In turns out there is a mouse (or maybe more than one) in my house. I first became suspicious when I noticed my bag of wild rice had a hole in it. Pretty soon I noticed a couple other foods items on my shelf were developing holes, and small food remnants were finding themselves on my kitchen floor. So I set out a couple of mouse traps and baited them with some delicious peanut butter. I figured how could a mouse resist tasty, creamy peanut butter? Especially when the alternative was hard, dried rice or lentils. Well as you can see in the picture below, apparently uncooked, unseasoned lentils are more appetizing than peanut butter. Maybe it was because the peanut butter looks like it was presented on the tongue of a shark with his mouth wide open, but regardless the mouse didn’t take the bait. AND he left all of his lentil crumbs spread around my carefully placed trap to prove his point.
As I lay in bed one night I begin thinking of alternative plans to catch the mouse. As different ideas flowed through my head, so did different pictures of the mouse running around my house. One picture that jumped into my head was the mouse finding his way into my bed, and scurrying around between my bed sheets, crawling around me. As you can imagine this was not a very pleasant picture. I immediately noticed myself tense up and roll around uncomfortably. I think I even did a little “kick” trying to get the imaginary mouse out from under my sheets. It was amazing how the picture I created in my mind lead to incredible changes in my body.
As I settled down, my thoughts shifted. I remembered back to my sister having a pet guinea pig as a child. I remembered how soft and cuddly it was. I realized that some people even have pet mice. So I wondered to myself what that would be like. I pictured petting a soft, furry mouse in my hand and letting him relax against me. Suddenly the feeling in my body did a complete 180. It was immediately filled with an incredibly content feeling. My muscles relaxed, my breathing deepened, my heart slowed down…all because I shifted the picture in my head!
It made me realize how important our thoughts are when it comes to our overall health. When I see people in my office, the most common thing that is taking a toll on their health is from negative mental and emotional stress. Over and over again I see people who “feel” stressed out and who then express that stress in their bodies. Whether it be headaches, indigestion, muscle tension, fatigue, aches and pains…there are an incredible number of things that result from the body storing its day to day stresses. This is one reason the neurological chiropractic approach I take gets great results with people under stress. It allows the brain to send calming, healing, and relaxing messages down to the body, letting the body shift to a state of ease and health.
What does this mean for you? I figured that if you can change just one common stress in your life it could make an incredible difference in your health. It doesn’t even mean you have to change the stress. In fact, simply thinking about a different perspective may be all it takes. When I was lying in my bed I felt my body go from extremely tense to peacefully relaxed in a matter of minutes even though my environment was exactly the same.
Can you picture one thing to simply think about differently, that would make a difference in your life?
Wishing you peaceful thoughts,
Dr. Tye