What Happens to Your Body When You're Thinking?

What happens to your body when you're thinking? You might think that is a simple question to answer: a thought is just words in your brain that cause you to do something, right? In reality, this question has plagued scientists for decades and the precise answer is still something that is the subject of research.

For this reason, it's not something that can be clearly described in a flowchart format. However, what we can do is break down what we do know about our thoughts and then try to put the pieces of the puzzle together to create a picture of what is happening.

What Is a Thought?

The first problem with describing what happens in your body when you are thinking is that not everyone agrees on what constitutes a thought. At first glance, you probably think of a thought as something that you tell yourself.

For example, this morning while lying in bed you might have had the thought, "I don't want to get up."

Let's take a moment and deconstruct that thought to try and figure out exactly what it is.

Is the thought "I don't want to get out of bed" something that spontaneously appeared in your mind? Or was it triggered by something? Is it just a physical process of your brain or the manifestation of something deeper like a soul, spirit, or other entity?

Phew，这是很多想法的。而且，根据您提出的谁，您将获得不同的答案。

除此之外，如果我们想考虑我们的身体（或特别是我们的大脑）在我们思考时，我们需要至少承认我们的思想可以影响我们的身体。

We know this to be true for a number of reasons. For example:

• 压力(or negative thoughts) can worsen physical illness
• Fear can lead to increases in certain chemicals that prepare us through the "fight or flight" response
• 思想开始连锁反应，让我们签合我们的肌肉

由于我们知道思想可以影响我们的大脑和我们的身体，让我们看看他们如何做到这一点，以及在引擎盖下发生了什么（在你的脑海里）。

Anatomy of a Thought

Let's jump back to that morning thought: "I don't want to get out of bed."

科学家们首先争辩说你的想法不是自发的和随机的。相反，你的想法可能对你周围的事情的反应。

In this case, it might have been an alarm clock, checking your phone to see what time it is, or hearing something like the garbage truck go by that reminds you of time passing. In other cases, thoughts might be triggered by记忆。

现在，一旦你有这种想法，会发生什么？

一些神经科学术语定义

动作电位:Sudden burst of voltage caused by chemical changes (how neurons signal one another)

神经元:A nerve cell through which signals are sent

神经递质:Chemical messengers released by neurons that help them communicate with other cells (e.g., dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine)

前额外的皮质：部分大脑参与规划，人格，决策，以及社会行为。

Hippocampus:大脑的一部分在各种记忆功能中至关重要。

Synapse：允许神经元（神经细胞）将化学或电信号传递给靶细胞的结构。

The brain operates in a complex way with many parts intersecting and interacting with each other simultaneously. So, when you have that thought in the morning, it's likely that all these differentcomponents of your brain(prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, neurons, neurotransmitters, etc.) are all involved at the same time.

If the result of your thought that you don't want toget out of bedis that you throw the covers back over your head, what happened to allow that action? Or, if instead you decided that you needed to get up and got out of bed, what happened differently?

这种情况发生在椎体脊髓中的神经细胞neurons that fire and sends an impulse down their axon, which travels to the muscle and causes the action: in this case you throwing the covers over your head or actually getting out of bed.

思想和情绪

What about the emotional effects of your thought?

我们知道您的思想可以影响大脑中的神经递质。乐观表与更好的疾病相关联，同时抑郁思想可能与减少免疫力相关。

所以，如果你把盖子扔到你的头上，那么触发其他想法，如“我累了，”“我无法起床”或“生活很难”，你大脑中的复杂互动可能会发送信号你身体的其他部分。

On the other hand, if you get out of bed and think, "This isn't so bad," "I'm getting going now," or "Today is going to be a great day," the pathways and signals that your neurons send will obviously be different.

We don't yet know all the intricacies of these processes; however, suffice it to say that your thoughts matter.

Your brain is constantly receiving signals, whether from the outside environment in terms of perceptions or memories from your past. It then activates different patterns through waves in the brain through billions of synapses. In this way, your thoughts grow more complex as they interact with other content produced by your brain functions.

Regulating Your Thoughts

It goes without saying that your thoughts are linked to your emotions in a bidirectional way. How many times have you experienced a shot of adrenaline after having a fearful thought? Have you ever gone to a job interview or on a first date and felt the same?

Whenever you have a thought, there is a corresponding chemical reaction in your mind and body as a result.

This is important to realize because it means that what you think can affect how you feel. And by the same token, if you are feeling poorly, you can change that by changing how you think.

如果这听起来有点不寻常，请回到前提下，想法是大脑中的物理实体（不是与您的身体连接的自发外部力量）。

但等一下：如果我们的想法总是对某事的反应，我们怎样才能控制并改变它们？

Of course, your thoughts don't arise out of a vacuum. For example, you are reading this article and gaining new ideas from it that you can potentially put to use in changing your thoughts.

• You're starting to think a different way.
• You've started to feed your brain different information.
• 你自己包围了自己的信息，让你的大脑开始思考你想要的方式。

What this means is that if you want to start changing your thoughts, you need to be aware of the triggers of your thoughts and also the patterns of thoughts that you have in response to those triggers.

下次你躺在床上思考，“我不想起床，”问问自己是什么触发的想法。

如何改变你的想法,改变你的身体

非常清楚你的触发器thoughtsand you will have the power to change your emotions and your health. In the case of the person not wanting to get out of bed, it could be that the alarm clock triggered the thought.

你有一个闹钟和思想之间的心理关联，“我不想起床”。

你在你的大脑中穿着精神凹槽，所以说话，即立即连接那个触发的触发。因此，如果要更改该反应，则需要更改触发器或与此思想中断关联。

One way to do this would be to force yourself to think a different thought each morning for 30 days until that becomes the new reaction to the trigger. For example, you could force yourself to think, "I love getting up" every day for 30 days. See how that works. If that thought is just a little too unrealistic, maybe try something like, "It's not so bad getting up. Once I get going I'm glad I got up early."

You could also change the sound of your alarm so that you're less likely to have that old reaction (the old thought) to the old alarm.

一旦你掌握了这个，你可以在你生活的所有领域应用它！

卡在交通堵塞，感到恼怒和沮丧？这个想法，“我不能忍受交通”将从你的大脑发送信号到你的身体加速你的呼吸并紧张你的肌肉。虽然这思想，“我无法控制它，可能会放松，”将发出信号到你的身体冷静下来。

担心即将到来的演示？担心的想法，“这将是可怕的，我很焦虑”会让你感到恐慌和边缘，而“我正在尽我所能，这就是我所能做的就是”我所能做的就是帮助向你的身体发送信号这是可以的calm and relaxed。

Brain Lesions and Thinking

We know that lesions to specific parts of the brain damage specific cognitive abilities. This is interesting because it highlights the point that thoughts really are physical entities that both influence and are influenced by the body. Cognitive functions depend on all parts of the brain working properly; when these systems become disrupted, thinking can be affected.

A Word From Verywell

That's a rather long and winding examination of how thoughts influence what happens in the brain and in the body. Justifiably so because there is still so much that is unknown when it comes to the brain.

实际上，如果科学家完全绘制了大脑的过程，他们可能会建立可以复制大脑的超级计算机。

仍有一些人认为thoughts are entities separate from the body and that to describe how thoughts have a physical influence is absurd. While it's true that there is a lot we still don't understand about the mind, body, universe, etc., it's fairly obvious that at the very least, thoughts can have a direct influence on reactions in the brain and body.

This is the basis of many forms oftalk therapy, such ascognitive-behavioral therapy。这是一件好事 - 因为它意味着当你努力改变你的思想时，你也在做一些可能对你的大脑和身体产生积极影响的事情。而且，这种效果可能是持久的变化，特别是如果你燃烧着具有积极结果的新神经途径。