When We Speak, Our Body Is Listening

By Jon Sward, Ph.D.

When we speak, or think, our body is listening. Every thought releases chemicals in the brain called neuropeptides. These chemicals, along with electrical charges, stimulate the hypothalamus -an important part of the brain.

Every thought we think influences millions of atoms, molecules, and cells throughout the body.

The hypothalamus controls the autonomic nervous system and also controls the pituitary-the master gland of the endocrine system.

On the average, we have 60,000 thoughts every day. About 96% of them are the same as the thoughts we had the day before and the day before that. That probably contributes to the body being as stable as it is, since we’re constantly translating thoughts into physiology.

Burl Payne, Ph.D., physicist and psychologist, tells us that thoughts generated in the brain activate hormone secretions and stimulate nerve centers within the body. Thoughts, coded as neural impulses, travel along nerve axons, activating muscles and glands, similar to telephone messages traveling over wires in the form of electrical signals.  Using EMG instruments, says Dr. Payne, we can show that muscles are activated when we think about anything involving action or emotions, even though there may be no visible movement. Although we don’t know how thoughts are generated in the brain, it seems clear that, once present, thoughts are amplified by the brain and turned into actions. Every thought we think influences millions of atoms, molecules, and cells throughout the body.

But, language has a tendency to become habituated and, people on the screen. This is the conscious segment. The rest of the information remains on the hard disk, or your subconscious. It is this information that gets into the long term memory and becomes the programming in the nervous system which has the greatest likelihood of affecting our physiology. If you want to retain information long term, a couple of things have to happen. You’ve got to engage in some kind of mental rehearsal for 10 minutes or more before the information goes into long term memory.

There’s another way to “shove” information into long term memory quickly, but we have to be careful. When the brain is in an intense emotional state, like a trauma, it tends to go into the long term memory quickly. That’s why we can have a frightening experience with a dog when we’re three years old and from that time on be afraid of dogs. Even as adults, we may not remember why, but when we see a dog, we become frightened.

In effect, we have amnesia until something triggers the program in our subconscious. Perhaps a word or simple event is all that’s needed. Choosing our words more carefully, whether speaking to someone else, or ourselves, can have a positive effect. Not too many years ago, when a child would go to the doctor for a shot, he or she often would be told: “This won’t hurt much.” Of course, the child only heard the word “hurt,” and reacted accordingly. Today, a better phrase is: “You’ll feel a little stick.”

Remember, our speaking habits do trigger images in our brain. Think and speak positively. Your body is listening!