Mind-Body Connection—How the Body Is a Tool for Thoughts, Emotions, and Identity to Fulfill Their Goals
Themes — FAQs, Self-awareness, Psychological, Existential
Have you ever wondered what’s the relationship between our thoughts and our body? And isn’t it the thoughts — the intentions behind them, our goals, wants — all in the form of thoughts, what drives the body?
While the body is the physical aspect, the thoughts are the non-physical forms that set intentions for the body to move.
Without any thought, perhaps we won’t move at all.
But at the same time, without the body — that is, without the brain — there would be no thoughts.
Hence, it’s like the wave-particle nature of ourselves, where the thoughts and the body, in the form of waves and particles, co-exist together, without which a human would perhaps cease to exist.
And while the body is limited to its physical aspect, the thoughts are limitless, with no fixed boundaries.
It’s like when a thought arises to reach a place, it works like a thread, pulling the body to that place. The thought reaches the place in no time, and the body just follows.
But here I reached a dead end, with no answer to my question: What would happen if a man doesn’t think or have a single thought for some time, or maybe for an entire day?
And is that even possible, with our senses that keep watching and communicating with ourselves, with nothing but thoughts? Though monks and saints have achieved such states, for most people it’s almost impossible to have no thoughts or inner talking for an entire day. Still, hypothetically, it’s always possible.
So, I asked this to ChatGPT, and my exact question was:
What would happen if a person doesn’t get a single thought for an entire day? What could be the psychological and medical consequences?
And this is what ChatGPT answered:
Medically, if a person truly had zero thoughts—no mental chatter, no internal dialogue—it might resemble something like a deep meditative state or even something like certain stages of sleep. In deep meditation, people sometimes report a sense of thoughtless awareness, where they’re still awake and aware but not actively thinking in the usual sense.
Psychologically, if someone could maintain that state for a whole day, they’d probably experience a kind of profound mental rest. It might feel very peaceful or even blissful, but it’s really hard to achieve because our brains are naturally wired to keep producing thoughts.
In a nutshell, it wouldn’t be harmful — in fact.
So, as per ChatGPT, if a person somehow manages to have not a single thought — not even the thought of not having a thought — then it won’t be harmful at all. Instead, it would be beneficial for the person both medically and psychologically.
Now, my follow-up question to ChatGPT was, won’t the state of no thoughts at all be very similar to falling asleep? If not, how would the experience be, because there must be no thought in the mind that there is no thought? I also asked for any medical research around the same.
And on asking ChatGPT, I got the following answer:
In terms of medical research, there’s not a lot of data on people having absolutely no thoughts for an entire day because it’s just so rare and kind of an unusual scenario. But what we do have are experiences from people who do deep meditation or who have practiced mindfulness for a long time.
They often describe it as a state of pure awareness — so not quite like sleep, because they’re still conscious and aware, but without the usual inner chatter. It’s kind of like a very calm, clear state of just being present. And while there isn’t a lot of medical research specifically on someone going a whole day with zero thoughts, the experiences we do have from meditation suggest that it’s usually a very peaceful and even refreshing experience.
So, as per what we know yet, a state of no thoughts won’t lead to sleep always, and without thoughts, the awareness would feel more like just being present, with no other linking thoughts to it. And further, this would only benefit the person achieving this. And as per all that’s known around this, it’s only meditators and saints who have talked about such experiences.
I had more questions, like: Won’t not having thoughts for an entire day — which means not knowing your own whereabouts, your name, state of being, and everything about the day — after getting back to the normal state, won’t a person freak out as if where did the entire day go, and what happened to his own life in that period of time?
And ChatGPT responded that, mostly, it won’t affect in such negative ways, bringing existential crisis or a feeling of freaking out, because the person would still be aware of his or her presence.
Though in some cases, grounding might be needed to allow the brain and the nervous system to get back to its normal state of receiving and responding to thoughts with logic and continuity, but mostly it will leave a blissful feeling instead of any such existential crisis.
Now, while these pondering thoughts of my mind got their answers, there were more connecting tangents to this aspect.
Like, if thoughts are the moving force for the body, shouldn’t one focus more on the thoughts to manage aspects of the body like exercise or sleep? And not in the opposite way that we generally live by?
I know it’s a to-and-fro way in which it all works — like good exercise and actions maintain good mental health and help to manage thoughts — but in the end, isn’t it thoughts that are the source of all the actions and motive for the body to move?
Hence, I asked this question to ChatGPT, and it gave some interesting insights.
While it gave a plethora of information, to put it shortly, it said:
Thoughts and how the body acts — it’s basically a continuous loop:
Thoughts create actions.
Actions create new thoughts.
When thoughts drive the body?
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As you think, “I should work out,” you use the body to do so.
When you think, “I’m hungry,” you put your body on the move to find food.
This phenomenon aligns with the philosophy of Descartes — that is, the mind leads the body.
But it comes with a catch — the subconscious mind. It means the subconscious mind produces the instant thoughts, putting us into actions and responses. And the subconscious mind gets its thoughts from the practiced habits and responses that, at some point in time, emerged from the first ever thoughts.
But, as we talked earlier, the body and the thoughts walk hand in hand, influencing each other, we also need to understand how the body triggers what kind of thoughts you get.
When the body drives thoughts and emotions?
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Exercise → The brain releases dopamine + serotonin → Motivation.
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Change in posture → Confidence / self-talk shifts.
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Good sleep → Clearer thinking + emotional regulation.
Hence, the body literally changes the quality and quantity of thoughts.
But all in all, even to begin with exercise or maintaining a good posture, it begins with thoughts that put the entire loop in motion.
Hence, my next question was: Can one use thoughts to put oneself to sleep?
Wondering about the same, my exact question to ChatGPT this time was:
Can’t one use thoughts to bring the mind to rest or tell oneself to focus on sleep, which requires no wandering, but just making the mind limited to the self, and the visible darkness with the eyes closed, and reminding oneself of feeling sleepiness? Won’t this help to fall asleep?
Well, ChatGPT replied:
This method could work, but not if forced without the feeling of drowsiness, or if it doesn’t align with one’s sleep cycle
But this is how it can actually work:
The method shifts attention from thinking → sensing.
Thoughts require the neocortex. Sensing brings the brain into the parasympathetic (sleep mode).It gives the mind one simple thing to anchor to, so it stops wandering.
Where attention goes, neural activity flows. If attention stays on darkness and stillness, mental activity decreases.
This is exactly what happens in:
Yoga Nidra
Vipassana meditation
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I)
In short, by following the method to guide oneself with thoughts to sleep, you trigger the pre-sleep neurophysiology, which then follows this mechanism:
Parietal cortex activity drops
Default Mode Network (thinking loop) slows down
Alpha → Theta brainwaves shift (sleep transition)
And by this, one smoothly transitions to sleep, simply with thoughts guiding the body into a state where thoughts stop.
So, I got the validation about my wondering from ChatGPT, but yes, it also mentioned the correct thing that if one forces oneself to sleep, it can actually trigger tension, hence more thoughts, making it harder to sleep. Well, that’s the paradox we are always familiar with — ask someone to not think of a monkey, and you start to picturize the monkey.
But all in all, it’s true that the motive for the body to move, act, and respond begins with thoughts. And even the subconscious mind gets trained with practice of this loop of thoughts and actions with time, later on creating intrusive thoughts that steer almost 90% of our lives (which research suggests is largely automatic behavior).
So in this case, it becomes very important to be aware of our thoughts, bring them under our control to use them for our wellbeing, and further, to practice this, to train our subconscious mind to automate this well-being method into our lives.
I have written an article addressing the same — that is, “How to Train Your Subconscious Mind,” covering the aspects of how the subconscious mind functions and how it can be trained for our wellbeing. To read it, just click the link below.
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