Articles

Conscious Aging Women March 2025

Let us talk about self-care. Self-care is always important but especially important in these times of chaos and uncertainly when our emotions can run riot.

How does increasing our sense of who we are and what triggers our thoughts and emotions helps us?

Research by Dr. Bruce Lipton, Dr. Candance Pert and others has shown that our thoughts produce emotions and those emotions produce hormones and other substances that directly affect our body chemistry, our blood pressure, our heart rate and other activities in our body and mind. When we are angry or upset our body releases cortisol and adrenaline which activates the flight or fight responses in our body. Blood flow to the brain is reduced and sent into our arms and legs to ready us to take flight or to fight the situation. But, often the difficult situation or thought is in our head not in a present physical danger. With less blood going to the brain, our ability to think clearly and assess a situation is greatly lessened and we often act in ways that are more harmful than helpful. Because we have not improved the situation, the fight or flight hormones continue to pour into our bodies and not only do these hormones reduce our ability to think clearly, they negatively affect our immune system so we are less able to fight off infections.

When we are more aware of what our “trigger points” are, we can begin to understand why these “trigger points” affect us so strongly and we can recognize the physical signs when we are being “triggered”. Then we can stay out of situations that trigger us, such as watching the daily news reports or discussing certain topics with certain people. Now that we know certain areas of our lives “trigger” us we can “talk ourselves down” and reduce the emotions that are triggered.

We are living in a time of great upheaval. The media is ever present, bombarding us with information, misinformation, outright lies and pictures of catastrophes that are very upsetting. A sense of helplessness is easily felt and adds to our fears and lack of control. It is OK and actually imperative that we protect ourselves from this bombardment. It is important to understand what is going on in the world but it is even more important to recognize our limits and abstain from what is upsetting us. Now, more than ever, it is time to prioritize play and engage with positive people. Take care of yourself by any means that brings a laugh or love into your life. The sillier the better !!