A Happy You is a Healthy You
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Happiness and healthiness:
Why is happiness directly related to your health? Almost a dozen recent studies have shown that happier people live longer lives. Happier people are also less likely to suffer from heart attacks, strokes, and pain from conditions like rheumatoid arthritis. Plus, Carnegie Mellon researchers also recently discovered that people who express positive emotions come down with fewer colds and flus after being exposed to the viruses than those who express negative emotions like anger, sadness, or stress. (refer to article in the December 25, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report)
So what is happiness?
Happiness is a state of mind or feeling such as contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. In fact, experts-who refer to themselves as positive psychologists-have found that such simple acts as being grateful for what you have can help improve your outlook on life and influence your mood. Those places don't include Tiffany's or a BMW dealership. The joy in acquiring objects of desire dissipates quickly. "Like french vanilla ice cream, material things are great at the first taste, but then after a while they lose their flavor," says happiness researcher Martin Seligman, who started a positive psychology master's program at the University of Pennsylvania. Through his studies, he identified specific steps that can help increase happiness over the long haul.
Go for real goals. It's better to think of happiness in terms of leading a meaningful life. "It's about being in the flow, completely absorbed by your work, the pursuit of your goals, the people you love, and your leisure activities," says Seligman.
Focus on the good things. You probably spend more time each day thinking about what went wrong rather than what went right. Jot down three things that went well each day and explain why. "This will help you feel more grateful for what you have and more hopeful about the future," says Seligman.
(refer to article in the December 25, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report)
Beliefs can help or harm:
Our beliefs or expectations are very powerful. Our beliefs can work either way - they can improve our health or impair it. If you expect that you are going to remain well you increase the likelihood of this. If you expect that you are going to become ill you increase the likelihood of attaining this result.
For example, the Placebo Effect describes how our belief in something will affect our health, for better or worse. It is translated into a physiological response - in other words, how our beliefs or expectations affect our mental and physical health (the body manifests what the mind harbors).
Estimates suggest that the Placebo Effect accounts for around 40 percent of all health improvements! In other words 40 percent of the time, our health improves because of our belief that something will benefit us rather than because of the inherent qualities of the actual pill or portion or therapeutic procedure.
So, if you believe strongly enough that, say, chopping up herbs or frogs legs or bats' wings and rubbing them in or eating them or sprinkling them over your head by the light of the full moon is going to cure you, if you truly and deeply have an expectation that this will help, then it's likely that it will.
Building beliefs: The process of developing beliefs or expectations has lots of parallels with hypnosis. We are hypnotised in two ways: by information from outside and by how we think. Now, while there is a category of beliefs which occurs as a result of an instant, one-off shock experience, most of our beliefs or expectations about our health are the result of a gradual drip-drip process. Allowing ourselves to be exposed to a steady and relentless stream of negative messages, numbs our critical thinking abilities so that we passively accept these negative messages as 'truth' and, worse still, as being relevant to our own health. As the old saying goes 'beware of what you get used to'.
The everyday life of most people, especially in the developed world, exposes them to an endless stream of messages of ill-health: the news media, television programs, magazine articles, advertising, and the opinions of parents and friends all bombard us with suggestions about ill-health.
Consider the effect of a few weeks spent reading newspaper or magazine articles about the symptoms of particular diseases, watching television programs about doctors and illnesses and accidents and hospitals, or chatting with friends about the latest illnesses which are affecting the neighbourhood…
Now, perhaps, taken in isolation such messages are relatively easy to reject. But it's the relentless stream of these messages which makes them so insidious. We get used to accepting such messages as 'the way things are' and they can become self-fulfilling prophecies.
To protect your health-supporting expectations and beliefs, it's wise to develop a critical attitude towards these negative messages. So, for example, when you hear that a particularly virulent form of the common cold is affecting people in your locality you might make a choice about whether or not this is relevant to you. Otherwise you may be unconsciously and passively awaiting your turn to 'catch it'. Or, when a media article suggests that a particular illness is affecting 15 percent of the population, you might begin to wonder about the 85 percent who are unaffected and seek to ensure, proactively, that you are in that group.
Make a choice that you are going to stop the negative self-hypnosis! Notice your habitual thoughts and, when you find yourself dwelling on 'silly thoughts' of illness, immediately replace them with health-enhancing thoughts. They need to be nipped in the bud immediately. If you dwell upon or 'entertain' them you give them power and credibility. The moment a negative thought occurs replace it. This is quite important: you replace rather than block the negative thought. If you simply blocked it you create a vacuum which will quickly be filled by the same thought, again. Blocking negative thoughts makes them more powerful!
Support the thought switching with health-enhancing action. This will add to the credibility of your new replacement beliefs and expectations. You could, perhaps, engage in an exercise program, or dietary change, or a change in your work routine which will reduce the amount of stress or pressuring your experience. This doesn't need to be a life-changing process: merely some change in routine which reinforces your determination to build a health-enhanced future for yourself.
