Sticks and Stones
Throughout our journey together, you are hopefully becoming more and more aware of the impact our thoughts and emotions have on our physical body, but what about what we say? Does what we say in our day to day conversations have an impact on our body too? I was pondering this recently when I came across a small study from Penn Medicine and Stony Brook University in which researchers wanted to know if language in posts on Facebook could be indicators of disease and if they could be monitored just like physical symptoms to help healthcare providers diagnose and monitor chronic health conditions.
This small study showed that in fact, language used on Facebook was able to predict disease earlier and with more accuracy than some other things like demographic data. They found certain phrases and frequency of certain words used were able to help predict things like addiction, diabetes and depression. Though we need more studies, it just may be possible that one day assessing someone’s language on social media may actually be a tool that healthcare providers could use to help diagnose some conditions prior to clinical findings being noticed in a more clinical setting! How we express ourselves through language certainly gives us insight into our thoughts, feelings and lifestyle factors that may put us at risk for developing disease processes. This study supports that there is actually a link between our body’s physiology and our language tendencies. If we zoom out and extrapolate this finding though, I wondered if this is a one way street or actually a “who came first” scenario - the ole’ chicken or the egg! On one hand, it makes sense that our experience, and therefore our projected language, is strongly dependent on how our body feels. Perhaps we should consider the possibility of the reverse scenario also holding some truth. We know that negative thoughts and lifestyle choices driven by our emotions can certainly have physiological effects on the body, and I think we can all appreciate that our language reflects this as well. So is our messaging setting us up for an internal environment primed for healing, or is it setting up a nice stage for inflammation soup?
As it can be hard sometimes to notice we are saying the same things or falling into the same patterns, perhaps we can start to reflect on our language and see if we notice any underlying themes. One comment here or there, probably doesn’t mean too much, but if there are some underlying themes, perhaps these reflect the quiet whispers of our body that we are not even consciously aware of in our day to day lives. Remember also to keep your radar on and watch our for the silent sneaky language… that’s the stuff you think but not necessarily say out loud - but your body still “hears” it.
Want to dive into this and do a little self experiment? If you use social media, scroll back at your last couple weeks/months of posts and see if you notice any underlying themes. Maybe you tend to have more negative comments than you realized, maybe you are constantly getting wrapped up in drama, or maybe your comments reflect the positive aspects of your day (and therefore what your focus was on). Perhaps when something happens you latch onto how wonderful it makes you feel and share that with the world, perhaps you feel content with your job or your relationships, but when you look back on your posts, there is a lot of language that would imply the contrary. By observing ourselves retrospectively like this, we can gain some insight into the areas of our life that are aligning well with what we desire and areas that might be off-kilter. Another bonus of reviewing this stuff - if you feel like you haven’t found your passion yet, maybe also look for trends in your language that could provide some clues and insight into your passions and what drives you (you can check your posts, journals, or ask those who you hang out with - they may just have noticed something you haven’t!).