Physiology and Your Mood

If you want to get the most out of yourself and your life, then it is crucial that you learn to control your mood. Your mood will affect your ability to focus, your enjoyment of any and all activities and so much more.

 

But of course, controlling your emotions is easier said than done. This is something we would all like to do no doubt, but if it were that easy then we would all be happy all the time!

 

There is a secret to doing this though that many people miss. And while it may be impossible to guarantee that you’ll ever have complete control over the way you feel, it can sure make a big difference and help to give you a lot more control.

 

How Your Body Affects Your Mood

 

The missing key that so many people overlook is physiology. In other words, your body and your physical state.

 

What are our emotions for? They’re to drive us toward desirable things and to keep us away from things that could potentially harm us. When we feel scared, this motivates us to seek a safer shelter. When we feel disgusted, this prevents us from wanting to eat gone off food.

 

At a deeper level though, being hungry also impacts on your emotions and motivates behavior. When you are hungry, you will usually have low blood sugar. This in turn releases cortisol the stress hormone, along with ghrelin. This is why we get hangry! Conversely, when you eat, you produce serotonin which puts you in a good mood. This then converts to melatonin and makes us sleepy.

 

Being ill causes inflammation through pro-inflammatory cytokines and these suppress activity in the brain, creating brain fog and depression.

 

Feelings and emotions are different. You feel hungry, you feel tired and you feel ill. But these create emotions such as stress, anger and sadness.

 

The Takeaway

 

So, what are we getting at here? What is the practical takeaway from all this advice?

 

The moral is that it isn’t all about your thoughts and your lifestyle. If you’re angry or if you’re sad then it may not be due to you having a bad day – you may just be hungry or ill!

 

Then there’s the fact that our hormones tend to change on a cycle. Keep all this in mind when you are trying to manage your mood and make sure that you set yourself up with the best possible chance of a happy, positive day!