Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Ideas from Authentic Happiness -Martin Seligman PhD. When we are in a positive mood, people like us better, and friendship, love, and coalitions are more likely to cement. In contrast to the constrictions of negative emotion, our mental set is expansive, tolerant, and creative. We are open to new ideas and new experience.
Ideas from Authentic Happiness -Martin Seligman PhD. You will recall that beginning nuns who wrote happy autobiographies when in their twenties lived longer and healthier lives than novices whose autobiographies were devoid of positive emotion, and also that optimists in the Mayo Clinic study lived significantly longer than pessimists.
How do our thoughts and beliefs affect our health? Are our bodies and minds distinct from each other or do they function together as parts of an interconnected system? There is a biomolecular basis for our beliefs and scientific evidence of the power of our minds and our beliefs to affect our health and well-being.
Because beliefs and emotions are largely ephemeral and imperceptible, Western medicine has largely assumed that their effects are nor physical or measurable. Western medical science, in its passion to reserve life, has neglected the motivations that drive us, the meaning of life that makes people thirst for health and longevity.
Every day, whether we know it or not, we alter our brain chemistry. We do this through what we eat, what we do, and what we think. These changes in brain chemistry cause transformations in mood and intellectual performance that range from the subtle to the profound. As science has proven, if we change the condition of the brains neurons and chemistry, our thoughts and emotions change. The reverse is also true: change our thoughts and emotions, and the chemicals within our brains are also changed.
Thoughts and ideas that are maintained consistently over time cause changes in brain chemistry and function. We are shaped by what we think especially if we think those thoughts consistently over a long enough period of time.
One of the secrets to making long-term changes in brain chemistry is through consistent types of thinking optimism, for example, or faith. Certain daily practices such as meditation, prayer and relaxation exercises, can foster these long-term, positive changes in biochemistry. In The Three Pound Universe, by Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, they say that thoughts, call the plays, exerting downward control over the march of nerve-impulse traffic.
What is Health?
The root meaning of health is wholeness. The word health comes from the same Anglo-Saxon root that gives us whole, hale, and holy. Western medical doctors have narrowed their view of health and pay most attention to the physical body and the material aspects of illness. Many doctors would define health as the absence of disease
With the emergence of Complementary and Alternative medicine (which I prefer to refer to as Integrative Medicine), spiritual and religious influences upon health have reemerged as important factors for scientific inquiry. I say re-emerged because throughout history, healers were often the tribal or community leaders that were religious figures. Health is now being embraced as a dynamic and harmonious equilibrium of all the elements and forces making up and surrounding a human being.
A new branch of medical research began in the 1970s which began the scientific study of how the mind and emotions (psyche), the brain and nervous system (neuro) and the bodys cellular defenses abnormal invaders (immune system) interact in health and disease. This branch of medical research is known as psychoneuroimmunology (PNI). This proves to us what many have intuitively known.
Psychoneuroimmunology shows us that there is a biochemical basis to our beliefs, thoughts, emotions, self image and expectations which impacts, physically every cell in our body.
5. Humility is linked to lower heart disease risk and better relationships 6. Laughter is good medicine 7. How well you THINK you are is a strong predictor of your disease risk 8. Music has powerful healing properties 9. Group therapy can increase life expectancy in patients with severe illness 10. Your mind is located in every cell of your body be careful, your body is listening!
ATTITUDE
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life in 10% what happens to me & 90% how I react to it. So it is with you, we are in charge of our attitudes.
What is Optimism?
Optimism is an inclination to anticipate the best possible outcome. Ornstein & Sobel:
Optimism is the tendency to seek out, remember, and expect pleasurable experiences. It is an active priority of the person, not merely a reflex that prompts us to look on the sunny side.
Optimists live longer and they probably enjoy better health along the way as well.
A positive attitude and belief in the bodys own healing abilities can certainly supplement medical treatment, but should never replace it.
Positive psychology, a field whose goal is to change the focus from what causes a troubled mind to what causes a happy one, contends that optimists are better off that pessimists. In heart disease, in particular, research has shown that optimism has been associated with a lowered risk of dying. In one study, patients who described themselves as highly optimistic had lower risks of all-cause death and lower rates of cardiovascular death than those with high levels of pessimism. Research from the Harvard School of Public Health showed that optimism lowers the risk of heart disease in older men and that pessimism and hopelessness increase it. And University of Pittsburgh researchers have reported that optimistic women demonstrate less thickening of the carotid artery walls. Not that being positive is simple or easy it requires considerable effort. One way to cultivate it is by practicing gratitude.
Those who are grateful for their blessings, and give thanks for their good fortune rater than dwelling on their misfortunes, are generally healthier and happier. Being grateful has helped create their happiness. Gratefulness has long been heralded as a virtue essential for health and well-being. Research now suggests that it also allows people to deal better with stress, causing them to be more optimistic, which seems to boost immune function.
Studies have shown that those who fail to forgive wrongs committed to them have more stressrelated disorders and worse rates of cardiovascular disease than the population as a whole. Those who received forgiveness training showed improved blood flow to their heart muscle. Forgiveness seems to reduce bitterness, anger, hatred, and fear. Many of my depressed patients have been gnawing on the bones of past grievances for years. Marianne Williamson says: We are not held back by the love we didnt receive in the past, but by the love were not extending in the present. Forgiveness, optimism, gratitude are increasingly subjects for serious scientific investigation, as much a part of the heart disease equation as blood cholesterol levels.
The heart has a mind that some might call the spirit, the higher self, intuition or the small voice within. How many times have you said to yourself if only I had listened to my heart. By not listening, we often pay a price in time and energy in cleaning up the mess afterward. This according to Rolin McCraty, who studies the physiological mechanisms by which the heart communicates with the brain. Over the years, HeartMath has conducted research validating the power of the heart in relieving stress and promoting health. Theyve formulated practical interventions that incorporate the understanding that the heart profoundly affects our perceptions, awareness, and intelligence.
Aaron Antonovsky writes Weve come to understand health not as the absence of disease but rather as the process by which individuals maintain their sense of coherence their sense that life is comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful and ability to function in the face of changes in themselves and their relationships with their environment. A key finding of HeartMath research is that as people learn to sustain heart-focused positive states of feeling, the brain is brought into entrainment with the heart.
EFFECTIVE EDUCATION
Benefits: Be an optimist
Improve your mood, self-esteem, and overall happiness Decrease depression, anxiety, and hostility Lessen pain and other bodily symptoms Speed recovery from surgery Enhance your immune function Possibly extend your life
We are constantly talking to ourselves. This self-talk is how we explain the events of our lives to ourselves. And it is the way we interpret these external events in our minds that determines how we feel, and determines what actions we decide to take.
You become a prisoner of your own beliefs. But the walls of our prison are made of thoughts, and thoughts can be changed. Selftalk is not something fixed in our biology, and our feelings are no completely out of our control. New, healthier thoughts can be cultivated.
Healthy thinkers see the world through rose-colored lenses. They distort their reality in a positive direction, and most of the time their rosy illusions benefit them. Healthy thinking is not necessarily more realistic; its just healthier.
My daughter and I never get along no matter what I do. Things never work out for me.
I was nervous about giving the speech because the audience was so large Im not a very good skier
I was nervous about giving the speech because I always mess it up Im not at all athletic
I caused a fender bender because traffic distracted me I never got a good education
Im just lucky today it wont last. Things never work out for me.
Be mindful
Set aside some time to simply observe your thoughts, without trying to change them.
Well and Wise A Positive Mental Attitude Is Critical For Optimal Health Keith J. Karren, PhD Dept. of Health Science