With all the drama going on with Coronavirus, would you rather stay Cool-Calm-Collected or Panicking-Paranoid-Pessimistic?

How we constantly think, affects our emotions and then our physical health, especially if we are stressed a lot of the time. In fact, research has shown that 80% of our illnesses are caused by the way we may constantly think in a negative way – worry, anger, fear, etc. In fact, the book that helped me to turn my life around 30 years ago was You Can Heal Your Body written by Louise Hay in 1976 and reprinted many times since then.

I travelled around Australia a few years ago, giving a presentation I created, called  The 4 Levels of Fitness that showed people how the way we think – our mental health – affects the way we feel, which in turn affects our physical health and also how social fitness can keep us healthy. It’s a bit hard at the moment with all the social distancing we have to do! So it is really important to focus on our mental health during this health crisis.

When I was running Presentation Skills courses for many years, participants would often have stressful thoughts about forgetting the words of their speech. So early in the 2-day course, we would do some ‘legal sniffing’. Using my background in Aromatherapy, I would give each of the participants a few drops of Rosemary essential oil (good for memory and flu) on a tissue. Then they walked around the room, saying to themselves –

“I now remember the words of my speech.”

It was amazing how much more confident and less stressed they became with their talks when they stopped telling themselves how they always ‘forgot the words.’ They became much more effective at being able to make regular eye contact with their listeners, rather than needing to read the whole speech and not connect with their listeners!

So, catch any negative thoughts that may be running around in your mind about the Coronavirus and change them to more positive thoughts, as you deepen your breathing and say a few times every day – “I now stay cool, calm and collected and look after my health.” It’s better to strengthen your immune system with positive thoughts, than let constant worry and panic weaken it.  I live by the principle that if your catch your thoughts and change your thoughts, you change your life.

Good luck and good health!