The Covid-19 pandemic has shifted the focus to health. Health was never an individual duty or a part of our daily chores. It was something to be worried about only if a disease or injury struck. Preventive health was seldom focused on. Only exceptions were the childhood immunization programmes. Covid-19 has taught how important internal resilience is. And this internal resilience is a result of psychosomatic factors which are dependent on our emotional stability. Emotional quotient has been given due importance in management literature but medical literature still gives limited focus to the subject. Though of late there is greater realisation about the importance of emotional well-being on physical health. The overemphasis on invasive therapy and intensive intervention of the modern medicine system was the reason why emotion was not given due importance. This was evident even in the approach towards corona pandemic. Tweaking of treatments were done with nagging regularity creating a global kerfuffle and trial and error prevailed. But fear, stress and anxiety took a considerable toll. Emotions and health are the two sides of the same coin and in the Indian traditional system swabhav was considered an important determinant. Swabhav or nature denotes the emotional type of a personality that plays a role in treatment of diseases. With more knowledge on psychosomatic aspects of health, let us examine common emotions and their effect. Continuous negative emotions have always lead to serious ailments. Even ancient philosophical schools indicate the importance of swabhav in health. Some common negative emotions are anger, fear, anxiety, curiosity, stress, envy and hyper reactivity. While occasional outbursts do not impact significantly, continuous experience may lead to serious health issues. Swabhav makes one prone to these reactions, which trigger the mind that activates the endocrine system. This increases or decreases the flow of certain hormones in the blood stream. In anger, for instance, it is commonplace to experience that churning in the stomach which is due to excessive secretion of the hydrochloric acid resulting from hormonal reaction. While occasional bouts of anger is perfectly normal, if anger becomes swabhav it is dangerous. Peptic ulcers many a times are result of excessive and continuous acid secretion in the stomach. Fear, anxiety, curiosity and stress are emotions that affect perception, thinking and behaviour in a big way, leading to a number of mental and physical complications. Envy is an irrational attitude towards someone that leads to hatred, anger, violence and frustration. Continuously nursing anger for somebody harms the envious more than the envied. These negative emotions are more of perceived reactions that harm the perceiver in a three step process. They affect the thought process then the internal biochemical reactions and subsequently lead to a diseased body when they persist for long. For healthy body a healthy mind is the first requisite. Our body is an organic machine that is a collection of interdependent parts. Health is a holistic concept and whole is always more than the sum of its parts.

Pathak is a professor of management, writer, and an acclaimed public speaker. He can be reached at ppathak.ism@gmail.com