Love or Fear—What Motivates You?

Love or Fear—What Motivates You?

via Psychology Today by Lisa Leshko Evers

KEY POINTS

  • Love activates the reward system in our brains, releasing oxytocin which increases bonding and connection.
  • Fear releases cortisol, which increases blood pressure and blood sugar, while impairing immunity.
  • Conscious focus of emotional memories can rewire our brains and impact health and well-being
  • Pain assessments need to incorporate knowledge of how emotions work rather than aim for pain suppression.

Blissfully strolling hand in hand with your sweetheart on a balmy summer day or using those same hands to desperately clutch your mangled leg, while pinned in a horrendously painful car accident. Which memory would YOU prefer to relive?

Given a choice between a positive, joy-filled personal memory or a painful, upsetting scene, humans typically prefer to recall the pleasant one. It simply feels better, naturally. Who, besides a masochist, would consciously choose to keep reliving a painful memory?

That said, why do healthcare practitioner ask patients/clients to rate their pain levels on a scale of 0-10, with “10 being the worst pain ever” for the last 25 years? Each time a memory is recalled, our subconscious mind automatically takes us back to that time/place and replays a tape in our heads as though it were actually occurring again. Along with that comes an energetic shift and a bolus of neurochemicals that impact our homeostasis in either a positive or negative way!

In my experience, both personally and with my own patients, the most pleasant way of modifying behavior has been guiding people towards a desirable outcome instead of wasting energy resisting the things we are trying to avoid…

… keep reading the full & original article HERE