How do you feel today? Are you tired? Are you sick? Maybe you are feeling healthy, happy, and on top of the world. Here is something that may surprise you: how you feel has almost everything to do with how you think you feel. If you wake up in the morning thinking about how tired you are and wishing you could just pull the covers over your head and stay put, you will start the day feeling sluggish. Your body will respond to the directive of your thoughts by dragging through the morning, sans energy. Your entire day may play out at a subpar level because of the mental atmosphere you created for yourself before you even got out of bed.
On the other hand, if you wake up choosing to be grateful for another morning, focusing on how healthy you are becoming and the promise the day holds, your body will again respond accordingly. You will move through your day with more energy and joy. You will feel better, look better, be able to stick to a healthy lifestyle better, and have more to offer those around you—and all because of what you chose to say to yourself when the alarm went off.
What goes on in your mind actually creates chemical realities within your body. Different thoughts and their accompanying emotions cause neurons to fire in your brain, setting off correlating physical reactions. This isn’t new information. King David wrote about it thousands of years ago: “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength” (Prov. 17:22).
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale took it a step further:
The longer I live the more I am convinced that neither age nor circumstance needs to deprive us of energy and vitality. We are at last awakening to the close relationship between religion and health. We are beginning to comprehend a basic truth hitherto neglected, that our physical condition is determined very largely by our emotional condition, and our emotional life is profoundly regulated by our thought [mental] life. All through its pages, the Bible talks about vitality—to be filled with energy.
Science backs up both King David’s and Peale’s assertions. The stress that comes along with wrong thinking (and the resulting negative feelings and bad attitudes) raises blood pressure and releases cortisol into your system. We have already examined just how dangerous that can be over time. Choosing to let negative thoughts go in favor of more positive ones automatically improves your body’s state of being, leading to more complete health and wellness. Filling your mind with the right thoughts is imperative to becoming the new you.
– Nelson Searcy and Jennifer Dykes Henson
The above excerpt is from p. 179-180 of The New You: A Guide to Better Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Wellness.
With your copy of The New You, you will come away with specific strategies on how to lose weight, get more sleep, lower stress, nurture better relationships, connect with God and much more! Anyone who wants to trade in the frustration of average living and less-than health for the hallmarks of the new life God promises will find The New You an effective personal guide for the journey.
Your partner in ministry,
Nelson
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