A friend of mine who was raised in an Italian Catholic family told me a story about being depressed when he was growing up. Whenever his mother saw him moping around, she tell him to get up, make the sign of the cross, and do something! Sage advice and as far as I know, she never recorded a self-help CD. But what she offered is fundamental to a lot of we know about depression today.
There are several reasons for this, let’s look at a couple. We now know that emotions affect not only the brain, but every cell of the body. This comes from the Unified Theory of the Nervous System. But there is a chicken and egg question here. We know that our brain releases certain chemicals in response to stimuli in the environment. Just which chemicals and what dose depends on – our perception! You see the circle here. When those chemicals are released into the bloodstream, we have not only an emotional response, but a physiological response. We know what that feels like when we see the flashing lights in our mirror. Yet if I measured the chemical response from everyone in this room to that particular stimulus, I would get a unique measurement with each person. That physiological response is not only measurable by the chemicals in your bloodstream, it is perceptible by an outside observer!
You get embarrassed, your face flushes. You fall in love, you smile more. You get depressed and what happens? Your body droops, your muscles relax and allow your skeleton to collapse. Your facial muscles assume the shape of a frown. Your every movement slows down and you lose strength as well as speed. Your ability to respond quickly to events around you decreases.
Is it possible to create those same chemicals by assuming the body posture of depression? Absolutely! It is because your cells have memory for every one of our emotions and usually we let our brains lead our bodies, but if we are conscious, our bodies can lead our brains.
Tags: behavior, Depression, NLP, physiology