I think most people do. But I mean, I hate even admitting to myself that I might be sick because it feels like admitting defeat. Okay, okay, that’s probably a little dramatic, but one thing I have always done—and it has since become a hilarity in my family—is just say, “It’s all mental” when I’m starting to feel sick. And honest to god, 75% of those times I am starting to get there, I resist getting full-blown.

Call it stubbornness, call it delusion, call it naivety, call it Law of Attraction, WHATEVER, but it works for me. I get my mind right and I get better.

My brother Danny does it, too. Gosh, my dad was born with what Jade calls the “Coleman Walk-It-Off Gene” and I am sure if you have family members born in the immediate post-WWII era, they have it, too. Getting him to see a doctor is performing a miracle (Hi, Dad, love you!).

Obviously this doesn’t work for everything, and sometimes we really do get sick and there’s no thinking (or acting) our way out of it. But the reason this is on my mind is because yesterday, in Paris, I was starting to get sick.

Noooooo. Sick with traveling? The worst. Not even making it a possibility in my mind! Bye! I mean, au revoir!!

I woke up with a raging stomachache.

Now, digestive upset while traveling is not uncommon—new foods, new routines, time changes, etc. But for me, it’s not common, and waking up to find a 75-degree, bright-blue-sky day in Paris and thinking I might have to stay in all day was devastating. So I rallied. Felt like shit, but showered, took some natural supplements, downed an Onnit 180 pack (which is basically an all-natural electrolyte and nutrient-replenishing pack) and chugged water.

We got dressed and left the apartment and Neghar looked over at me and said, “Are you sure you want to go out? We can stay home or I can go out myself.” I thought about it, stomach clenching in protest, but nothing that was presenting too much of an emergency at the moment, so I said, “No, it’s okay. Let’s go and see how we do. Besides, it’s all mental.” She laughed at me, and then off we went.

We nibbled on a baguette, walked a bunch, downed some water, got some sunshine, and let our day unfold. And though my stomach still didn’t feel 100%, by the end of the day, I felt a lot better. And man was I happy that I came out. And the next day, parfait!

Now this message is not meant to be a cutthroat push-through-it-all one. In fact, many times, taking rest and downtime is precisely what is needed when you’re feeling really sick and chronically under the weather.

You have some say in how you feel. Yes, even physically! You can choose to feed the feeling or you can choose to—not ignore it or act irresponsibly—but instead to use your mental power to trust your body to work it out.

There’s actually quite a bit of research explaining how our thoughts can impact our physical state. If you’ve ever had the experience of being stressed about something emotionally to the point of physical nausea, you understand this concept.

Think about it as simply as this: some stress is mental/emotional (anxiety, depression, nerves, excitement, etc.) and some stress is physical (injury, long periods without eating, chronic excessive exercise, sickness, etc.). But the body responds the same way regardless of the source of stress. It raises cortisol, raises the catecholamines (adrenaline and noradrenaline), mobilizes sugar in the blood stream for use (fight or flight), raises blood pressure and heart rate. Think about the feeling you get when you get pulled over by the police for speeding. Your body responds to stress, whether physical or mental.

So even though I might actually be a little under the weather, i.e. my stomach is actually hurting, I can choose to continue to feed that stress via my emotional response or I can choose to practice emotional reserve and trust that my body has this illness handled.

And the more I choose emotional stress (“Omg, I can’t believe I’m sick! This sucks! Ugh, why is this happening to me! It’s ruining my entire day! What if I don’t get better? What if my entire trip is like this??” etc.), the more, in my experience, the physical symptoms persist, the longer it actually takes to for me to feel better.

If you are interested in the mind-to-body connection, check out Bruce Lipton’s work, ‘The Biology of Belief’ and one of my fav, Shawn Achor, talks about this in his work on positive psychology.

Your mindset is not just woo-woo magic. It contains real inputs that impact hormonal signaling in your body. And those inputs from how you choose to think impact your physical sensations and your body at the biochemical level.

Listen, sometimes you want to have a pity party. I do, too. But yesterday, what I wanted more than that was to enjoy myself in Paris, and even though I was not fully physically comfortable, I wanted to feel as though my attitude mattered. I wanted to feel as though I had a say in what my body was doing. I wanted to feel like even if my GI no likey, that I can at least use my mindset to either perpetuate the “I feel bad and this sucks!” or the “This doesn’t feel awesome, but I want to feel better,” train of thought.

I chose the latter, and it worked out.

Might not work every time, but when the alternative is choosing to believe “this is all bad” and “how unfair,” I will always choose to catch myself in the victim-trap and choose my emotions when possible. I will work to choose those emotions and that attitude that serves me.

The past 5 days in Paris, minus this one little hiccup, has been amazing! I am sharing all my European adventures (I’ll be here for 2 months!) including my food, activity and random goings-on, should you care to follow them, online: