Psychoneurological Sheds Light on Stress and Overall Health

Psychoneurology has been around since the beginning of time. It has its roots back to ancient cultures and philosophies including Hinduism and Buddhism.

It describes the mind-body connection, the link between how we feel in our mind and the rest of our physical body.

Stress is a naturally occurring response and in normal situations is not harmful to us, and rather is beneficial. We have all experienced “flight or flight” response. This is the sudden increase in the heart rate, respiration, dry mouth, sweaty palms. What is happening is hormones are being released to prepare the body to either “fight or flight” against whatever pending threat. Hormone including adrenaline is entering into the system. The heart is pumping harder to get more oxygen and blood to our muscles to allow us to flee to safety. In the past, if we were faced with a sabre-toothed tiger, then this was a relevant automatic bodily response to keep us safe.

The problem comes when busy lives and modern stresses and lifestyles, negative thinking or perceptions cause low levels of continuous stress hormone production regularly. The brain cannot tell whether the threat is real or imagined, and therefore this switches on the negative hormone release. This overtime then becomes chronic. Over time this causes an inflammatory response within the body which negatively affects our physical health or psychoimmunology. Many studies have demonstrated this.

Studies have shown that exercise, optimistic thinking, meditation and hypnotherapy all promote the release of the beneficial hormone which helps to reduce stress hormone levels in the body and boost the immune system. Most acute medical care services have strained budgets and mental health services have always been an underserved segment. if we want to take responsibility for improving our mental health then it is largely in our own hands. public healthcare is always going to be reactive, ie when things get really bad. my work resides in the preventative space.

A good hypnotherapist helps you to reduce negative self-talk and unwanted behaviours, and help you get to the real root of the issue to bring about positive and beneficial thinking. All of this serves to fundamentally improve psychoimmunology.