Your Hidden Superpower #5: FOCUS
Want to make a major change in your mood instantly… and lose weight in the process?
Well, what you FOCUS your attention on creates chemical changes in your body that affect your emotions, your brain function, and even the hormones that control your waistline!
Your thoughts are chemical messages, and they communicate not only to your nervous system, but to your heart, kidneys, thyroid, stomach…everywhere…giving messages that make you vibrant, healthy and fit, OR doing the opposite and making you feel old, fat and sluggish.
When you focus on the things you love, you increase serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins…chemicals that make you feel great AND suppress food cravings.
When you focus on what you don’t want: “I hope he doesn’t do that” or “I have such big thighs” or “I hate getting up early,” etc., you generate stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline that give you high blood pressure, sugar cravings, and sluggishness.
So how do you do it?
- Put your attention on something you appreciate. It can be the simplest thing, like the device you are reading this on, or the fact that you are breathing now.
- Hold that feeling of appreciation for at least 17 seconds while you breathe.
- Find something else that you appreciate, and hold that feeling for 17 seconds.
- Keep going until you feel your whole body surging with the feeling of appreciation for more and more things.
Why this works:
Your body has a “set point” for how good you feel. Your brain is used to firing the same pathways over and over, and your body is used to secreting the same stress chemicals.
When you focus on appreciation, you activate different pathways in your brain AND generate healthy chemicals that make your body feel good. The new brain pathways are strengthened, making it easier to create healthy chemicals, and creating a rampage of appreciation in your system.
This happens more and more easily without your thinking about it, and becomes automatic, so you change your brain AND change your body.
Like it?!
…your body will.
-Dr. Kim
P.S. Write back!! I would love to hear your thoughts. Just hit “REPLY” and let me know how you’ve enjoyed these “Hidden Superpowers??”
P.S.S. Be sure to “Like” us on Facebook, and share with those you love.
I’m creating a new movement in medicine where we appreciate the intimate connection of Mind and Body!
Sending love to yours!
