Transcript The Gift of Positive Energy for Optimal Health

The Gift of Positive Energy for
Optimal Health
Keith J. Karren, PhD
Dept. of Health Science, BYU
POSITIVE ENERGY
 Does positive energy and positive psychology really impact
our health? Is positiveness a gift that only some people are
blessed with, or can it be developed? Current research gives
us the answers to these questions!
 The impact of positive energy and positive psychology on our
health. It is a gift for all. It is a gift given by a loving God to
all his children who seek it.
POSITIVE ENERGY
 Examples:
 Zeezrom – burning fever (wickedness)
Mind/Body – Alma – “believe in Christ,”
“Have mercy and heal him according to his
faith.” Zeezrom was healed immediately.
 Isrealites healed of serpent bites
 Alma 46:40 – Nephites dying of fever’s but
health “because of the excellent qualities of
the many plants and roots which God had
prepared to remove the cause of diseases.”
POSITIVE ENERGY
 Positive Psychology and “Authentic Happiness”
– Martin Seligman
 Dr. Seligman – the “new psychology”
 The things in life that make it worthwhile!
 Martin Seligman – “...there is a set of human
strengths that are the most likely buffers against
mental illness: courage, optimism, interpersonal
skill, work ethic, hope, honesty and
perseverance.
 A new science of strength and resilience
 Move from helpless and hopeless to helpful and
hopeful
 PP “Making normal people stronger and more
productive as well as making high human
potential actual”
POSITIVE ENERGY
 As I listened to his presentations, this
champion of “learned optimism” and the
new psychology gave me a new vision of a
very rich and fulfilling second half of life
through high self-efficacy, learned
optimism and hope, the development of
wisdom and courage, and a vision of
optimal human functioning through the
impact of mindfulness living, flow and
spirituality, attachment and
connectedness, love and flourishing
relationships. Dr. Seligman was giving us
the concept of living well at every stage of
life, and I was fascinated by this new,
positive psychology.
POSITIVE ENERGY
 High-energy positive emotions like joy
make people playful, and play is deeply
implicated in the building of physical
resources. There is direct evidence that
positive emotion predicts health and
longevity.
 Positive emotion also protects people
against the ravages of aging. 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. Happy
people, furthermore, have better health
habits, lower blood pressure, and feistier
immune systems than less happy people.
POSITIVE ENERGY
 Not only do happy people endure pain
better and take more health and safety
precautions when threatened, but positive
emotions undo negative emotions.
 Happy people were more likely to
demonstrate that trait. They display more
empathy and are willing to donate more
money to others in need. When we are
happy, we are less self-focused, we like
others more, and we want to share our
good fortune even with strangers. When
we are down, though, we become
distrustful, turn inward, and focus
defensively on our own needs. Looking our
for number one is more characteristic of
sadness than of well-being.
POSITIVE ENERGY
 A meaningful life is one that joins with
something larger than we are – and the larger
that something is, the more meaning our lives
have. Partaking in a process that has the bringing
of a God who is endowed with omniscience,
omnipotence, and goodness as its ultimate end
joins our lives to an enormously large something.
 You are vouchsafed the choice of what course to
take in life.You can choose a life that forwards
these aims to a greater or lesser degree. Or you
can, quite easily, choose a life that has nothing to
do with these aims.You can even choose a life
that actively impedes them. You can choose a life
built around increasing knowledge: learning,
teaching, educating your children, science,
literature, journalism, and so many more
opportunities.
POSITIVE ENERGY
 You can choose a life built around increasing power through
technology, engineering, construction, health services, or
manufacturing. Or you can choose a life built around
increasing goodness through the law, policing, firefighting,
religion, ethics, politics, national service, or charity.
 The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your
signature strengths every day in the main realms of living.
Using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power, or
goodness. A life that does this is pregnant with meaning, and
if God comes at the end, such a life is sacred.
POSITIVE ENERGY
 There are many studies that correlate positivity with later
health, longevity, sociability, and success, the balance of the
evidence suggests that in some situations negative thinking
leads to more accuracy. Where accuracy is tied to potentially
catastrophic outcomes (for example, when an airplane pilot is
deciding whether to de-ice the wings of her airplane), we
should all be pessimists.
POSITIVE ENERGY
 Health is an attitude or orientation comprising our basic
values and beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. It
is an inner quality that gives rise to particular health practices
but cannot in itself be reduced to those practices.
POSITIVE ENERGY
 As cardiologist, Dr. Paul Dudley
White explained, “Body, mind, and
soul are inextricably woven together,
and whatever helps or hurts any one
of these three sides of the whole man
helps or hurts the other two.”
SEVEN STEPS TO WELLNESS
7 Rediscovering love
6 Reaching forgiveness
5 Building self-esteem
4 De-addiction
3 Meditation
2 Enjoyable exercise
1 Einstein energy diet
Supportive of Health
and Well-Being
Non-Supportive of Health
and Well-Being
Balanced diet
Unbalanced diet
Daily and weekly exercise
Lack of exercise
Time for fun, play and laughter
Loss of humor and lack of fun
Music, sonics, and chanting
Lack of music, sonics, and chantings
Love, touch, and support systems
Lack of love, touch, and support
systems
Engaged in interests, hobbies, and
creative purpose
Lack of interests, hobbies, and creative
purpose
Nature, beauty, and healing
environments
Lack of nature, beauty, and healing
environments
The presence of faith and believe in
the supernatural
Lack of faith and belief in the
supernatural
POSITIVE ENERGY
 Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors influence a virtual
orchestra of biological responses that can promote health and
prevent disease. This is a symphony played by mind,
emotion, brain, behavior, and body. (ME-B3)
Mind
Brain/Body/Health
Emotion
Behavior
QUIZ: DO YOU HAVE POSITIVE ENERGY?
 Do you exude a sense of support and compassion with others?
 Yes
No
 Do you think others feel safe and relaxed with you?
 Yes
No
 Are you a generally positive person?
 Yes
No
 Are you non-judgmental with yourself and others?
 Yes
No
 Are you compassionate with your own shortcomings and try to heal them?
 Yes
No
 Do you feel peaceful much of the time?
 Yes
No
 Are you able to let resentments go rather than harbor them?
 Yes
No
 Do you laugh frequently?
 Yes
No
 Are you kind to family, friends and people you don’t know well?
 Yes
No
 9 of your answers out of 9 suggest you have positive energy.
BENEFITS BE AN OPTIMIST
 Healthy, optimistic thinking can help you:
 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
CHECK YOURSELF ARE YOU AN OPTIMIST?
 Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Don’t
respond with what you think you should say, but how you typically
view your life.
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In uncertain times, I expect the best
I’m optimistic about my future
Every cloud has a silver lining
If something can go wrong, it will
Things never work out the way I want them to
I rarely count on good things happening to me
 If you agree with the first three statements and disagree with the last
three, you are an optimist.
 If you disagree with the first three statement and agree with the lass
three, you are more pessimistic.
A NEW SCIENCE—POSITIVE HEALTH
 Principle investigator: Dr. Martin Seligman, U. of Pennsylvania
 Positive health predicts increased longevity, decreased health
costs, better mental health in aging, and better prognosis when
illness strikes.
 A focus on health rather than illness will be cost saving and
life saving.
 Bringing about well-being—positive emotion, engagement,
purpose, positive relationships, positive accomplishment—
may be one of our best weapons against mental disorder.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
 Women who flashed Duchenne (genuine) smile in their yearbook
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positive photos as freshman have more marital satisfaction twentyfive years later (Harker & Keltner, 2001)
Brief raising of positive mood enhances creative thinking and
makes positive physicians more accurate and faster to come up
with the proper liver diagnosis (Fredrickson, 2001: Isen, 2005)
The relation of national wealth to life satisfaction is dramatically
curvilinear; after the safety net is met, increases in wealth produce
less and less life satisfaction (Diener, Sandvik, Seidlitz, & Diener,
1993).
In business meetings a ratio of greater than 2.9:1 for positive and
negative statements predicts economic flourishing (Fredrickson &
Losada, 2005).
Peripheral attention is superior under positive emotion
(Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005).
OTHER RESEARCH FINDINGS
 A state of positive health will increase
longevity and improve prognosis.
 High optimism produced a remarkably low
hazard ratio of 0.23 for CVD death.
 A high correlation was found between high
levels of optimism and increased protection
against cardiovascular events.
OPTIMISM
 Depression significantly increases the risk for
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cardiac events.
Optimism and positive emotions are linked to
recovery after a major cardiac event.
Optimism and positive affect may be protective
against other physical deterioration.
Positive emotional style may also act as preventive
against the onset of the common cold.
There seems to be a strong link between positive
psychology and positive health
So, you can learn to take control of your health just
by changing the way you feel about yourself and
the way you look at certain situations.
CHANGE
 All of us can benefit from applying a little
common sense to our everyday life, reaping
the rewards in better relationships, healthier
bodies and active minds.
 “Your future should be better than your past
because you can shape your future but the
past is gone.”
 To make changes to your life you first need to
recognize that changes have to be made. It
may be that your doctor has told you your
cholesterol is too high or you have bad blood
pressure.
 One of the greatest tools that you can use to
make changes in your life is a diary, where
you write down your goals, thoughts and
feelings then record what positive steps you
undertake each day to meet your goals.
REDUCE STRESS
 Reduce stress by surrounding yourself with Positive Energy.
 Negative self-talk and negative energy can create many health
problems.
 Developing positive self-talk reduces stress and increases health.
 Maintain a positive frame of mind (which will help with positive
self-talk), by surrounding yourself with positive energy in your
life.
POSITIVE ENERGY
 You can get that by adding the
following elements to your life:
1.
2.
Uplifting music: soothing, melodious
and uplifting messages (e.g. Wilson
Phillips’ “Hold On”).
Inspirational Books: Books on
strength, personal power, enlightenment,
or self help can be good resources to help
you change your outlook and the things
you say to yourself. Rather than
triggering habitual self-defeating
thoughts, you can find yourself thinking
of new can-do concepts when times get
tough. (For shifting your paradigm, I love
Gary Zukav’s “The Heart of the Soul”, or
Sarah Ban Breathnach’s classic “Simple
Abundance”.)
POSITIVE ENERGY
3.
4.
Positive People: One of the most important ways you can get (and keep) positive
energy in your life is with the company you keep. Do your friends uplift you, or bring
you down? Are they critical, or complementary? Ideal friendships provide support
when you’re down, fun when you’re up, wisdom when you’re lost, and positive
regard. Good friends can inspire you to reach greater heights, and see your strengths
even when you don’t always. Pay attention to how your friends make you feel, and if
they’re less than supportive, start putting your energy and time toward people who
are better suited to be your friend.
Practice Affirmations: Positive affirmations can subtly but pervasively change your
self talk from negative to positive. See this article for some creative ways to begin
working positive affirmations into your life.
GENERATE POSITIVE ENERGY!
 Positive people shine with energy, goodwill and vivacity. They have an
aura of confidence and success; they smile and appear confident; they
enjoy life.
 Each time you think negatively, a neurological pathway in your brain
fires – and that negative thought, plus the mood associated with it, is
activated. The more negatives you think, the more frequently negative
pathways are activated and the worse you feel about yourself.
 Thought Stopping is a technique for replacing negative thoughts with
positive ones. Habitual thoughts have well-established neurological
pathways and, just like using a pathway in a forest, the more traffic the
pathway gets, the bigger it becomes. Establishing a new pathway takes
work. If every time you trigger a negative, you use this to consciously
replace it with a positive and make that positive more powerful, you can
create new neurological pathways that change your thinking habits.
THE THOUGHT STOPPING TECHNIQUE
 Every time a negative thought strikes, you replace it with a reasonable,
alternative, positive thought.You repeat this positive thought aloud, and
if possible, write it down. Saying positive thoughts employs multiple
brain processes: the frontal lobes for decision-making; language centers
for expressing and comprehending speech; auditory centers for hearing;
lower brain centers for breathing and coordination; motor strip for
muscle movement; temporal lobes, hypothalamus and limbic system for
mood and memory. When we write, we activate visual processing, eyehand coordination, spatial skills and the kinesthetic feel of reading and
writing.
 Next time any nasty, negative thoughts strike you: create realistic
alternatives. "I'm ugly," can change to "I look okay," or "I have a nice
smile."
 After two or three weeks of practice it becomes second nature to selfcorrect. If you have thoughts like: No-one likes me; I'm never good
enough; I'm stupid; I'm a rotten person; who'd want to be my friend,
try these kinds of substitutes: * I have friends: I am likeable * It's normal
to make mistakes: I'm not stupid. * I'm not perfect: I have good
qualities.
 Make creating positives your new feel-good habit! Positive self-talk
nourishes not only your emotional and psychological health but also
your physical health and well-being via the body-mind connection.
POSITIVE ENERGY – Dr. Judith Orlaf
 Energy Psychiatry – the subtle energetic
components of health and behavior
 It blends the practice of mainstream
medicine with subtle energies – our life
force (Qi or Chi or Prana)
 Dr. Orlof has formulated ten essential
prescriptions for boosting energy,
improving relationships, and combating
energy vampires.
POSITIVE ENERGY – Dr. Judith Orlaf
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Awaken your intuition and rejuvenate yourself – and learn
the cure for techno despair and overload from emails,
computers, and phones.
Find a nurturing spiritual path that fits your own beliefs and
inner stirrings.
Design an energy-aware approach to diet, exercise, and health
– and learn how to avoid the “energetic overeating” that
sabotages attempts to lose weight.
Generate positive emotional energy to counter negativity.
Develop a heart-centered sexuality.
Open yourself to the flow of creativity and inspiration to
achieve greater job.
Celebrate the sacredness of laughter, pampering, and the
replenishment of retreat – it’s not selfish to take care of
yourself.
Discover how to attract positive people and situations.
Protect your energy vampires with specific shielding
techniques.
Create abundance and a continuing flow of energy.
POSITIVE ENERGY
 The signs of positive energy in
people:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
They exude an inviting sense
of heart, compassion, and
support.
You intuitively feel safe,
relaxed, wanting to get closer
to them.
They emanate a peaceful glow.
You feel better around them.
Your energy and optimism
increases.
CHALLENGE YOUR WOULDA, SHOULDA,
COULDA’S!
 Rehearse success:
 When you aren’t happy with the way you handled a particular
situation, try this exercise:
 Write down three ways that it could have gone better
 Write down three ways it could have gone worse
 If you can’t think of alternatives to the way you handled it, imagine what
someone whom you greatly respect would have done
 Or think what advice you would give to someone else facing a similar
situation
 Remember that mistakes aren’t failures. They’re good to learn.
Mistakes give you the chance to rehearse other ways of handling
things. This is great practice for future crises.
FOCUS ON WHAT YOU’VE GOT
 Use your thoughts to increase your happiness. Make it a goal to
think about positive events and experiences in your daily life as
much as possible. Focus on what you have, not what you lack.
Rather than mulling over your shortcomings or difficulties, think
about the good things in your life. It might be your family, your
friends, your work, or something you are looking forward to.
Every one of us can find something to be grateful for.
AN IMPROVED SELF-IMAGE
 By taking positive steps to
improve your health and
looks, you gain a feeling of
control over your life and
body.
 That sense of accomplishment
and confidence will carry over
to other areas of your life,
raising your overall selfesteem.
FOLLOW YOUR BLISS
 Passions lead to good health
 A positive attitude to life contributes to joy and health
 For positive psychological health:
 Be authentic with your feelings
 Let go of blame, guilt, and fault
 Keep your attention on what feels good
 Happiness = the life force and energy that keeps us vital and
healthy
REMEMBER
 Remember, spend time with your loved ones, because they are not going
to be around forever. Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks
up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave
your side.
 Remember to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is
the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.
 Remember to say, “I love you” to your partner and your loved ones, but
most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it
comes from deep inside of you.
 Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that
person will not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak,
and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
28 SECRETS TO HAPPINESS
 Live beneath your means and within your
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seams.
Return everything you borrow.
Donate blood.
Stop blaming other people.
Admit it when you make a mistake.
Give all the clothes you haven’t worn in the
last three years to charity.
Every day do something nice and try not to
get caught.
Listen more; talk less.
Every day take a 30-minute walk in your
neighborhood.
Skip two meals a week and five the money to
the homeless.
Strive for excellence, not perfection.
Be on time.
Don’t make excuses.
 Don’t argue.
 Get organized.
 Be kind to kind people.
 Be even kinder to unkind people.
 Let someone cut ahead of you in line.
 Take time to be alone.
 Reread a favorite book.
 Cultivate good manners.
 Be humble.
 Understand and accept that life isn’t always fair.
 Know when to say something.
 Know when to keep your mouth shut.
 Don’t criticize anyone for 24 hours.
 Learn from the past, plan for the future, and
live in the present.
 Don’t sweat the small stuff.
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 is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I
react to it. And so it is with you...
we are in charge of our attitudes.
IN MEMORY OF DONALD BOGGS
What Cancer Can’t Do – there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. One of the
most dreaded sentences a patient might hear is, “You have cancer.” these words bring a
chill to the heart. Although great progress has been made in treating cancer, recovery can
be long and painful, and some people do not survive. An enthusiastic believer in Christ,
Don Boggs, lost his battle with cancer. But his life demonstrated that even though the
physical body may be destroyed by disease, the spirit can remain triumphant. This poem
was distributed at his memorial service:
Cancer is so limited...
It cannot cripple love,
It cannot shatter hope,
It cannot corrode faith,
It cannot eat away peace,
It cannot destroy confidence,
It cannot kill a friendship,
It cannot shut out memories,
It cannot silence courage,
It cannot invade the soul,
It cannot reduce eternal life,
It cannot quench the Spirit,
It cannot lessen the power of the resurrection.
Mother Theresa
People are often unreasonable, illogical,
and self-centered; Forgive them
anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous; Be happy
anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of
selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind
anyway.
The good you do today, people will
often forget tomorrow; Do
good anyway.
If you are successful you will win some
false friends and true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may
cheat you; Be honest and frank
anyway.
What you spend years building, someone
could destroy overnight; Build anyway.
Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've
got anyway
You see, in the final analysis, it is
between you and God; It was
never between you and them
anyway.
Nelson Mandela’s Inaugural Speech (1994)
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens
us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God
that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
AGING WELL (Harvard Study)
Dr. George Vaillant
 Iris Joy, the healthiest ager
 She chose loving parents.
 Did not smoke or abuse alcohol.
 Knew how to savor joy.
 Knew how to turn lemons into lemonade.
 Learned from her children, but “Biology flows downhill.”
 Remembered that all life is a journey.
 Knew the seeds of love must be eternally resown.
 Knew how to give, to serve.
ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but the
number of moments that take our breath away.
The Wind, One Brilliant Day
The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine.
"In return for the odor of my jasmine,
I'd like all the odor of your roses."
"I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead."
"Well then, I'll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the
fountain."
The wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself,
"What have you done with the garden that was
entrusted to you ?"
~Antonio Machado