Are Emotions Messing with Your Health? Here Are 5 Ways They Interfere

Emotions are meant to come and go after 90 or so seconds.

Yet most humans have a predominant emotion guiding their life. 

You may be thinking – I feel all the emotions in a day – how can there be one main theme?

Or you may be like me where I used to easily irritated and now I’m having more fearful emotions as I get older. 

Someone cutting me off on the highway would send me into thinking about all the things that annoy me in life from taxes, tolls, paying for parking and mosquitos. 

Now random thoughts of the many ways I could get hurt riding my bike, driving and paddle boarding pop into my head.🤪

Reading my superficial thoughts it seems ridiculous but in the moment…it’s wild!

If you were to write down your thoughts each day for a week you’d see a predominant pattern.

And if you dove deeper into your emotions and actions you’d see even more unfold. 

Back when I was an “angry” person I’d take quick angry actions…

.. like getting snippy with someone on the phone who couldn’t solve a credit card issue.

Instead of letting the situation go I’d have to tell anyone who’d listen the story.

Further driving the emotion into my body. 

Perhaps you can resonate…what stories are you telling over and over reigniting your emotional charge?

Specific emotions are linked to certain organ dysfunction and illness.

Ancient East Asian and Indian medicine teachings talk about emotions as the root cause of many illnesses. 

Certain emotions are tied to eliciting illness in organs. 

And according to these medicines emotions, when held onto for longer periods of time, create imbalances in the body. 

There are 5 predominant emotions in the East Asian principles of medicine. 

1. Anger
2. Joy
3. Worry
4. Grief
5. Fear

Each of those emotions have varying degrees of presentation. 

1. Anger – irritability, resentment, annoyance with depression as an advanced version
2. Joy – while joy is good think… “over joy” in the form of mania and a variation of anxiety 
3. Worry – nervousness, feeling unsettled, overwhelm, doubt, pessimism 
4. Grief – sadness over loss of anything, disappointment
5. Fear – fright, PTSD, phobias, victim-hood, insecurity 

Take a moment right now and see if any of these resonate with you. 

Emotions are directly connected to the amount of energy your body gives off and has stored.

Higher vibe emotions turn to higher energy within your body and less illness.

Lover vibe emotions draw down your energy and leave you susceptible to illness.

According to Abraham Hicks a self help guru, there is a scale of emotions that go from high energy and cellular energy to lowest.

Here’s the Scale of Emotions #1 high vibe and #23 low vibe:

High Vibe & Energy

1. Joy/Appreciation/Empowerment/Freedom/Love
2.  Passion
3. Enthusiasm/Eagerness/Happiness
4. Positive Expectation/Belief
5.  Optimism
6.  Hopefulness
7. Contentment
8. Boredom
9. Pessimism
10. Frustration/Irritation/Impatience
11. Overwhelment (feeling overwhelmed)
12.  Disappointment
13.  Doubt
14.  Worry
15. Blame
16.  Discouragement
17. Anger
18. Revenge
19. Hatred/Rage
20.  Jealousy
21.  Insecurity/Guilt/Unworthiness
22.  Fear/Grief/Desperation/Despair/Powerlessness

Low Vibe & Energy

I find it fascinating how many correlate with the predominant emotions of Chinese Medicine theory.

Because your emotions connect to you nervous, endocrine and immune system there are 5 common ways your emotions impact your health. 

Using the East Asian principles of emotions….

1. Anger – causes liver and gallbladder conditions as well as eye, tendon and ligament ailments, depression and sometimes anxiety can be here as well.
2. Joy – seems a little odd but think anxiety and mania cause heart and cardiovascular issues
3. Worry – causes digestive issues like IBS, SIBO, SIFO (small intestine bacteria/ fungal overgrowth), hemorrhoids and muscle as well as fascial tissue conditions
4. Grief – lung conditions are a manifestation of this emotion
5. Fear – impacts kidney and adrenal glands, bones, pelvic floor, low back and knee pain

I’m being broad here and there are conditions of overlap as well. 

Especially when it comes to the liver’s connection to anxiety and depression.

Autoimmune and thyroid conditions tend to be a combination of repressed anger, fear and/or worry. 

While all this may have your head spinning thinking, “I am the way I am”, or how do I even go about changing…

…know you have the power to shift your thoughts and emotions.

It’s not easy – yet it’s possible. 

In my podcast this week with Dr. Jade Teta we talk all about emotions and what we’ve seen in our practices. 

Dr. Teta is a fellow ND from Bastyr that has transitioned his entire practice to helping adults discover their full potential in life and let go of long standing emotions blocking their ability to thrive. 

One of the principles of naturopathic medicine is to unblock the obstacles to cure. 

Emotions are a big one, especially if you’re not getting results with your protocols. 

It’s a sensitive subject and one that I tend to dance around lightly at first. 

When client’s are not getting results with my guidance I know I have to go there.

The longer I practice the more I see how stuck emotions prevent positive energy in the body from helping the person to heal. 

If you’ve seen a doc for a while, even if you’ve been seeing me, and you’re not feeling your best – this is the next place to dive into. 

It’s tough to wrap your head around emotional impact on your nervous, endocrine and immune system when you’ve been taught that solutions to illness are to be found outside of your body.

You are in control of your health, emotions and your decisions.

When outside solutions aren’t giving you results it’s time to look within. 

Life happens and emotions get stuck on repeat. 

You can release them to allow your body to heal. 

Start by listening to my podcast with Dr. Jade Teta – 👂HERE👂 to learn more. 

Then assess where you hang out emotionally most of the time. 

How could you move up on the energetic vibe scale? (check it out again above in the email)  

What could you do to change your life perspective?

Feeling emotions as they pop up takes 90 seconds or so to process. 

Feel the feels and do what you can to express the emotion and let it go. 

Even if it means purchasing boxing gloves and a bag (one of my solutions).

Get creative and let that “shiitake” go. 

Preserve your good energetic vibe at all costs. 

You’ll be healthier for it and who knows you might inspire your family to join you. 

Here’s to your emotional health,

Dr. J

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