When Your Feelings Swing and Your Body Swings With Them

"When my mood goes up and down my body goes with it. Am I unusual?"

No. The body is attached that way.

The heart goes first

Just recall one thing. When you were startled — did your heart go first, or did you think "I'm startled" and then it went?

It goes first. The thought comes after.

The place that handles feeling and the place that regulates heart, digestion and breath run the same circuitry. So it isn't that feeling moves and the body follows — they move almost together.

Angry and the face flushes; nervous and the stomach hurts; grieved and the throat closes. This isn't a problem of the mind. It is that feeling and body share the same wiring in several places. (When nerves go straight to your gut)

And that road goes both ways

Here is what matters.

It doesn't only run mind to body. The way up, body to mind, is no small road either.

If the heart is running fast, the brain receives that. And reads it as "something is going on." It might in fact be the coffee, or a short night. And then anxiety actually rises.

So this happens. The body swings, the mind swings with it — and we mistake that for the mind being weak.

Snapping at nothing on a day you didn't sleep, getting sharp when you're hungry — the mind hasn't gone bad. The signal going up has changed.

So you can work from either side

Because it's a loop.

Ease the mind and the body settles; settle the body and the mind follows. Go in through whichever door opens.

And for people who have been ill a long time, the body door is usually easier to open. You've been told to pull yourself together dozens of times; if that worked you'd have done it already. But when sleep or digestion settles into place, the signal going up changes — and there are cases where the mind settles along with it.

I look at the signal that rises, not the emotion

I don't try to manage your feelings. That isn't my place, and it usually isn't the cause either.

I look at the signal going up. Sleep, digestion, the heart's rhythm. Settle those and the noise reaching the brain quietens. (Not being able to sleep and not being able to fall asleep are different)

That said, if your mood has been low for weeks, or you don't want to do anything at all, the order is different. That deserves care from that side too.

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Your body swinging when your feelings swing isn't unusual.

They run the same road — and that road opens from the body's side too.

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Written by Dr. Heo Ji-young (PhD in Korean Medicine Pathology, Kyung Hee University · former Research Professor of Herbology, Kyung Hee University)