Saturday, October 25, 2008

Love Breeds Health

Adapted from Peace Is the Way (Harmony Books, 2005), from Care2.com.

The body at peace is stronger than the body at war. When you can free yourself of the random, uncontrollable stress that is always present, your body will start to be at peace.

Modern medicine has already discovered that love increases the human immune response. An experimenter who showed random subjects a movie of Mother Teresa found that their immune systems responded immediately. The rise of an immunoglobulin called IGA proved that exposure to love actually increased the body’s defenses. This happened regardless of whether the subjects approved of Mother Teresa or not.

People who feel loved live longer; have fewer colds, lower blood pressure, and lower cancer rates; and have fewer heart attacks. Widowers who lose a spouse and begin to feel unloved and lonely suffer higher rates of all these afflictions, as well as a shorter life span.

You cannot use stress, in the form of constant reminders about terror, to create peace in the body. The mechanisms simply aren’t there.

Don’t dwell on stressful events. Avoid becoming addicted to bad news. Put fear in perspective. Realize that positive outcomes are possible. Discuss how you feel with others; work together to change the stress. Be in control where you can. Don’t let chaos dominate. Stay centered, and whenever you are thrown off center, take time to return there. Find an outlet for your anger and anxiety.

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