I’ve been reading a great book recently called ‘The Essential Guide to Healing’, and in a chapter called ‘Healing And A Prosperous Soul’, the co-author Bill Johnson in passing mentions a mind-blowing statistic:

“We have heard for years that 85 percent of all sickness originates in the mind – not that it is imagined, just that it has its roots in an unhealthy thought life” – Bill Johnson

Could it really be that the state of our thought life is having a much greater effect on our bodies that what we ever realised?

Because Bill prefaced this incredible statistic with the phrase ‘we have heard for years’, I assumed that there would be other easily accessible articles and studies written about it.  So I went to have a look.

Dr Caroline Leaf

It didn’t take me long to come across Dr Caroline Leaf, who has a PhD in Communication Pathology with a Neuropsychology speciality, and who has spent over 30 years studying the mind-brain connection.  So she’s clearly got some game.

In her post ‘You are What you Think: 75-98% of Mental and Physical Illnesses Come from our Thought Life!‘, Dr Leaf says

“research shows that DNA actually changes shape according to our thoughts” – Dr Caroline Leaf

and she gives a link to an Institute of HeartMath study which in essence tests the effect on DNA of different emotional states.  Their findings were that they saw the DNA change dramatically depending on what the person was thinking and feeling.

This is what the annotation prefacing the research says:

1. When the researchers FELT gratitude, love and appreciation, the DNA responded by RELAXING and the strands unwound. The length of the DNA became longer.

2. When the researchers FELT anger, fear, frustration, or stress, the DNA responded by TIGHTENING UP. It became shorter and SWITCHED OFF many of our DNA codes. The shut down of the DNA codes was reversed and the codes were switched back on again when feelings of love, joy, gratitude and appreciation were felt by the researchers.

(Emphasis mine)

What The Bible Says

Naturally, none of this is a surprise to the One who created our bodies in the first place.  The Bible has a lot to say about the link between what we think and our state of wellbeing.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” – Romans 12:2

“For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he” – Proverbs 23:7

“Guard your heart [your inward way of thinking and processing] above all else, for it is the source of life” – Proverbs 4:23

“A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones” – Proverbs 14:30

According to the Scriptures, what goes on in our mind has a profound effect on our physical bodies.

Something To Think About!

So if the findings of this research are correct – then our DNA literally ‘relaxes’ when we feel positive emotions and ‘tightens up’ and ‘switches off’ when we feel negative ones.  This would mean that effective functionality of every cell in our body is partly reliant on the regular emotions that we think and feel.

Thus – by changing the way that we think and feel – we can literally enliven or slowly wreck our own bodies.

So… what do you think?! 🙂  Haha…