Subliminal Influences on our Health

We’re all affected by the messages we see and hear every day, far more than we realize. Subliminal messages seep into your subconscious mind, your default setting, which determines your underlying beliefs and personality and self-image. This in turn determines your actions and your habits and ultimately your life outcomes.

Advertising, TV programmes, our thoughts, what other people say to us (and about us), our environment, all these things have an influence on our subconscious mind.

If you want to get fit and strong and healthy, be careful what subliminal messages you’re exposing yourself to.

Obese: A Year to Save My Life

This amazing documentary was aired back in 2012 on Pick TV. It featured American personal trainer Chris Powell who helped morbidly obese people turn their lives around in a year, through healthy eating, exercise, and empowering mindset.

The more of this type of TV programme you watch, the more empowered you become to achieve for yourself what you see the people on this programme achieve.

The conversations between Chris and his clients were revealing. He was embedding a “can-do” spirit into their subconscious mind. Here are a few examples:

Client: “My back hurts, I can’t exercise today.”
Chris: “Your back will hurt every day until you start exercising and strengthening your muscles.”

Client:  “I’m too tired.”
Chris: “I want to hear your desperation to succeed.”

Client: “I did it!”
Chris: “Look what you’re capable of doing. You’ve just proved it. This is just the start. You can do anything you want to do.”

I wish there were more programmes like this. I worry that programmes like The Great British Bake-Off are massively more popular than programmes like Obese: A Year to Save My Life. I think this mindset is part of the reason why the obesity epidemic is so dire here in the UK.

McDonalds Sponsoring the 2012 Olympics

The message McDonalds wanted to implant in the minds of kids and young people was “it’s OK to eat junk food as long as you exercise too”. This ‘halo effect’ of associating itself with sporting achievement is very valuable to McDonalds, as it secures a new generation of junk-food eaters.

The repeated messages of the junk food/drink industry seep into the subconscious of kids, and weakens their resolve to eat healthily and respect their own health. This is a really harmful trend, and no government has ever taken the steps required to reverse it.

Empower Yourself

In the face of so many negative messages, it’s time to created empowering messages for yourself. Surround yourself with people who are into healthy eating and fitness and playing sports. Read books about fitness and sporting excellence. Join a gym, hire yourself a personal trainer to come to your home and kick your ass, fill your larder and fridge with wholesome healthy food and chuck out the junk food.

Dominic Londesborough is a personal trainer in London and author of the Fitness4London blog.