How the Mind Affects the Body.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXI, Issue XVI, 17 October 1903, Page 62

How the Mind Affects the Body.

The purport of this short' article is to show in a few words, without going deeply into the subject, how, by the exercise of our mind, we can benefit our health, habits and daily life generally. There is hardly any limit to the influence we may bring about in this way if only we persevere in its use. A few illustrations of common occurrence, on these lines, will show what I mean. Most of us have experienced the fact that when something important is going to happen on the morrow early—maybe an early train must be eaught—and we are afraid that we shall not wake at the time we want to on going to bed, this one idea is dominant in our minds, and invariably our mind wakes us up at the

required time. When our minds are tilled with worry or grief, does not our body always sutler so that we are languid, fit for nothing, not able to eat until, if we continue to give way, we become bodily ill purely from mental influence. The mere faet of being told we look ill tends to make us feel ill if the idea becomes fixed in our minds and we think much about it.

It has been well said, “We think as we feel, or think we feel, and we feel as we think. If we feel a pain we think we are ill: and if we think we are ill we feel ill.”

Does not the greatest efficacy of a good doctor lie in the fact that we have great confidence in his power to cure us. His cheerful words, his genial bearing and assurances that we are better, makes us feel better—and probably we are better. What is the practical application of all this?

Never allow any idea to get fixed in your mind which may be prejudicial to your moral, intellectual or bodily welfare.

By willing yourself to be healthy and happy you can largely help to bring about that desirable state of affairs.

Though pursuing common sense, hygienic precautions at all times, do not always be afraid of catching eold, fever, ete. It is the man or woman who never thinks of such things who never suffers from them.

The hour of retiring to bed is a specially efficacious time for influencing yourself, as during the hours of sleep, when the senses are annulled, the unconscious mind can do its work unimpeded bv any adverse influences.

Practice will tend to make perfect, and in time you will be surprised how much control you have over yourself. Should not life under these circumstances be more worth living? O O O O O