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Women Living Well: Mind/Body Connection - 2002
Student Papers
On Serendip
Thinking about the mind and body as an inter-connected pair is extremely important to my personal lifestyle and health. As a woman living in a stressful environment, it is crucial to see the relationship between my outside environment, my mind and my body. When one of these three elements change, I am very likely to see a change in another. By talking about the mind and body as inter-related I am better able to live a healthy life and make healthy decisions.
All of the topics that we studied show a tremendous connection between the mind and body. Headaches show that mental stress can cause a physical pain manifested in headaches. In the anxiety seminar we saw that very real physical symptoms can result from mental anxiety. We learned that exercise can greatly improve mindset and mental serenity and that depression has a very real impact on our body. We learned about the mind-body connection in addiction and the ill-effects of sleep deprivation on both our mind and body. Thus, even in a huge range of topics we see an intense link between the mind and the body.
In my own life, I also realize the connection between mind and body. For example, if I am stressed out, my body may need more sleep. After the seminar I have begun to think more about how my frame of mind affects my body. The seminar reinforced the idea that the mind affects the body. However, the seminar also made me reflect about how the body can affect the mind. By exercising regularly, a physical activity, people can affect their mind. This is certainly a very interesting connection that I may not have thought about as seriously without attending this lecture series.
In conclusion, these lectures have made me examine more thoroughly, the mind body connection that is ever-present in my life. By thinking about the two as inter-connected I am much better able to see how one affects the other. By better understanding how the mind impacts the body (and vice versa) we are better able to make healthy lifestyle choices, something the Bryn Mawr community and people as a whole can benefit from.
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