Archive for Mental nature of health
60 Minutes – Explosive – What mind can do to affect health
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Last night’s CBS Television News magazine, 60 Minutes, aired a segment that correspondent Lesley Stahl described as “explosive” in promos for the piece. The segment discussed the new scientific research that is creating a stir in the medical community.
Stahl interviewed psychologist Irving Kirsch, associate director of the Placebo Studies Program at Harvard Medical School. Kirsch’s research challenges the effectiveness of antidepressants. He said the difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people.
His specialty research has been the study of the placebo effect, — the usage of an unmedicated pill. Apparently, the fake pill creates an expectation of healing that is so powerful, symptoms are actually alleviated. During the segment, Stahl also spoke with psychiatrists who disagreed with Kirsch’s findings as well as another doctor whose own studies confirmed Kirsch’s analysis.
During the Kirsch interview, Stahl asserted, “But people are getting better taking antidepressants, I know them. We all know them.”
Kirsch responded, “People get better when they take the drug, but it’s not the chemical ingredients of the drugs that are making them better. It’s largely the placebo effect.” Read More→
Acceptance of Spiritual Healing, An Uphill Climb
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Jane Sarasohn-Kahn reported on a Health 2.0 Spring Fling in her post at Disruptive Women in Heath Care.
She wrote:
Wellness and disease prevention were the meta-themes … Dr. Dean Ornish told the attendees in the standing-room-only ballroom space that the joy of living is a greater motivator than the fear of death. And the 1.0 version of managing health risks has been more the latter than the former. As a result, Ornish’s two decades of research have shown that health is more a function of lifestyle choices than it is drugs and surgery. In fact, people have a “spectrum” of choices to make based on their personal preferences — not a one-size-fits-all “diet,” Dr. Ornish has learned.
Descriptions such as Sarasohn-Kahn’s show that society is beginning to look up from the deck, — ascending above materialistic forms of healthcare. Sadly, however, it may be some time before people are ready to free climb to a purely spiritual system of effective healing. Read More→
Praying away the cookies
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My most recent piece has been posted at CNN-Belief. Please check it out!
(CNN) – With Christmas cookies, fruitcake and eggnog tempting us at every corner, it is hard not to gain weight during the holiday season. Yet it is not just holiday foods that are enticing.
Oversized and disproportionate – that about sums it up when the average American is 20 pounds overweight. The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently said, “Obesity, and with it diabetes, are the only major health problems that are getting worse in this country, and they are getting worse rapidly.”
Personally, I have been fortunate never to have had much of a problem with my weight. I was an active, slender, Texas kid. Our family didn’t have a television until Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, so my brothers and I spent countless hours playing outside. I always ran like a jack rabbit, especially after jumping the fence at our neighborhood riding stable. … read more
Find Keith on Twitter: @TexasCS
Related post: Health Benefits of Mistletoe?
Spirituality -> better mental health
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Kirsten Dunst (Photo by Francois Durand/Getty Images)
While promoting her role in the new Lars von Trier film, Melancholia, Kirsten Dunst recently revealed that she has experienced depression. In the film, Dunst plays the role of a woman named Justine who suffers severe mental illness.
Dunst’s admission is yet another celebrity disclosure. Carrie Fisher, Angelina Jolie, and Christina Ricci have all shared similar stories. Yet, there is hope for these women and for everyone.
Weeks ago, while in Durham, North Carolina, I attended a news briefing where the Wave III Baylor Religion Survey was unveiled. The survey confirmed what I have been discovering: Improved mental health is found through greater spiritual awareness. Read More→
Gratitude 101
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Here are three truths I’ve found about gratitude:
– Gratitude brings the magnitude of God’s majesty and order into our lives. We live to express God.
– Circumstances and opportunities do not create gratitude. Gratitude creates circumstances and opportunities.
– Gratitude and pain are incompatible. Read More→
Breaking past “I can’t”
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It isn’t just the world-class competition, or the crowning of champions, that makes me excited to watch events like the recent US Gymnastics Championships in St. Paul. It’s seeing barriers get broken—shattering common expectations—that brings me to my feet.
But you don’t have to witness a standing back full twist on the balance beam to feel that same breakthrough excitement and come out a winner.
Have you ever tried to learn a foreign language and then hit a barrier? Couldn’t take it to the next level? Maybe it was the guitar or piano you were practicing, and then found yourself stuck. That happened to me. Read More→
A New Breed of Scientist-Educator: Connecting Spirituality & Health
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Bob Clark
GUEST POST: Bob Clark, my friend and colleague from Florida, recently published a piece that speaks to the connection between spirituality and health. I thought you would like a peek at it.
Bob’s visit with Dr. Lou Ritz reminds me of my meeting with Dr. John Graham at the Institute for Spirituality and Health at the Texas Medical Center for Texas in Houston. Read More→
The prayer that heals us (dogs & cats too)
Posted by: | CommentsThe prayer that heals us (dogs and cats too) is not a matter of wishing and hoping for the best. It is based on spiritual laws. It is reliable and responsible. It makes us see more clearly how God has spiritually made us. It teaches us how loved and safe we are. Just ask Lee and Sambo.
You see, Lee loves her 12 year old dog, Sambo. Lee and Sambo live on a ranch in east Texas. The ranch is about an hour away from town. One evening, when her husband was out of town, Lee saw a five foot Timberback Rattlesnake in front of her in the yard. Lee grabbed her twenty-two rifle and started shooting. Sambo saw what was happening and rushed to protect Lee. He caught the rattler in his mouth but the snake bit him. Read More→
Reading Medicines’ Side-Effects can be Unhealthy
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Have you ever listened to the possible side-effects of a drug as advertised on TV and then felt queasy? Reading about those effects can make you feel bad as well, it turns out.
Fiona Macrae’s recent Health post, The health alerts that make you ill: Negative thoughts ‘can induce sickness’, at the Daily Mail, recently got my attention. In the post, she writes:
My Remedy For Hiccups: Prayer
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After I married my wife, Joanne, and whenever I got the hiccups, a race for relief would break out between prayer and her home-remedy of a spoonful of jelly.
If I couldn’t make the hiccups disappear before Joanne arrived with her spoon, I was supposed to swallow her sugary solution.
However, absolutely every time, prayer won out. My specific prayer caused the hiccups to completely stop before Joanne could dash to the kitchen and return with the jelly.
I don’t know if you have ever tried praying while under pressure, but it took a concerted effort to keep my thought on God’s goodness and His ability to supply me with health while hearing Joanne’s shoes on the tile floor as she ran to the kitchen. Read More→
