Have you ever wondered what connection there is between your emotions and physical symptoms, pain, and inflammation?
Dr. Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD provides some insight as to how the brain sends signals to different organs in our bodies and how our emotional states from different types of trauma throughout life affect development of chronic inflammation, which produces various types of symptoms that signify disease in the body.
We’ve been talking about diet and physical components that will impact inflammatory signals in the body. Something we tend to forget is that the one that is these signals, is actually the brain, and is directly connected to how we feel. If we are dealing with any kind of trauma: if we are dealing with anger, guilt, fear. All of these different emotions impact your inflammatory conditions.
What has been seen is that with the “brain map”, and within that map there are certain areas that relate to all the different organs throughout the body. Let’s say for instance, the kidneys: there is a specific area of the brain that is directly connected to the kidneys. What has been observed is that certain emotions affect certain areas of the brain that correspond to these different areas in the body.
Fear, for instance, will impact a certain brain region. That same area is the one that controls the kidneys. If you are holding on to that emotion, that nerve stimulation from the brain to the kidneys will be reduced. This means that circulation going to the kidneys will also be reduced. This also means that there is a build-up of toxic waste, because the organ is not flushing out waste as it should. There is also a diminishment of transportation of nutrients to the kidney to support function and repair of this organ. To address inflammatory signals, you want to take a look and see what emotions are behind them.
To use the liver as another example: if you are dealing with a lot of anger, it tends to be stored there because it is connected to the specific area in the “brain map” that sends signals to the liver and supports circulation to the liver, and detoxification, and also transport of nutrients to this organ to ensure its health.
In my clinic we offer a technique called Applied Psycho-Neurobiology where you can actually pinpoint and determine what kind of emotion is behind this stress factor. Let’s say you have a pain in the knee because the kidneys are not moving out the uric acid as quickly as they should. You may learn that you have some fear you are dealing with that is affecting the kidneys; perhaps you had something that happened when you were 8 years old at school where some kids were bullying you, and you have been holding onto this fear for some years. Over time, this has been impacting the kidneys because they are not filtering out the uric acids as quickly as they should. As a result, you are now experiencing pain and inflammation in your knee. There is a direct cause that can lead to physical symptoms.
If you are dealing with emotional issues, I highly recommend looking into the emotional factors that can have a very real impact on chronic inflammation.
Photo by Vikas Shankarathota on Unsplash.