Stress vs. Calm
If you are stressed, the cells of your body are stressed. Stress makes it harder for your body to heal.
The ICE Method does two specific related things to help your body/mind/spirit heal.
- Entering a calm state frees your cells from external demands. In the calm state your cells are free to follow their natural action of the resting state – cellular restoration and relaxation.
- In the exchange step of The ICE Method, you replace the impact of emotional upsets, with the chemistry of calm and peace.
Emotions create chemistry.
Every time you have a thought, it triggers a certain chemistry in your body. When you experience an emotion, you create a molecule which corresponds to that emotion.
Emotional chemistry informs cellular function.
Once chemistry is created in response to an emotion, it goes throughout the body. The molecules attach to the surface of cells and actually tell the cell what to do.
Our cells follow what we pay attention to.
The cells of our body are constantly responding to these molecules. When you react, your body uses energy responding to the external situations. This is normal, but it uses up energy. Cells get tired when they constantly respond to high level external demands. Stress can come from chronic work or relationship stress, or even a past traumatic event that continues to signal danger to the body.
Relaxed cells are in a natural healing state.
When you create a calm or peaceful peptide, you put your cells at rest. Cells in rest mode focus on physical restoration. They metabolize energy, clear out waste, repair DNA and build up energy reserves. As long as there is no external upset the cell can remain in this natural healing state,
Entering cellular growth mode is one of the most powerful things you can do for your healing. Just by following your thoughts and observing them without engaging the thoughts you will naturally tend toward this cellular state of rest.
Peptides and stuck emotions from the past.
The calm state is extremely valuable for restoring your health in the present moment. The real power of ICE, though, is the third step, the Exchange step.
The science behind this exchange process come from the neuroscience laboratory of Joseph LeDoux, and a process he calls Memory Reconsolidation. A 2010 article in NATURE magazine provides results from recent experiments. It turns out when a memory is created, the brain cells involved in the memory bind together at the synapse. LeDoux’s laboratory discovered that when memories are recalled, they become fragile for a short period of time. In order for the recalled memory to remain, the emotional chemistry must be recreated to reglue the memory. If we interrupt this reconsolidation process, we can insert a calm molecule to replace the fear or anger or sadness emotion.
The memory of the event will remain, but the emotional intensity of the original memory will be replaced with calm and peace. When you bring calm to stored upsets, you transform your life. You get to live more and more of life without reacting in stress