adds, is often enough to set one’s thoughts on a different and healthier course.

Meditation Advice for Absolute Beginners

It may seem like a strange era to be mindful and present. But experts say it’s just the right time to meditate.

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Markham Heid

I write about health and science. I live in Detroit with my wife and kids. I’m trying to learn German, but my progress so far is nicht gut.

Table of Contents

1. How mental awareness interferes with negative thinking
2. A little mindfulness may go a long way

Science as We Know It Can’t Explain Consciousness – but a Revolution Is Coming

Our Minds 

 

One day there will be a science of consciousness, but it won’t look like science does now.

 

Explaining how something as complex as consciousness can emerge from a grey, jelly-like lump of tissue in the head is arguably the greatest scientific challenge of our time. The brain is an extraordinarily complex organ, consisting of almost 100 billion cells – known as neurons – each connected to 10,000 others, yielding some ten trillion nerve connections.

We have made a great deal of progress in understanding brain activity, and how it contributes to human behaviour. But what no one has so far managed to explain is how all of this results in feelings, emotions and experiences. How does the passing around of electrical and chemical signals between neurons result in a feeling of pain or an experience of red?

There is growing suspicion that conventional scientific methods will never be able answer these questions. Luckily, there is an alternative approach that may ultimately be able to crack the mystery.

For much of the 20th century, there was a great taboo against querying the mysterious inner world of consciousness – it was not taken to be a fitting topic for “serious science”. Things have changed a lot, and there is now broad agreement that the problem of consciousness is a serious scientific issue. But many consciousness researchers underestimate the depth of the challenge, believing that we just need to continue examining the physical structures of the brain to work out how they produce consciousness.

The problem of consciousness, however, is radically unlike any other scientific problem. One reason is that consciousness is unobservable. You can’t look inside someone’s head and see their feelings and experiences. If we were just going off what we can observe from a third-person perspective, we would have no grounds for postulating consciousness at all.

Of course, scientists are used to dealing with unobservables. Electrons, for example, are too small to be seen. But scientists postulate unobservable entities in order to explain what we observe, such as lightning or vapour trails in cloud chambers. But in the unique case of consciousness, the thing to be explained cannot be observed. We know that consciousness exists not through experiments but through our immediate awareness of our feelings and experiences.

Only you can experience your emotions. Photo by Olga Danylenko.

So how can science ever explain it? When we are dealing with the data of observation, we can do experiments to test whether what we observe matches what the theory predicts. But when we are dealing with the unobservable data of consciousness, this methodology breaks down. The best scientists are able to do is to correlate unobservable experiences with observable processes, by and relying on their reports regarding their private conscious experiences.

By this method, we can establish, for example, that the invisible feeling of hunger is correlated with visible activity in the brain’s hypothalamus. But the accumulation of such correlations does not amount to a theory of consciousness. What we ultimately want is to explain why conscious experiences are correlated with brain activity. Why is it that such activity in the hypothalamus comes along with a feeling of hunger?

In fact, we should not be surprised that our standard scientific method struggles to deal with consciousness. As I explore in my new book, Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness, modern science was explicitly designed to exclude consciousness.

Before the “father of modern science” Galileo Galilei, scientists believed that the physical world was filled with qualities, such as colours and smells. But Galileo wanted a purely quantitative science of the physical world, and he therefore proposed that these qualities were not really in the physical world but in consciousness, which he stipulated was outside of the domain of science.

This worldview forms the backdrop of science to this day. And so long as we work within it, the best we can do is to establish correlations between the quantitative brain processes we can see and the qualitative experiences that we can’t, with no way of explaining why they go together.

Mind is Matter

I believe there is a way forward, an approach that’s rooted in work from the 1920s by the philosopher Bertrand Russell and the scientist Arthur Eddington. Their starting point was that physical science doesn’t really tell us what matter is.

This may seem bizarre, but it turns out that physics is confined to telling us about the behaviour of matter. For example, matter has mass and charge, properties which are entirely characterised in terms of behaviour – attraction, repulsion and resistance to acceleration. Physics tells us nothing about what philosophers like to call “the intrinsic nature of matter”, how matter is in and of itself.

It turns out, then, that there is a huge hole in our scientific world view – physics leaves us completely in the dark about what matter really is. The proposal of Russell and Eddington was to fill that hole with consciousness.

The result is a type of “panpsychism” – an ancient view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the physical world. But the “new wave” of panpsychism lacks the mystical connotations of previous forms of the view. There is only matter – nothing spiritual or supernatural – but matter can be described from two perspectives. Physical science describes matter “from the outside”, in terms of its behaviour, but matter “from the inside” is constituted of forms of consciousness.

This means that mind is matter, and that even elementary particles exhibit incredibly basic forms of consciousness. Before you write that off, consider this. Consciousness can vary in complexity. We have good reason to think that the conscious experiences of a horse are much less complex than those of a human being, and that the conscious experiences of a rabbit are less sophisticated than those of a horse. As organisms become simpler, there may be a point where consciousness suddenly switches off – but it’s also possible that it just fades but never disappears completely, meaning even an electron has a tiny element of consciousness.

What panpsychism offers us is a simple, elegant way of integrating consciousness into our scientific worldview. Strictly speaking it cannot be tested; the unobservable nature of consciousness entails that any theory of consciousness that goes beyond mere correlations is not strictly speaking testable. But I believe it can be justified by a form of inference to the best explanation: panpsychism is the simplest theory of how consciousness fits in to our scientific story.

While our current scientific approach offers no theory at all – only correlations – the traditional alternative of claiming that consciousness is in the soul leads to a profligate picture of nature in which mind and body are distinct. Panpsychism avoids both of these extremes, and this is why some of our leading neuroscientists are now embracing it as the best framework for building a science of consciousness.

I am optimistic that we will one day have a science of consciousness, but it won’t be science as we know it today. Nothing less than a revolution is called for, and it’s already on its way.

Philip Goff is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Durham University.

How Your Emotions Affect Your Organ Health

How Your Emotions Affect Your Organ Health

This is a comprehensive explanation of the effect of emotions on Organ Health!


 October 24th
By Hilde Larsen

Contributing writer for Wake Up World

After years of studying health and how to allow the body to naturally heal, there is one topic that keeps coming back to me as significant, and that is the body-emotion connection. The key role they play in our physical wellbeing, and how much gunk we carry from early childhood. From our upbringing, our traumas, conditioning and belief system. How everything we ever lived is stored in our cells, and how our emotional terrain affects our vital organs.

From my own experience, living through the diagnoses of Lyme, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Ulcers, Insomnia, Anxiety, and Chronic Fatigue, I know how important diet is, how important a complete, lifestyle change is, including fresh air, grounding, rest and a loving community. But there is a BUT. Our emotional health cannot be separated from our physical and mental health. And our organs are telling a story of unresolved and unreleased feeling. A holding on that leads to ill health and obstruction.

We are not machines, in need of chemicals and separation. We are spiritual beings, living in a physical body that is a direct reflection of our inner terrain. All of it. The good the bad and the ugly.

The electromagnetic field emitted by our hearts can cause specific changes in the brains of the people around us. We now know from research that we can enter deep meditation states through practice and then these states can cause definitive changes in all our major regulatory mechanisms. Even the length of our telomeres, (a key biomarker for cell lifespan), inflammation and cell repair. We can talk to our organs, and we can identify which feeling is being stored in which organ. All in the name of healing.

This is not a new concept:

In traditional Chinese medicine, emotions and physical health are intimately connected. Nervous tension and anger, sadness, worry, fear, and stress are each associated with a particular organ in the body. As an example; anger will affect the liver and result in rashes, digestive issues, dizziness, and dry mouth, to mention a few.

Our organs do not only store unresolved emotions but will also reflect to us these very emotions. Regarding the liver example, it will be affected by your anger, but you will also feel angrier with an unhealthy liver. So those who are struggling with anger issues, might want to pay attention to their liver health.

Let us look more specifically at our vital organs and how they relate to our emotions. How everything we think, feel and eat creates our health. Once an intense, uncomfortable emotion is moved through, the “root cause” is removed, but there can still be physical effects in its wake that require repair. This is why food as medicine is so important, and why what to eat has been included in the below information for complete healing.

1. Lungs

Emotions: Grief and sadness. Emotions often not processed well. Sadness is often looked upon as something we need to get over. Being sad is not acceptable and we therefore suppress it, and the same goes for grief.

The lungs form energy from the air and help to distribute it throughout the body. They work with the kidney to regulate water metabolism. The lungs are very important in the immune system and resistance to viruses and bacteria. They also regulate the sweat glands and body hair and provides moisture to the skin.

Emotions stored in the lungs can result in:
• Bronchitis
• Cough
• Dry mouth and throat
• Weight loss
• Pain in shoulder and back
• Hoarseness
• Asthma
• Pneumonia
• Tightness in chest
Symptoms of Lung Imbalance will include shortness of breath and shallow breathing. Also, night sweats and fatigue, frequent cold and flu, allergies and dry skin.
Simple steps to help your lungs heal:
• Breathe deeply and connect with your lungs. Ask them what they need.
• Work through any grief and sadness you are experiencing
• Give your emotions space and care.
• Breathe fresh air.
• Do Qigong for the lungs.
• Breathe in essential oils like Rosemary, Peppermint and Eucalyptus.

Foods that may support the lungs:
• Grapefruit
• Kiwi
• Apples
• Organic Apples
• Lotus root
• Grapefruit
• Kiwi
• Berries
• Broccoli
• Ginger
• Pomegranate
• Oranges
• Turmeric

“A British study found that even after controlling for other factors, people who reported eating two to five apples a week had a 32% lower risk of asthma than people who ate less.”

2. Liver

Emotions: Anger, resentment, frustration, and irritability. Bitterness pointing towards the gallbladder.
Anger affects the liver more than any other organ, so if you feel angry, look towards your liver.

The liver’s main job is to filter the blood coming from the digestive tract, before passing it to the rest of the body. The liver also detoxifies chemicals and metabolizes drugs. It secretes bile that ends up back in the intestines. The liver also makes proteins important for blood clotting and other functions, and so much more. A very important detoxifying organ, which is very adaptable to healing.

Emotions stored in the liver can result in:
• Headaches
• Skin conditions
• Pain behind the right lower rib
• Jaundice
• Irritation
• Feeling toxic and sluggish
• Digestive issues
• Low energy
• Anger
• Red eyes

Suppressed anger can do a lot of damage and turn into depressed states. It is important to find a healthy outlet and to release the emotional imprints.

Simple steps to help your liver heal:
• Breathe deeply and connect with your liver. Ask it what it needs.
• Work through any anger issues that you may have.
• Hit a pillow, scream from nature.
• Set healthy boundaries.
• Forgive all that needs to be forgiven.
• Laugh more.
• Breathe fresh air.
• Do Qigong for the liver.
• Use essential oils over your liver, like Rosemary, Grapefruit, Ginger, Fennel, and Lemon.
• Dandelion and Milk Thistle are great liver herbs.
• Use a castor oil pack.

Foods that may support the liver:
• Dandelion greens
• Swiss chard
• Blueberries
• Grapes
• Beetroot juice
• Celery juice
• Prickly pear
• Watermelon
• Lemon
• Grapefruit
• Papaya
• Banana

Detoxifying the liver will inevitably affect all other organs of the body including the brain. I see many feelings clearer in their thinking from doing some deep liver-work. Detoxifying the liver and flushing the gallbladder is essential to all other organ health.

3. Stomach:

Emotions: Worry and feeling insecure. This is the core of our being. Our solar plexus.
The stomach shoulders the long-term effects of worry, weakening digestive fire.

The lining of the stomach secretes hydrochloric acids and enzymes that break down the food so that it can continue on its journey through the digestive system. As it secretes acid and enzymes, the stomach muscles contract to mix the food with the acid and enzymes. The acid also works to kill harmful microbes that may have made their way into the body along with food and drink.

Emotions stored in the stomach can result in:
This lowers hydrochloric acid production and can cause bloating, gas, and changes in bowel habits while thinning gut lining
• Lower hydrochloric acid production
• Bloating
• Gas
• Thinning of the stomach lining
• Ulcers
• Indigestion
• Allergies
• Headaches

Worry is like planning for the worst. It will manifest like a low-grade inflammation and wreak havoc on the entire body. When digestion fails, we suffer at the core.

Simple steps to help your stomach heal:
• Breathe deeply and connect with your stomach. Ask what it needs from you.
• Eat fruits and vegetables.
• Practice fasting.
• Look at why you are worrying.
• Know you are safe.
• Let of control issues.
• Allow yourself to care less about what other people think.
• Do Qigong for the stomach and digestive system.
• Drink peppermint essential oil.
• Use a castor oil pack.
• Practice deep breathing.

Foods that may support the stomach:
• Chamomile
• Peppermint
• Ginger
• Licorice
• Bananas
• Papaya
• Apples
• Fresh juices
• Figs
• Prunes
• Grapes
• Dates

The stomach will be best served with the less is more method, meaning rest. When we feel worried we don’t have an appetite, and this is related. When the stomach is upset, it wants to be left alone to heal and restore. Breathe deeply and know that worrying never resolves anything and that your core depends on you letting go.

4. Heart

Emotions: Stress, lack of enthusiasm and vitality, despair, depression, insomnia.

The human heart is an organ that pumps blood throughout the body via the circulatory system, supplying oxygen and nutrients to the tissues, removing carbon dioxide and other wastes. The heart is also partially responsible for an even and regular pulse. It influences vitality and spirit and is connected with the tongue, complexion, and arteries.

Emotions stored in the heart can result in:
• Irregular heartbeats
• Poor memory
• Weakness
• Easy bruising
• Premature graying of the hair
• Pain in chest
• Prickly pains

Lack of joy, stress, and despair will take a toll on a healthy heart. We call it heart break when the feeling of such despair becomes overwhelming. Love is always the answer, and lack thereof will hurt our hearts more than anything.

Simple steps to help your heart heal:
• Breathe deeply and connect with your heart. Ask it what it needs.
• Process any events in your life that have left you heartbroken.
• Eliminate stress.
• Forgive everything and everyone.
• Practice compassion.
• Meditate.
• anticipate good things.
• Surround yourself with loving people.
• Set healthy boundaries.
• Breathe fresh air.
• Do Qigong for the heart.
• Practice self-love and self-care.
• Exercise.

Foods that may support the heart:
• Oranges
• Papaya
• Cantaloupe
• Berries
• Spinach
• Broccoli
• Tomatoes
• Pomegranate
• Apricot
• Apples
• Kiwi
• Peaches

Stress makes everything worse, absolutely everything, but it is an extra burden on the heart. Love yourself more and allow your heart to heal through this love. Nothing is worth holding on to, as living is in the NOW moment.

5. Kidneys

Emotions: Fearful, insecure, weak willpower, feeling isolated and aloof.
Fear resides in the kidneys and can manifest as chronic adrenal fatigue. Leading to poor kidney filtration, and therefore a myriad of symptoms and so-called diseases. Fear can be many things, from general lack of security to traumas and shock. Usually, this imprint is from early childhood, where feeling fear can easily be triggered.

Emotions stored in the kidneys can result in:
• Adrenal Fatigue
• Pain
• Edema
• Rashes
• Bags around the eyes
• Insomnia
• Anxiety
• Boils and pimples
• Urinary tract infections
• Burning upon urination
• Lower back pain
• Kidney stones

Symptoms of kidney imbalance, besides the feeling of anxiety and fear, will often look like a general uneasiness and fear of change. Trying to find security in food, old patterns, people and situations.

Simple steps to help your Kidneys heal:
• Breathe deeply and connect with your kidneys. Ask them what they need.
• Work through any fear that comes up for you.
• Give your emotions space and care.
• Walk barefoot to ground your being.
• Do Qigong for the kidneys.
• Use a castor oil pack.
• Walk barefoot.
• Practice daily breathwork.
• Rub Juniper Essential Oil on your kidneys.
• Drink lemon water.
• Chanca Piedra, the stone breaker herb is great for kidneys stones and sluggishness.
• Stretching.
• Yoga.

Foods that may support the kidneys:
• Watermelon
• Grapes
• Oranges
• Lemons
• Limes
• Cranberries
• Apples
• Parsley
• Nettle
• Cilantro
• Berries

The kidney is the organ for sustaining life. Responsible for growth, development, and maturation. Involved with lungs in water metabolism and respiration. Also connected with the adrenal glands, bones, teeth, ears, and head hair.

Talk to Your Organs

Years ago, I read about Carlos Castaneda`s teachings where he talks about talking to your organs. Not until recent years have I been practicing this myself and with my clients. Such a powerful tool.

This is how you do it:

Find a comfortable position and close your eyes. Make sure you will not be disturbed. Breathe deeply and focus on your breath. Allow yourself to relax fully. Slowly relax every muscle, every organ and joint of your body, keeping your focus on the breath.

When you feel relaxed, find the organ you want to talk to, and focus your inner eye on it. See it, feel it, visualize it fully to the best of your ability.

Now, connect to the symptoms from this organ, and allow the emotions stored in the organ to arise. Stay with it for a moment. Don’t judge or try to change anything, just observe and feel. Lean into it.

Start talking to the organ, like a person. Be direct. Be clear. Feel appreciation and support. Be compassionate for the suffering. Express your support, and feel love for whatever you see or feel. This is a part of your inner child, so speak gently.

Ask simple, direct and honest questions such as:
“Why are you in pain?”
“Do you have a message for me?”
“Is the anything I need to know or see?”
“How can I help resolve this?”
“Is there anything I can do to resolve this issue?”

Pay attention to what comes up and spend a moment to be present with what arises. Thank your organ and your body and take a few deep breaths as you anchor the information.

The balance and regulation of our emotional state is an important part of our daily hygiene. Our physical health depends on it. Although emotions are good, we often tend to store those we do not want to look at, to process.

Be brave, dive in and allow your entire being to heal. Emotions are considered pathological when repressed and contained. They are hurtful to our cells when expressed without control, out of context and a place of despair.

Let your inner world flow and let go of everything no longer serving you. Forgive and allow. Live with passion and love in your heart.

Your body depends on it.

Hilde Larsen
Health/Mindset Coach/Author/Speaker/Detox Specialist/Life-Enthusiast

The Revolutionalry Power Of Diverse Thought

"From populist demagogues, we will learn the indispensability of democracy," says novelist Elif Shafak. "From isolationists, we will learn the need for global solidarity. And from tribalists, we will learn the beauty of cosmopolitanism." A native of Turkey, Shafak has experienced firsthand the devastation that a loss of diversity can bring -- and she knows the revolutionary power of plurality in response to authoritarianism. In this passionate, personal talk, she reminds us that there are no binaries, in politics, emotions and our identities. "One should never, ever remain silent for fear of complexity," Shafak says. This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page.


 About the speaker Elif Shafak · Novelist Elif Shafak explicitly defies definition -- her writing blends East and West, feminism and tradition, the local and the global, Sufism and rationalism, creating one of today's most unique voices in literature. More Resources Three Daughters of Eve

Anxiety: An Introduction to This Potentially Debilitating Disorder

Anxiety is becoming an epidemic

Story at-a-glance

• At first glance, this may look like a simple rise in your stress levels or an increase in tiredness, but if there are bodily changes that are physical, mental or emotional, or a combination of all three, then this could mean that you are already experiencing an anxiety disorder
• The Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) notes that these disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the U.S., affecting around 40 million adults aged 18 and above — that’s 18 percent of the population

Your life isn’t just defined by the happy highs, such as graduation or getting your first paycheck, but by the lackluster lows, too, including divorce or physical injuries. Although it is normal to be concerned about aspects of your life such as your job, relationships, bank account or health, too much stress and worry can be devastating for your body.

At first glance, this may look like a simple rise in your stress levels or an increase in tiredness, but if there are bodily changes that are physical, mental or emotional, or a combination of all three, then this may mean that you are experiencing an anxiety disorder.

Distinguishing Anxiety Disorders From Everyday Emotions

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines anxiety as a “fear or nervousness about what might happen.”¹ However, clinical anxiety refers to a group of disorders that can cause nervousness, fear, apprehension and worrying. There are seven common types of anxiety disorders, namely:²

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)	Panic Disorder
Phobias	Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Social Anxiety Disorder	Separation Anxiety Disorder
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

These diseases have their own symptoms, triggers and complications. The most common signs that you have an anxiety disorder include:^3,4,5,6

Emotional	Physical
• Feelings of apprehension, dread or danger, and anticipating the worst • Restlessness • Difficulty in concentrating • Feeling tense or irritable • Feeling that the mind has gone blank	• Pounding or fast heartbeat (or palpitations) • Excessive sweating • Headaches • Upset stomach • Dizziness • Frequent urination • Diarrhea • Shortness of breath • Muscle tensions, tremors and twitches7 • Fatigue • Insomnia

How Prevalent Are Anxiety Disorders?

In the U.S., numbers related to mental illnesses (anxiety disorders are some of them) are on the rise. Around 40 million adults aged 18 and above, roughly 18 percent of the population, have been diagnosed with anxiety disorders, making these the most common mental illnesses in the U.S. Here’s a breakdown of how many adults in the U.S. are affected by certain anxiety disorders:⁸

Generalized Anxiety Disorder: 6.8 million (3.1 percent), more common among women	Panic Disorder: 6 million (2.7 percent), more common among women
Social Anxiety Disorder: 15 million (6.8 percent), equally present in men and women	Phobias: 19 million (8.7 percent), more common among women
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: 22 million (1.0 percent), equally present in men and women	Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: 7.7 million (3.5 percent), more common among women

In a 1999 Journal of Clinical Psychiatry study, it was estimated that anxiety disorders cost Americans alone more than $42 billion dollars annually.⁹ Since then the World Health Organization (WHO) has calculated that, in countries of all sizes worldwide by 2030, global costs of treatment, counseling and prescription drugs are expected to rise to an annual cost of $147 billion.¹⁰

Good News: You Can Alleviate Anxiety Minus the Health Risks

There are natural treatments and lifestyle practices that patients can follow to help combat feelings of anxiety and stress. You can actually enrich your daily diet with various stress-busting foods, too.
Don’t let these disorders affect you or someone you know. Find out how anxiety affects your mental and emotional health, as well as the various types of symptoms that you should watch out for, along with the natural, effective and inexpensive treatments that may address these underlying issues.

MORE ABOUT ANXIETY

Anxiety: Introduction	What is Anxiety?	Anxiety Versus Panic Attacks
Anxiety in Children	Anxiety During Pregnancy	Panic Attacks and Anxiety
Anxiety Causes	Anxiety Types	Anxiety Symptoms
Anxiety Treatment	Anxiety Prevention	Anxiety Diet
Anxiety Support Groups	Anxiety FAQ

Next
What is Anxiety?

The Effects Of Negative Emotions On Our Health

The Effects Of Emotions On Our Health

Emotions play a large part in our well-being.  Worry and Sorrow are detrimental to good health.  The graph explains the various parts of the body that are affected when we are unhappy and sad.

Humans experience an array of emotions, anything from happiness, to sadness to extreme joy and depression. Each one of these emotions creates a different feeling within the body. After all, our body releases different chemicals when we experience various things that make us happy and each chemical works to create a different environment within the body. For example if your brain releases serotonin, dopamine or oxytocin, you will feel good and happy. Conversely, if your body releases cortisol while you are stressed, you will have an entirely different feeling associated more with the body kicking into survival mode.