How You Think and How You Feel

I’ve been learning a lot lately about the power of your thoughts and feelings. I’ve always understood them to be a two way feedback loop, but recently I’m starting to think a bit differently. Traditionally you think of your thoughts and feelings as a two way street. The things you think about affect how you feel, and then the way you feel affects the things you think about. So the two of them are extremely intertwined.

Taking a step back and understanding that we were animals before we humans, and that our brains only recently became the superpowers they are, we probably utilize more primitive hardwiring then cognitive hardwiring. This is in alignment with what I’ve learned recently, which is that 90% of our psychology is dictated by our physiology. Another way of putting it, the way we think is at the mercy of the way we feel. So yes, the feedback loop I described earlier does exist, but if you want to manipulate that loop as much as possible you’re best bet is to take care of your physiology rather than your psychology.

As Brian Johnson describes in the Optimize App, the primary element of your physiology is your energy. Are you eating the right foods, getting the right amount of rest, and doing the right things to prepare and engage your body? Your brain needs energetic fuel to be at its best, and you truly can’t will your way into things if you don’t have the right environment to do so.

The way we think and the way we feel are extremely important, and gaining an awareness of them are indicators of our well-being. But if you really want to identify a major opportunity for growth then focus on how you feel, starting with making sure you’re adequately energized.