Many healings occur by spontaneous remission. Life is often self-healing. The body naturally trends towards health. But the natural trend of addiction and illness of the mind is to relapse. As Mark Twain said: "It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it a thousand times." Recovery demands constant work.
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"Knowing the chimpanzee mind illuminates the human mind." Chimpanzees can far exceed humans in some math and memory problems. “One person in several thousand may be able to do this.” “All the chimps I have tested can do it.” There may be "a tradeoff between memory and language. Human language makes memory portable, making it less essential for us to hold items in mind at a precise moment." “Chimps are living in the world of here and now.” “We are living in the world, thinking about the past, (and) the future, trying to understand the meaning of what we see, and bringing the information back to friends and families and colleagues to share the experience.” Chimpanzees seem to engage decision making, risk management and problem solving. Chimpanzees also practice teamwork and “track who in their environment is the better collaborator, and they actually choose those individuals as collaborative partners.”
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Turning Stress into Healing. Although Stress is the cause of many diseases, Stress may also grow special Healers. Steel must be tempered in fire. Try to stay in the Present Moment, because the past and future exist only in our thoughts. Use your Support Team, because they are a gift for you. Take nothing personally, because knowing that the world is not personal is Freedom.
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Loving kindness can strengthen the recipient's immune system. Social environments affect hormone levels and mortality. Bad social conditions increase illness and death. This study showed that socially lower-ranking monkeys had lower levels of healthy T cells and chronic stress. "Many of the changes aren’t permanent and that leads to more questions about how you regulate stress.” “If an individual is able to improve their social environment, the genome is pretty plastic, which is kind of optimistic.”
Social environment is associated with gene regulatory variation in the rhesus macaque immune system
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"If you want to live a long life, accent the positive and keep laughing." Longevity was associated with reduced "neuroticism, an enduring tendency to experience negative emotions." Most centurions "were outgoing, optimistic and easygoing. They considered laughter an important part of life and had a large social network. They expressed emotions openly rather than bottling them up."
Positive attitude towards life and emotional expression as personality phenotypes for
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"Positive feelings predict longevity and health." "The case that subjective well-being influences health and longevity in healthy populations is compelling." "I was almost shocked, and certainly surprised, to see the consistency of the data." "Positive moods such as joy, happiness, and energy, as well as characteristics such as life satisfaction, hopefulness, optimism, and sense of humor were associated with reduced risk of mortality in healthy populations, and predicted longevity." "It may be time to add 'Be happy and avoid chronic anger and depression."
Happy People Live Longer: Subjective Well-Being Contributes to Health
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Those over 65 with the most psychosocial distress had 3 times the risk of death from stroke and a 54% increased risk of first hospitalization from stroke. Psychosocial distress includes depression, stress and a negative outlook and dissatisfaction with life. "Given that psychosocial distress may be modifiable, more research is needed to understand how it contributes to stroke risk." "The pathways by which distress increases stroke risk are not fully understood." “People should be aware that stress and negative emotions often increase with age.” "These emotions have a profound effect on health.” “It’s important to pay attention when older people complain of distress."
Fatal Strokes Strike Distressed Seniors
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Anger causes aging. Optimistic individuals may be 50% less likely to have a heart attack or stroke. Optimism also slows the progression of many other diseases. Negative states, such as depression, anger, anxiety, and hostility, are harmful to the heart. "Factors such as optimism, life satisfaction, and happiness are associated with reduced risk of (heart disease) regardless of such factors as a person’s age, socioeconomic status, smoking status, or body weight.” "Optimism and positive emotion afford protection against cardiovascular disease."
Positive Feelings May Help Protect Cardiovascular Health
Over the last few decades numerous studies have shown negative states, such as depression, anger, anxiety, and hostility, to be detrimental to cardiovascular health.
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Yoga improved post stroke (“brain attack”) balance. Benefits included: Improved balance, Improved quality of life, Reduced fear of falling, Better independence with daily activities. The "yoga group data demonstrated significant improvement in balance. Group yoga may be complementary to rehabilitation, may be possible in medical-based and community-based settings, and may be cost-effective."
Yoga may aid stroke recovery - Harvard Health Publications
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"It appears that happiness does not predict longevity in sick populations, but that it does predict longevity among healthy populations. So, happiness does not cure illness but it does protect against becoming ill. The effect of happiness on longevity in healthy populations is remarkably strong. The size of the effect is comparable to that of smoking or not."
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The death rate is reduced with each increase in life satisfaction and is consistently reduced for those who undertake crafts, social visiting and activities regularly. Social participation is linked with lower risks of death. Life satisfaction is also protective, particularly among females and people aged 85+.
Differentials in mortality up to 20 years after b... [Age Ageing. 2009] - PubMed - NCBI
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Childhood adversity is linked to mental illnesses. Physical abuse, sexual abuse, humiliation by a parent, growing up in a household characterized by conflict, witnessing the physical or sexual abuse of others, having had a parent who was "not affectionate at all", and neglect and verbal abuse by a parent are all linked to the development of schizophrenia and other illnesses. The severity of symptoms is also linked with numbers of adversities experienced.
Range of Childhood Trauma Linked to Schizophrenia Risk
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3182006/
People with schizophrenia are more likely to report having had a wide range of unhappy childhood experiences than are healthy, age-matched controls, a group of Australian researchers has found. Childhood adversity has been associated with higher risk for numerous adult psychiatric disorders.
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Patient avoidance of disease-related emotions has increasingly been linked with negative outcomes. "Mindfulness and acceptance-based therapies have advocated the importance of nonjudgmental attention to unwanted thoughts, feelings, and bodily experiences without attempting to avoid or change them." These approaches help patients better cope with the stress of illness, and have been shown to help with rheumatoid arthritis and depression.
Mindfulness Program Eases Arthritis Symptoms
A mindfulness-based group intervention helped patients with rheumatoid arthritis limit their psychological distress and to better cope with illness, a Norwegian randomized study found.
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The American Psychiatric Association considers bright-light therapy an effective low-risk treatment for both seasonal affective disorder (mild to severe winter blues) and also major depression. Prozac is equally effective, though light produces results faster, usually within a week, and with fewer side effects. Some people may want to try simply getting more natural light to help with seasonal mood changes — getting out as much as possible during the brightest time of day in the winter, sitting near windows during the day or taking vacations to sunny locales in the winter.
Light Boxes May Help Melt Those Winter Blues
Bright-light therapy is the treatment of choice for many Americans who suffer the winter blues, but many experts say it is underused.
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Major emotional events experienced over a lifetime may contribute to the development of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). IBS is marked by abdominal discomfort, bloating, constipation and diarrhea. Psychological and emotional trauma may sensitize the brain and gut. "Stress has been linked to IBS, and childhood abuse has been reported to be present in up to 50 percent of patients with IBS, at a prevalence twice that of patients without IBS."
Psychological Traumas Experienced Over Lifetime Linked to Adult Irritable Bowel Syndrome
The psychological and emotional traumas experienced over a lifetime--such as the death of a loved one, divorce, natural disaster, house fire or car accident, physical or mental abuse—may contribute to adult irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), according to the results of a study unveiled today at the Ame...
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Being happy may increase the length of life. Older people were up to 35% less likely to die if they reported feeling happy, excited, and content on a typical day. Depression symptoms were not associated with mortality rates. "This finding suggests that the absence of happiness may be a more important measure of health in older people than the presence of negative emotion."
Positive affect measured using ecological momentary assessment and survival in older men and women
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Individuals who are prone to getting angry may have a higher risk for heart failure. High anger levels were also associated with a greater risk of getting readmitted to the hospital. Previous studies have also found a link between anger or hostility and the risks of stroke and coronary heart disease.
Medical News: HFSA: Heart Failure Risk Rises as the Blood Boils - in Meeting Coverage, HFSA from Med
BOSTON -- Individuals who are prone to getting angry may have a higher risk for heart failure, researchers found.
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Being depressed may increase an individual's risk of stroke and stroke death. Depression was associated with a 45% increased risk of total stroke and a 55% higher risk of fatal stroke. Antidepressants may also contribute to the increased risk of stroke.
Medical News: Depression Boosts Stroke Risk - in Cardiovascular, Strokes from MedPage Today
Being depressed may increase an individual's risk of stroke and stroke death, a meta-analysis found.
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Women victimized as children or adolescents show about a 62 percent greater risk of cardiac disease in adulthood. “We’ve also seen in earlier studies that women with a history of abuse were at an increased risk for hypertension and diabetes, particularly if that abuse occurred in childhood." "Abuse (is) the elephant in the room that we’re failing to talk about.”
http://time.com/3001735/childhood-sexual-abuse-raises-heart-disease-risk-in-adulthood/
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This works. With every point increase in optimism there was a 9% decrease in acute stroke risk. Being optimistic may have a protective effect on stroke because of the behavior choices optimistic people tend to make, such as exercising or eating a healthy diet or taking vitamins. However, some evidence indicates positive thinking may have a strictly biological effect as well.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110721163025.htm