Your body, your brain, and the world around you

Araceli Camargo, cognitive neuroscientist and Moody advisor says, bring awareness to the connections between your health ecosystem and your lifestyle, and you can make changes that positively affect your mind and your body.

Historically, neuroscience has prioritised the brain over the body. For example, depression has been seen as a mental health issue, but now we are beginning to understand that it also has specific physical symptoms. By ignoring the body, we have also fallen behind in understanding how the lives we lead in our physical environments play a role in all our biological functions and processes. The research I do with my team at the Centric Lab seeks to uncover how the functions of our bodies and our brains are affected by the spaces we inhabit and other external factors. This means that we do, where we work, where we live, who we socialise with, and what we eat can potentially affect our body and our state of mind. 

A great example of how the brain, the body, and the external world are interconnected is through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA axis), which is the part of our endocrine system that helps regulate our response to stress. When we experience stressors, such as a deadline, illness, or an argument with a friend, the HPA axis will initiate a series of hormone releases via the hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenal glands. Our muscles will tense, our heart rates increase, and we may feel a shortness of breath and a greater sense of alertness. This is sometimes called the “fight or flight” instinct. Once we have responded to the stressor our body goes back to its normal state, until the next time we need to respond to another environmental event. 

However, this stress response can significantly impact our overall health, especially if we experience stress repeatedly or even continually. Changing hormone levels can have long term effects on other biological processes including digestion, mood, emotions, energy levels, and menstrual cycles. One stressful day doesn’t necessarily mean you will have an immediate change in your period. However, if you are experiencing multiple stressful days, the constant engagement of the stress response can begin to have negative impact on the mind and body, including sleep, digestion, and fertility.  

It is important to remember that we can exert some control over how the world around us impacts our health. I know that when I am eating well, getting enough sleep and exercising, it helps me deal with stress better. A key for me in managing my health has been logging changes in my mood, mind, and body over time. This tracking allows me to put what might seem random or small into a bigger picture, and it’s how an app like Moody Month can help you to make informed lifestyle changes, speak with more confidence to your doctor, or simply notice a pattern that explains something you had been wondering about. It helps you observe the interactions between your mind, your body, and your world—and you don’t even need to be a neuroscientist to use it. 

Araceli Camargo

Cognitive neuroscientist and director, CentricLab

Araceli Camargo’s work explores how the functions of our bodies and brains are affected by our environment and the world around us. As a Moody advisor, she provides guidance for the scientific structure and ethics of Moody Month.