Technique 2: Visualization 1

The mind is a powerful thing. Here's a quick trick you can do right now to prove it.

Imagine It Like It's Real

Take a moment to imagine a nice, juicy lemon in real life, right now. Picture how it smells as you bring it closer to your face, how it's cool, waxy peel feels on your fingertips, its bright, fresh yellow color and the way the light catches each of its tiny cells.

Include All Your Senses

Now, imagine you're bringing it closer to you and into your mouth, onto your tongue, and immediately tasting the sharp – almost electric! – feel of the citric acid hitting your taste buds. Take a moment to really imagine your face curling up from the sour taste.

Physical Reactions to Imagined Incentive

Now, if you've really imagined this in depth, you may notice something – you actually begin to salivate. It's as if your body really did encounter a real lemon. Your taste buds, responding to the contents of your mind, prepared themselves for a lemon that wasn't really there. Your body, in other words, doesn't know the difference between the real and imagined lemon.

Why Is This Important for Worrying?

Your imagination forms the bridge between the unreal and the real, and an imaginary vision of a lemon can have real, tangible results in your body. When you stress, you take an unreal image and turn it into the real release of cortisol and adrenaline (stress hormones) in your body. This translates to real muscle aches, real injuries, real loss of sleep, real headaches and eventually, real illness.

This is why positive and relaxing visualization can be so powerful – by imagining peaceful states of mind, we literally bring them into being.