Nothing of any value ever happens in life without there first being an intense desire for its achievement followed by a rigorous program of emotional management that keeps you focused on your goal. In the case of setting out to improve your health and fitness, your program of emotional management must enhance your metabolic function as well. Managing your emotions and feelings is important to successfully maximising your metabolism and should be taken very seriously.
Emotions are the key to our hormonal responses. If we are in a depressed state (meaning that every time we think about our body, we think negative thoughts), then our hormones, glands, and related systems all work to keep us in a depressed state, an emotion that in turn brings about a slower working metabolism.
Fortunately, the opposite is also true. A heightened enthusiasm for life results in a heightened metabolism. As a matter of fact, whenever we enlist any negative emotions such as depression, anger, hatred, or jealousy, we slow the process of building our metabolism. More importantly, whenever we enlist positive emotions such as love, enthusiasm, or faith, we immediately strengthen the metabolism building process. The upshot of this is that a positive emotional state can be very exciting if it’s structured properly.
Mood & Food
There are many people who have learned to deal with their emotions, whether positive or negative, by using food as a coping mechanism.
When they’re happy, they eat. When they’re depressed, they eat. When they’re angry, they eat. After they feed their emotions with food, they may also feel guilty, so what happens? You guessed it! They eat more, and then the cycle starts again.
Be careful not to fall into the emotional eating pattern. A big part of achieving metabolic success is learning to manage our emotions. All too often, we accept negative emotions as a “necessary evil” in our lives, but we actually do have total control over which emotions we choose to accept.
The key is to become aware of our emotions, and then learn how to develop alternative responses that turn undesirable situations into positive ones.
By far the most important component to assist with emotional management is an ongoing exercise program. Exercise is very effective in reducing anxiety, stress, anger, etc. One of the benefits is that exercise takes the mind off the event that produced the negative emotion in the first place.
The endorphin level rises sharpely during exercise, and is believed to be responsible for the exercised euphoria reported by many athletes and exercisers. The benefit of exercise to reduce negative emotions are both immediate and long range, and it could be as simple as taking to the gym for 30 mins before going to the cupboard for food. By the time you get back, you will probably have realised that the emotion/ problem that was troubling is actually not that bad, and you will have worked out a solution to your problem.
