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The information on this website is designed to offer self-care tips and recommendations based on evidence-based research and literature from professionals in each field. It is not intended to diagnose or treat any specific medical condition. Please consult with your healthcare provider before making any health-related decisions.
“While we may not be able to control all that happens to us, we can control what happens inside us.”
—Benjamin Franklin
“If you think what I am saying is boring, get up and stand in the hall!” Yells my 6th-grade teacher as he sees me yawning. It was 1989 at Monticello Elementary school in Monticello, Utah. A sense of sleepiness crept in during the last class of the day. Triggered by sleepiness, not boredom, I yawned. “You will stay in the hall until the bell rings,” yells my teacher, who feels disrespected when perceiving my act of yawning. With the other students’ eyes upon me, my discomfort increases as I gather my things and spend the remaining minutes of class standing in the hallway.
Fast forward 32 years. Now, whenever if feel the urge to yawn while someone else is speaking, I find myself reliving this experience. Coupled with this memory comes an automatic sense of worry. Why does this minor experience in 1989 still influence a physiological response 32 years later? We all find ourselves reliving past experiences when interacting with our current environment. Some of these experiences cause positive physiological effects, such as joy and happiness and others decrease your sense of well-being.
This article will explain what happens in the brain when past lived experiences cause negative physiological effects such as anxiety and depression. You will learn how and why these memories are stored and are easily recalled. At the end of this article, I will empower you with the techniques to regulate these automatic thoughts that negatively impact your overall health and wellness. Your past doesn’t have to dictate today’s sense of well-being.
The Development of Thoughts and Emotional Responses
Beau Lotto, in his book, Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently, explains how thoughts, behaviors, and automatic physiological responses, are a representation of the social and cultural environments we have been exposed to from fetal development until now.[i] Urie Bronfenbrenner, a human developmental theorist, teaches us that various environmental systems, referred to as ecological systems such as the family, school, church, and community, teach us how to make sense of the world.[ii] As we interact with these systems, we develop emotional regulatory skills training the mind on how to behave and react emotionally to these stimuli in the future.
The higher the emotions during these past-lived experiences, the greater the chance that they will be stored in long-term memory and easily recalled. In his book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, Daniel Goleman, teaches that coupled with the memories stored in our brain are the physiological responses occurring at the time of the event.[iii] So, when I feel like yawning while someone else is speaking, the negative emotions associated with this current event influence the same physiological response that occurred when this elementary school teacher removed me from their classroom. These automatic responses influenced by past experiences occur within everyone as you interact with the world around you on a daily basis. But the good news is that we all have the potential to regulate these automatic thoughts and reduce the negative effects occurring in our bodies.
Understanding the Physiological Effects of Emotions
The autonomic nervous system subconsciously regulates various bodily functions and consists of the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems. Positive emotions activate the parasympathetic nervous system. When this system is active, you feel calm and happy. On the other hand, the sympathetic nervous system becomes active when the mind triggers negative emotions and influences your fight, flight, or freeze. This decreases overall well-being as the adverse emotions influence negative physiological effects throughout your mind and body.
What are these negative physiological responses occurring in your mind and body when you relieve these experiences? Negative emotions activating the sympathetic nervous system influence the release of stress hormones, resulting in an increased heart rate, shallow breathing, muscular tension, increased blood flow to the head, arms, and legs, and decreased digestion. Next time you feel worried, sad, or fearful, take notice of the areas of your body where you feel the most negative effects. Practice becoming self-aware of the changes occurring throughout your body as you interact with your environment. Self-awareness is a critical first step toward regulating how your mind and body react to the stimulus surrounding you.
Learn How to Regulate Negative Emotions
We cannot change the past lived experiences that influence negative emotions as we interact with the world around us. However, we all have the potential to learn to regulate these automatic responses through a technique called cognitive restructuring. Cognitive restructuring is a crucial element in cognitive behavioral therapy. It’s the process of perceiving your thoughts as only suggestions, not set in stone, where you go through a process of analyzing all current relevant facts and then disputing faulty thought patterns associated with the past experience.[iv] You can regulate the negative physiological responses influencing more positive outcomes through this process.
Coupled with the application of cognitive restructuring, you can also lessen the impact of these automatic negative emotional responses in real-time through the techniques of mindfulness and diaphragmatic breathing. Check out my YouTube playlist to learn more about mindfulness and diaphragmatic breathing. We all have the potential to regulate the autonomic nervous system and activate the parasympathetic nervous system when we sense the mind subconsciously activating the sympathetic nervous system as we are exposed to the current stimuli surrounding us.
With the routine practice of applying cognitive restructuring, changing your past perceptions and definitions of the situations surrounding you, your brain will gradually rewrite past narratives modifying your emotional response, making it easier over time. You will see a reduction in the automatic negative emotional reactions.
I challenge you to reflect on your current everyday experiences where you feel negative emotions. Through self-analysis link, your recent experiences toward the possible past lived experiences influencing negative physiological responses. By identifying what was stored in the brain during past learned experiences, you may focus on cognitive restructuring and influence a positive change toward the variables in today’s environment influencing negative emotions.
You can learn more methods to improve your overall health and wellness through my new book, Self-Health Andragogy: Self-Directed Learning Approach to Mental and Physical Self-Care. In this book, you will learn how to improve your sleep hygiene and regulate anxiety, depression, PTSD, and suicidal ideation. You will learn how to manage chronic pain and increase energy and longevity through proper nutrition. You can purchase the e-book in May or the softcover in June 2022.
References
[i] Lotto, Beau. Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently. New York: Hachette Books, 2017.
[ii] Wong, Daniel W., Kimberly R. Hall, and Lucy Wong Hernandez. Counseling Individuals Through the Lifespan. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2020.
[iii] Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ. New York: Random House, 2005.
[iv] Wenzel, Amy. Handbook of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2021.
