While we sometimes think of emotional well-being as separate from physical health or dis-ease, there is simply no denying that attitude plays a significant (and direct) role in immune response. Attitude is defined as a feeling or way of thinking that affects a person’s behavior, and, if you had been thinking someone or something was making you sick, it just might have been!
Awareness that there is this mind-body link between our thoughts and feelings and our well-being is not new. According to Wikipedia “psychiatric syndromes or symptoms and immune function has been a consistent theme since the beginning of modern medicine.”
The systematic study of this connection is called psychoneuroimmunology, and while science and religion do not mix, scientifically we are coming to have a greater respect for the role of faith in our health and healing because it is not just about our attitudes and beliefs—it is also about our body.
Way back on February 12, 2009, Jeffrey Kluger wrote an article about the biology of belief. The subtitle of the article says it this way, “Science and religion argue all the time, but they increasingly agree on one thing: a little spirituality may be very good for your health.”
Fortunately, we are gaining understanding about our thinking and feeling, and pinpointing the locations in the brain that are activated by certain behaviors, including faith. One of the greatest benefits of this research is that it allows us to respect that the brain does not make a determination about which religion is right!
Most folks probably couldn’t locate their parietal lobe with a map and a compass. For the record, it’s at the top of your head — aft of the frontal lobe, fore of the occipital lobe, north of the temporal lobe. What makes the parietal lobe special is not where it lives but what it does — particularly concerning matters of faith.
Pray or meditate long enough and the changes in your brain become permanent, and may just have life-lengthening effects. A sociologist and public-health expert at the University of Michigan, Neal Krause, discovered that when people believe lives have meaning, they live longer.
This week, be intentional about how your own faith and attitudes can benefit your well-being. As Sonia Ricotti, author of the #1 bestselling, Unsinkable: How to Bounce Back Quickly When Life Knocks You Down, writes: Surrender to what is; let go of what was; and have faith in what will be.
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Rev. Debra Basham
Voice: (269) 921-2217 Email: debra@scs-matters.com https://scs-matters.com http://ImagineHealing.info http://SurgicalSupport.info Small Changes … Infinite Results™
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” ~Mother Teresa Tips from 5 April 2010 to 6 August 2012 are here: |