Be Careful? Or Be Cheerful?

A doctor gave a 92-year-old man a physical exam. A few days later he happened to notice the man walking down the street with his arm around a gorgeous young woman and grinning from ear to ear. 

The next time he encountered the man, the doctor said, “You are really doing great, aren’t you?”

“Just doing what you said, Doc,” the man agreed. “You said, ‘Get a hot mamma and be cheerful.’”

“I didn’t say that,” replied the doctor. “I said you got a heart murmur. And be careful.”

I wonder if the advice to be cheerful may actually do him more good than to be careful. There is no shortage of self-help books and articles about taking care of yourself physically – from watching your diet to getting proper exercise. In other words, “Be careful!” But just as necessary is learning how to care for your mind and spirit. And cultivating a cheerful attitude can be an important part of the treatment.

You’re no doubt familiar with some of the research linking a healthy sense of humor, and especially laughter, to overall better health. Researchers now know that:

• Laughter reduces stress hormone levels so we feel less stressed.
• It enhances our immunity by improving our mood. Our immune system is stronger on those "up" days and we are less prone to upper respiratory infections.
• Laughter causes us to breathe more fully, bringing in more oxygen and releasing toxins.
• After a good laugh our blood pressure drops, heart rate and breathing slow down and muscle tension decreases.
• Even in stressful times, humor and good cheer help us to find joy. As you know, joy and stress just don’t mix.
• Also, they are learning that laughter increases productivity and creativity.
• It helps our muscles to relax. This natural relaxation effect not only reduces stress but it also has been shown to alleviate headaches, chronic anxiety and other stress-related problems.
• Laughter reduces pain in the chronically ill. Norman Cousins, in his book Head First: The Biology of Hope, noticed that ten minutes of belly laughter often gave him two hours of pain-free sleep.
• In fact, it is said that a good belly laugh is so good for the heart some people liken it to internal jogging.

Do you tend to focus on what is wrong with your life, or what is right? Are you known as an angry person, or are you known more for being up-beat and positive? Are you finding enough laughter and humor every day?

Sometimes I think the best sense we can make of life is a sense of humor.

--Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/Jeffery Wong

A Conspiracy of Love

Almost a century ago, two young medical school graduates, along with their doctor father, tried an important experiment. They built a small sanitarium on a farm outside Topeka, Kansas (USA). This was a time when the "rest cure" was in vogue as a treatment for psychiatric disorders as well as for a few physical ailments. Oftentimes patients were sent to impersonal institutions where they might remain their entire lives.  

The doctors were Charles Menninger and his sons Karl and William. The Menningers had a different idea. Their sanitarium would not be impersonal. They were determined to create a loving, family atmosphere among their patients and staff. Their vision was to grow a community of doctors, nurses and support staff that would cooperate to heal patients; a place where a patient’s mental health would be as important as her physical health.

To this end, nurses were given special training and were told, "Let each person know how much you value them. Shower these people with love." Rather than being sent to a place where they were warehoused for life, many of the patients received more love and kindness at the Menninger Sanitarium than they had ever experienced before.

The treatment worked - spectacularly. The experiment was a resounding success and the Menninger's revolutionary approach to healing and their radical (for that daytime) methods became world famous.

Karl Menninger later wrote numerous books and became a leading figure in American psychiatry. "Love cures people,” Menninger wrote, “both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.” His work demonstrated just how true that statement is.

Essayist Hamilton Wright Mabie said, “Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.” I'm attracted to that phrase... conspiracy of love. For many people around the world, Christmas is such a season. This time of year is an annual celebration where folks agree to put aside destructive differences and toxic behavior and allow love to take center stage. When that happens, it can be a beautiful thing. And even more beautiful if the season can truly engage the whole world in such a conspiracy.

I would like to be part of the plot. And not only for a season. If enough of us join together, the movement will become an irresistible and unstoppable force for good.

Spiritual writer Emmett Fox put it like this:

There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer.

No disease that enough love will not heal.
No door that enough love will not open.
No gulf that enough love will not bridge.
No wall that enough love will not throw down.
No sin that enough love will not redeem.

What could happen if you let each person in your life know how much you value them? What might happen if you were to, as Menninger says, shower everyone with love? And not just friends and family, though they may need to hear it from you. But everyone? Especially those hardest to love?

Does it sound unrealistic? Maybe it is. But remember, love cures people. And it can cure a world.

The only real question is, will you join the conspiracy?

-- Steve Goodier

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What Are We Doing to Our Children?

 

Image by Marg

Karl A. Menninger said, “What's done to children, they will do to society.” 

One proud father said to his little boy, "I've got news for you, my big boy. You are going to have a beautiful baby brother."

"Great!" yelped the little boy. "Where's Mom? I can't wait to tell her!"

His sister, however, wasn't nearly as excited about the arrival. After a few days her father asked, "Aren't you happy about having a new baby brother?"

"Not really," she admitted. "I wanted a little sister so we could play girl games when she got bigger. And we can't give him back. We've used him for five days."

However, she may yet grow to love her little brother. If not now, later.

Psychiatrist Karl A. Menninger spent a lifetime studying mental illness. He observed that “what's done to children, they will do to society.” There is nothing new here. We all know that abused children often become abusers. Children taught to hate or children raised in violence commonly become dangerous and destructive adults.

But there is a positive side, too. Children nurtured in kindness learn the value of understanding. Children taught to be self-sufficient, to respect others, to value education and to build life up rather than to tear it down will become adults capable of leading us to a brighter future. For what's done to children, they will do to society.

An unknown author put it succinctly: "A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started. He or she is going to sit where you are sitting and attend to those things that you think are important. You may adopt all the policies you please, but how they will be carried out depends on our young people. They will assume control of your duties, states and nation. They are going to move in and take over your churches, schools, universities and corporations. All your books will be judged, praised or condemned by them. The fate of humanity is in their hands. So it might be well to pay young people attention."

What are we doing to our children?

-- Steve Goodier

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Much Obliged

Like most parents, I taught my children to say "thank you" frequently and hoped that giving thanks might become a life habit. After all, silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone. But I think that what I hoped to teach them was not simply to say thanks, but to feel it. I believe that thankful people are happy people.

Writer Fulton Oursler used to tell of an old woman who took care of him when he was a child -- a woman who not only expressed her thanks, but felt it. Anna was a former American slave who, after emancipation, was hired by a family for many years.

He remembered her sitting at the kitchen table, her hands folded and her eyes gazing upward as she prayed, “Much obliged, Lord, for my vittles.” He asked her what vittles were and she replied that they were food and drink. He told her that she would get food and drink whether or not she gave thanks, and Anna said, “Yes, we’ll get our vittles, but it makes ‘em taste better when we’re thankful.”

She told him that an old preacher taught her, as a little girl, to always look for things to be grateful for. So, as soon as she awoke each morning, she asked herself, “What is the first thing I can be grateful for today?” Sometimes the smell of early-morning coffee perking in the kitchen found its way to her room. On those mornings, the aroma prompted her to say, “Much obliged, Lord, for the coffee. And much obliged, too, for the smell of it!”

Young Fulton grew up and left home. One day he received a message that Anna was dying. He returned home and found her in bed with her hands folded over her white sheets, just as he had seen them folded in prayer over her white apron at the kitchen table so many times before.

He wondered what she could give thanks for at a time like this. As if reading his mind, she opened her eyes and gazed at the loving faces around her bed. Then, shutting her eyes again, she said quietly, “Much obliged, Lord, for such fine friends.”

Oursler was deeply influenced by Anna’s uncanny ability to always find some reason to be "much obliged." This wise woman taught him a secret that many people have never learned: she taught him how to be happy.

-- Steve Goodier

Image:flickr.com/Gurpreet

Do You Want to Be Right?

I heard a funny story about a cowboy who ambled into the local blacksmith shop and picked up a horseshoe, not realizing it had just come from the forge. He immediately dropped the hot shoe, shoved his seared hand into his pocket and tried to act nonchalant.

The blacksmith half smiled and asked, "Kinda hot, wasn't it?"

"Nope," replied the cowboy, "just don't take me long to look at a horseshoe, that's all."

I chuckle because I don’t enjoy admitting mistakes, either. Nope, I’m fine…I meant to do that.

Furthermore, when I think I’m right, I usually want people to know it. And when I’m IN THE RIGHT, it’s hard to hold me back. “Hey, I’m the injured party here. I didn’t do anything wrong. I can prove it!” I don’t suffer righteous indignation quietly.

I learned of a minister who left his pulpit to go to medical school and become a doctor. An old friend saw him several years later and expressed surprise at his career change, but said he assumed it had been because he could care for people in a more physical way now that he was practicing medicine.

"Not at all," the doctor responded honestly, "the reasons were purely economic. I discovered that people will pay more money to care for their bodies than for their souls."

Several years lapsed before the friend saw him again and discovered that he had left medicine for law. "What was your reason this time?" the friend asked.

"Simple economics again," replied the ex-minister, ex-doctor attorney. "I learned that people will pay more to prove they are right than to care for either body or soul."

I suppose I’m not the only person who enjoys being right. Is that part of our human nature? In conflict, it seems most folks want to come out on top. When they are wronged, they want justice. If no justice is forthcoming, they lament about the unfairness of it all and indignantly brood in self pity. Many people will go to great lengths to prove they are right – and at tremendous cost, not only financially, but in other ways.

Do you know how difficult it is to insist on being right? And how high the cost?

Being the injured party is costly to physical and emotional health. Some people stew about the injustice of it all while their stomachs are eaten away by ulcers. While they wait for an apology or a court case to vindicate them, they grow resentful and bitter. They obsess on the cause of their pain and allow it to rob them of one of their most valuable assets – their happiness. In the end, many of them discover they paid far too high a price to be right.

An important question for me is this: Do I want to be right, or do I want to be well? And a related question is this: Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy? Because usually I have to choose.

But it’s a choice I really ought to make.

-- Steve Goodier

Health Insurance

I think it was Bob Orben who said, "Have you noticed how health insurance is like a hospital gown: every time you turn around, you find something that isn’t covered?" But health researchers are discovering what many people have known all along -- that getting healthy is about more than medicine and treatment. It also involves a healthy outlook on life.

Various studies have validated the mind/body connection. Cancer is often diagnosed within months of the death of one’s spouse. People who are cynical or angry have been shown to be more prone to heart attacks than those with a more positive outlook. And former Saturday Review editor Norman Cousins demonstrated for years how humor, laughter and hope can aid the healing process.

Not only is a healthy mental outlook necessary, but a healthy spiritual outlook seems to be equally important. Noted psychologist Carl Jung (1865-1961) made a telling observation about the connection between one’s mental health and spiritual outlook. “During the past 30 years, people from all civilized countries of the earth have consulted me,” he said. “Among all my patients in the second half of life -- that is to say, over 35 -- there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a (spiritual) outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which living religions of every age have given to their followers….”

A healthy person is not one with a certain lifestyle, a certain income or certain favorable circumstances. A healthy person is usually one with certain attitudes. Positive mental attitudes and fruitful spiritual attitudes are part of it. One might say that a robust spiritual outlook is good health insurance.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/Etolane