Anger was related to the liver, happiness to the heart, thoughtfulness to the heart and spleen, sadness to the heart and lungs, fear to the kidneys, heart, liver, and gallbladder, surprise to the heart and the gallbladder, and anxiety to the heart and the lungs.
Aside from affecting your mood, thought processes, sleep schedule and digestive system, depression also impacts one of your most vital organs – your heart. When a person is depressed, stress hormones surge through the body, causing the heart rate to quicken and blood vessels to tighten.
Research to date has shown that, like many other stressors, grief frequently leads to changes in the endocrine, immune, autonomic nervous, and cardiovascular systems; all of these are fundamentally influenced by brain function and neurotransmitters.
Depression is a disorder of the brain, a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behavior, feelings, and sense of well-being and can cause alteration in sympathetic activity of the body, thus affecting heart rate variability (HRV).
Depression, especially when it goes untreated, can actually change the brain, making episodes worse or more frequent. It also impacts the body and physical health, causing fatigue, digestive issues, pain, and other complications related to the poor decisions made when in a depressed mood.
There is often a loss of muscle tone, a lowered or hunched posture, and looking away and/or downwards.
Your body responds to the way you think, feel, and act. This is one type of “mind/body connection.” When you are stressed, anxious, or upset, your body reacts physically. For example, you might develop high blood pressure or a stomach ulcer after a particularly stressful event, such as the death of a loved one.
According to traditional Chinese medicine, emotions are narrowed down to five basic feelings that are each associated with a corresponding element and organ in the body: Anger with the liver. Fear with the kidney. Joy with the heart.
The visualization of emotions on a human body template created for the present study (Figure 2) revealed that specific patterns existed between the visceral system and corresponding emotions such that anger corresponded with the liver, happiness with the heart, thoughtfulness with the heart and spleen, sadness with the ...
Stress affects all systems of the body including the musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, gastrointestinal, nervous, and reproductive systems. Our bodies are well equipped to handle stress in small doses, but when that stress becomes long-term or chronic, it can have serious effects on your body.
Grief can be stored in various parts of the body, such as the heart, lungs, throat, and stomach. People may also experience physical sensations like heaviness in the chest or tightness in the throat when experiencing grief.
Emotions are felt in the gut. Feelings such sadness, anger, nervousness, fear and joy can be felt in the gut. The term “feeling sick to the stomach” describes a situation which involves mental or emotional anguish which can produce stress in the mind and the body.
The emotion of anger is associated with the choleric humor and can cause resentment and irritability. It is believed that this emotion is stored in the liver and gall bladder, which contain bile. Anger can cause headaches and hypertension which can in turn affect the stomach and the spleen.
Negative attitudes and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness can create chronic stress, which upsets the body's hormone balance, depletes the brain chemicals required for happiness, and damages the immune system. Chronic stress can actually decrease our lifespan.
Depression can cause pain — and pain can cause depression. Sometimes pain and depression create a vicious cycle in which pain worsens symptoms of depression, and then the resulting depression worsens feelings of pain. In many people, depression causes unexplained physical symptoms such as back pain or headaches.
During a particularly stressful experience, the anterior cingulate cortex may respond by increasing the activity of the vagus nerve—the nerve that starts in the brain stem and connects to the neck, chest and abdomen. When the vagus nerve is overstimulated, it can cause pain and nausea.
Our adrenals regulate our stress response and when adrenal problems become chronic, they can cause anxiety. TCM recognizes the adrenal glands in the same way as the kidneys as they are within the kidney yang aspect.
A paired, almond-shaped structure deep within the brain, the amygdala integrates emotions, emotional behavior, and motivation.
Each emotion is associated with a specific organ: Lung is effected by sadness, heart by joy, spleen by worry, liver by anger, and kidney by fear or fright.
Some may have a fight-or-flight type of response, which may include muscle tension, heart pounding and sweating because their body "believes it needs to activate," she explains. Others maybe experience a freeze response, which can look like someone who struggles to move or get out of bed.
Trauma is not physically held in the muscles or bones — instead, the need to protect oneself from perceived threats is stored in the memory and emotional centers of the brain, such as the hippocampus and amygdala. This activates the body whenever a situation reminds the person of the traumatic event(s).
Researchers have established that crying releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, also known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals help ease both physical and emotional pain.
Take time to slow down and be alone, get out into nature, make art, listen to music while you cook your favorite dinner, meditate to cleanse your mind and relax your body, take a bubble bath or a nap to restore.
With sadness, the eyes look heavy, droopy. With anger, the eyebrows straighten and the eyes tend to glare. With confusion, the skin between the two eyebrows can wrinkle briefly. There's a connection between what your emotions and body language.
Write in a journal, listen to music, spend time with friends or family, and/or draw to express the emotion sadness. Think about the context of the sad feelings. Are they related to a loss or an unhappy event? Think about the feelings in a non-judging way and ride the wave of the experience.