Realizing you’re ill…not just being visited by a virus or the flu but really ill, can be both terrifying and disorienting. Two years ago, I found myself in this unfamiliar and uncertain territory. The acute phase of a serious, yet to be diagnosed illness, thrusts you into our “dysfunctional” health care system, like it or not.

I am one of the lucky ones…I have health insurance (at least for now) and access to some of the best medicine has to offer. My journey with this illness involved trips to the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins and the Cleveland Clinic. Diagnosing a rare disease is no easy task!!   I’m also blessed to have a personal physician with not only a stellar reputation but he’s a  compassionate human being as well. I remember someone saying, “You never know what kind of doctor you have until you become seriously ill”. How true!

lAlthough my symptoms were puzzling, my physician was narrowing in on the correct diagnosis.   He welcomed second opinions and comprehensive evaluation.   His openness and encouragement to explore every avenue helped me to “trust his judgment” and it reassured me that my care would come before worry about any bruising of his ego. He cooperated fully with the medical team at Johns Hopkins where the diagnosis was finally made….Churg-Strauss Syndrome-a very rare autoimmune disease which is a form of systemic vasculitis. This form of vasculitis can effect multiple organs…It is incurable, life threatening but treatable in most patients with the use of powerful medications including chemo, prednisone and immunosuppressants. Wow! Talk about your world being tipped upside down.

As with many difficult life journeys, there are surprising blessings….one of my many blessings is my developing relationship with my personal physician. Once it “settled in” that I had a chronic illness, I realized that I was going to be seeing a lot of my doctor and he would have to deal with me in the many ups and downs that occur with illness.   Having been a psychotherapist for 35 years, I knew how crucial the healing relationship would be in the success of this journey to find a “new normal”.span /spanI hoped we were both up to the task!

Doctors are human beings….mere mortals like you and me.   A healing partnership must be based on mutual respect.    I’m was not looking for a doctor who feels the need to be the all-powerful Oz but rather a skilled human being that can connect with me in my state of  dis-ease and help me remember that I, like Dorothy, already possess what I need to restore myself to a state of wholeness in mind, body and spirit.  In that process, I also want to be apprised of any and all interventions that could be beneficial.  Then, ideally,  my expert guide will help me weigh the pros and cons of these interventions until we can mutually come to a plan of action.   As doctor and patient travel this journey, the Healing Partnership is developing.  For me this partnership is an emotional bond that must develop.  It is a co-creation for which both partners are responsible.

For all too long, the fields of medicine and psychology have narrowly focused on illness, disease and dysfunction.  In the last decade, Positive Psychology has been studying what is working rather than what is not….Studying those that are healthy rather unhealthy.  Research scientist, Barbara Fredrickson’s work on positive emotion is particularly relevant when we are exploring health, wellness and human flourishing.   The evidence is indisputable that positive emotion has a profoundly beneficial effect on health.  Furthermore, when illness does occur,  positivity is the one factor that most readily explains those that bounce-back and display  resiliency in the face of difficult life events.   Remaining hopeful and positive can be no easy task especially in the first stages of a serious illness.   However, there is no more important time to have access to all one’s resources.  Having a broadened mind set helps you make clearer decisions and see possibilities.  Experiencing fear and anxiety is natural.   It is during this time that the quality of the healing partnership is most important.  The confidence and hopefulness of the physician is crucial to healing.   Physicians with positive mindsets are most effective.

In fact, one fascinating study looked at how physicians functioned in making medical diagnoses.   Researchers primed three groups of physicians…one was primed to be happy,  one to be neutral and one primed by reading scientific journals before asking each group to make as many medical diagnoses as fast as  they could.    Interestingly,  what they found was that the group primed to be happy out-performed the other two groups by 50%.   And the happy group was three times more mentally flexible.  Obviously,  its preferable to find yourself a happy physician and in todays medical system that is quite a challenge.  I was lucky….I not only found a happy, optimistic doctor but he is a natural Positive Psychologist to boot!

If we were to design the Positive Physician what characteristics or strengths would he or she possess?  I would suggest realistic optimism, curiosity, open-mindedness, judgment/critical thinking, gratitude, zest/enthusiasm for life, kindness/compassion and most of all LOVE.   What a tall order. Currently, I doubt that these coincide with the criteria used by many medical school admission boards.   Perhaps it is time to bring back some of the art of medicine….rather than an over-reliance on drugs and technology.   As we understand more and more scientifically what a powerful role emotion plays in health and healing,  we will need to use this knowledge in our choice of future healers.   As in many other professions, emotional intelligence may be the most important quality in creating the best healers.   We need more physicians that understand the mind/spirit as well as the body.   I was lucky to find such a person, and it has made all the difference for me!  

With the economic world melting down, its more important than ever to know what brings happiness and satisfaction.  Despite the constant media blast of negativity, we are considerably more adaptive creatures than we believe.  The expanding field of happiness research has shown that we tend to overestimate the long-term impact of negative events.  Negative events do affect us, but generally not as much as we expect-or for as long.  (Dan Gilbert, research psychologist, Harvard)

Yes, its true that thoughts of an uncertain future can bring on debilitating anxiety for some but we are surprisingly more resilient and can cope with a surprising amount of adversity once it is actually happening ,  said Andrew Ryder, a professor of psychology at Concordia University.

The work of Ed Diener, PhD and others in the research area of subjective well-being, tell us that in democratic countries, beyond a certain comfort level, money has little effect on happiness.  Therefore, if we allow the economy to determine our emotional state, we are allowing the source of our happiness to lie outside our control.  Wouldn’t it make more sense, considering the constant fluctuations in the market, to reassess your current life situation and focus on those areas in which you have some agency?

Marty Seligman outlines in his book Authentic Happiness three pathways to living a happy life…1) The Pleasant Life…2) The Engaged Life and…3) The Meaningful Life.  From my perspective, finding balance among these pathways gives the best chance for living an enriched life.  It seems fair to say that during these last several years,  many Americans (as well as Wall Street and the Halls of Congress) have been living beyond our means searching for the easy comfort and trappings of the Pleasant Life at the expense of balance. There is an emptiness inherent in seeking pleasure at the expense of the other pathways to happiness.  There is now an abundance of research that says that happiness is possible, but elusive.  It’s a state of being not what we do or have.  Deep levels of joy can come from working at what we love (The Engaged Life) especially compared to the more shallow, short-lived satisfaction that comes from accumulating consumer goods or mindless television watching.  We also now know without a doubt that the single most important variable in our level of happiness is meaningful relationships with others (The Meaningful Life) – with family, in love, in friendships and relationships at work.  If we worried more about the quality of our connection to others rather than our stock portfolios, we’d be happier people by far.

Despite the constant refrain, The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling, there are also many positive indicators that a new level of consciousness is arising.  Just the luxury of being able to pause and consider what might bring more happiness and fullfillment, is a luxury that millions of people around the world do not have.  Survival remains paramount.  Although we may have drifted culturally off course in our country, thanks to a myriad of forces….such as advertising designed to confuse fluff with substance, the search for the quick fix, and a stressed-out populace chasing some epherial idea of what will satisfy,….We may be closing in on some eternal truths….Relationships matter….moral and ethical behavior makes you feel good….meaningful service to something bigger than self brings deep satisfaction…. and the power to create your own internal experience, may be,  in large measure, in your own hands.   In the end,  we get to chose whether the Sky is Falling? or whether there is a New Moon Arising! 

This year I found The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky to be truly inspiring.  I read it and reread it, shared it, recommended it and gave it for presents.   The science and applications are beautifully organized for the construction of a happy life full of gratitude, connection, meaning and self-acceptance.
I then found myself pondering that first and most difficult step in the process of achieving satisfaction:  being ready to be happy.   While it sounds simple and straightforward, this commitment is actually more deep and complex.  This first step to contentment seems to require an openness to an unknown, elusive or perhaps even forbidden state.  It involves letting go of striving and finding the happiness that we’ve missed as we have been focusing on achieving, possessing, parenting, controlling and/or merely surviving.
Being receptive to happiness may involve overcoming such obstacles as negative emotions like hurt, jealousy, disappointment, loss or resentment.  Being truly ready requires determination and perseverance as the ever present demands of our lives are continually available to interfere and distract us.
In this first step we are mature individuals as we explore the most personal task of fully taking responsibility for our own happiness independent of family, work and friends.
Those who are ready for contentment believe, that it is possible, even as imperfect humans, to truly enjoy our selves and savor our lives.  As we commit fully to this task we must resist the temptation to feed our emptiness with short lived gratifications.  We cannot blame others or circumstances when our expectations are not met.   If we are determined to enjoy meaningful happiness we cannot allow the cynicism of others nor our own fears to dilute our energy and divert our trajectory.
As we take the first step of being open to experiencing gratitude and happiness in our evolving, challenging, imperfect lives, we are merely by our presence deserving.
If we are ready to take this first step and all that it brings, then we can begin to optimistically to connect in the present and allow happiness to unfold in our unique lives.

Elayne Hunter

A recent post in the “Huffinton Post” from Dec 3, 2008 discussed Barack Obama’s political campaign in which he communicated to the American public a feeling of hope and painted the possibility of a better future.  “Even amidst economic crisis and international turmoil, a shared sense of hope lifted and opened people’s hearts, seeding their better dreams.  And with Obama’s decisive win of Nov 4, hope erupted into effusive joy.  For millions of supporters, ‘Yes, we can’ morphed in to ‘Yes, we did’. ”

As we return to our daily routines and lives with all the challenges of paying the bills, work, raising children, etc., the highs will fade.  Millions of Americans are facing homelessness, joblessness and more.

“We need positivity, the complex web of causes and consequences of positive emotions, now more than ever.   Not just to sugarcoat bitter news or distract us from gloom.  We need positivity because we’re different people when we are under it’s influence.”

“Pleasant emotions like hope, inspiration, joy, and well-earned pride litterlally open us up.  As the blinders of negativity fall away, we take in more of what surrounds us.  We see both the forrest and the trees.  We appreciate athe oneness that binds us instead of the barriers that devide us.  Even race becomes irrelevant.”

The research of Barbara Fredrickson and her “Broaden and Build Therory of Positive Emotion” illuminates beautifully the power of positive emotion to engender creative and integrative thinking making hard-to-find solutions and compromises more possible.  With the problems we currently face as a nation, we desperately need expansive thinking.  Thinking broadly helps us to build new thought-action repitoires, build new skills and develop more resliency.  “Even mild positive emotions experienced regularly, set people on discernable trajectories of growth, making them better off next season than they are today.”

Fredrickson suggests that when we expereince emotions in a 3-to1 ratio of positve to negative, we cross a psychological threshold and function at our very best.  The trick is knowing how to cultivate this positve outlook and how to call upon it on a regular basis.  “Tools developed and sharpened by the science of positive psychology allow us to self-generate positivity whenever we choose-even during these trying times.  Indeed, positive emotions are at the heart of what allows people to bounce back from hardship and become stronger than ever.”

“Many of positive psychology’s science-tested tools hinge on the stance we take toward our current circumstances.  Are we truly open to what is?  Do we savor and celebrate the good?  Do we see adversity with clear eyes that resist stoking catastrophe?  Do we connect with others earnestly and with kindness offering up our best selves?  When we adopt these stances, we considerably raise the odds that positive emotions will bloom.”

In order for positve emotions to have a transformational impact, they must be geniunely felt with the full knowledge that they are a feature of moments, not a permanet emotional state.  Forced or fake positivty does more harm than good.  We are looking for realistic, optimistic thinking that leads to heightened sense of possibility.  “Positive emotions fundamentally change our biochemistry and our worldviews.  In time, we can even change who we are-helping us become better versions of ourselves”.  Even though it may seem like we are helpless to control the waves of negative emotions that enter into all our human experiences., we each have much more control than we realize over what we feel and when.  As president -elect Obama has warned, it will most likely get worse before it gets better.  How will we rise to the challenge of indivdually and collectively stoking the the fires of positivity?  The answer will determine to a great degree our futures, both personlly and as a nation.

Happiness Can Spread Among People Like a Contagion, Study Indicates

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 5, 2008; A08

Happiness is contagious, spreading among friends, neighbors, siblings and spouses like the flu, according to a large study that for the first time shows how emotion can ripple through clusters of people who may not even know each other.

The study of more than 4,700 people who were followed over 20 years found that people who are happy or become happy boost the chances that someone they know will be happy. The power of happiness, moreover, can span another degree of separation, elevating the mood of that person’s husband, wife, brother, sister, friend or next-door neighbor.

“You would think that your emotional state would depend on your own choices and actions and experience,” said Nicholas A. Christakis, a medical sociologist at Harvard University who helped conduct the study published online today by BMJ, a British medical journal. “But it also depends on the choices and actions and experiences of other people, including people to whom you are not directly connected. Happiness is contagious.”

One person’s happiness can affect another’s for as much as a year, the researchers found, and while unhappiness can also spread from person to person, the “infectiousness” of that emotion appears to be far weaker.

Previous studies have documented the common experience that one person’s emotions can influence another’s — laughter can trigger guffaws in others; seeing someone smile can momentarily lift one’s spirits. But the new study is the first to find that happiness can spread across groups for an extended period.

When one person in the network became happy, the chances that a friend, sibling, spouse or next-door neighbor would become happy increased between 8 percent and 34 percent, the researchers found. The effect continued through three degrees of separation, although it dropped progressively from about 15 percent to 10 percent to about 6 percent before disappearing.

The research follows previous work by Christakis and co-author James H. Fowler that found that obesity also appears to spread from person to person, as does the likelihood of quitting smoking. The researchers have been using detailed records originally collected by the Framingham Heart Study, a long-running project that has explored a host of health issues, to construct and analyze detailed maps of social networks.

The findings, Christakis and others said, provide striking new evidence of the power of social networks, which could have implications for public policy. Happy people tend to be better off in myriad ways, being more creative, productive and healthier.

“For a long time, we measured the health of a country by looking at its gross domestic product,” said Fowler, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego who co-authored the study. “But our work shows that whether a friend’s friend is happy has more influence than a $5,000 raise. So at a time when we’re facing such economic difficulties, the message could be, ‘Hang in there. You still have your friends and family, and these are the people to rely on to be happy.’ ”

Other experts praised the study as a landmark in the growing body of evidence documenting the influence of personal connections and the importance of positive emotions.

“It’s a pathfinding article,” said Martin E.P. Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist. “It’s totally original, and the findings are striking.”

Stanley Wasserman, who studies social networks at Indiana University, said: “We’ve known that one’s network ties are important, but we’ve never looked at anything on this scale. The implications are you can’t look at individuals as little entities devoid of their social context.”

Others, however, questioned the findings, noting that it is difficult to account for every variable that might affect the outcomes of such studies.

“Researchers should be cautious in attributing correlations in health outcomes of close friends in social network effects,” wrote Ethan Cohen-Cole of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Jason M. Fletcher of Yale University in an accompanying study. Their research used data from a large federal survey to show that acne, headaches and even height could appear to spread through social networks if not analyzed properly. “The methods of detecting ’social network effects’ of health outcomes commonly found in the recent medical literature might produce effects where none exists.”

But Christakis said his analysis took other possible explanations into consideration.

Ed Diener, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said the findings could explain why people in some countries tend to be happier than others. “This is an extremely exciting study — interesting, provocative and important,” Diener said.

While obesity appeared to spread even among people who lived far apart, happiness appears to be transmitted only among people who live within a mile of one another. The influence was also greatest among people who considered themselves mutual friends.

Because the researchers did not find the effect for people living on the same block beyond a next-door neighbor, they were confident that the positive mood was not the result of living in the same good neighborhood. Because people tended to get happier if someone they knew became happy, the researchers could rule out the alternative explanation that happy people tend to be drawn to each other.

“We know it’s not a ‘birds of a feather flock together’ effect,” Christakis said.

Surprisingly, happiness had no such effect at work. The researchers speculated that work relationships may have different dynamics. One worker might become happy because he or she got a raise or a promotion at the expense of another, for example.

Unhappiness also appeared to be catching, but not as strongly: An unhappy connection increased the chances of being unhappy by about 7 percent on average, while a happy connection increased the chances of being happy by about 9 percent. While having more friends is important for a person’s happiness, the benefit of having more friends appears to be canceled out if they are unhappy, the researchers found.

The researchers and others speculated that the emotion may be important on an evolutionary level by helping people cooperate. Seligman likened happiness to an orchestra tuning up.

“Laughter and singing and smiling tune the group emotionally,” Seligman said. “They get them on the same wavelength so they can work together more effectively as group.”

Barbara Fredrickson and her colleagues just published some interesting new research in the “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology”.  Here is the abstract:

B. L. Fredrickson’s (1998, 2001) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions asserts that people’s daily experiences of positive emotions compound over time to build a variety of consequential personal resources. The authors tested this build hypothesis in a field experiment with working adults (n = 139), half of whom were randomly-assigned to begin a practice of loving-kindness meditation. Results showed that this meditation practice produced increases over time in daily experiences of positive emotions, which, in turn, produced increases in a wide range of personal resources (e.g., increased mindfulness, purpose in life, social support, decreased illness symptoms). In turn, these increments in personal resources predicted increased life satisfaction and reduced depressive symptoms. Discussion centers on how positive emotions are the mechanism of change for the type of mind-training practice studied here and how loving-kindness meditation is an intervention strategy that produces positive emotions in a way that outpaces the hedonic treadmill effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)

This research has many important implications for coaching, psychotherapy, education, personal practice and health enhancement.

While enrolled in Marty Seligman’s first “Authentic Happiness Coaching” class in 2003, I created a new family tradition designed to maximize a sense of gratitude during the Thanksgiving Holiday.  I purchased an inexpensive wooden box from a local Target store…it looks like a small “treasure box”.  I set the box on the end of our kitchen counter along with several strips of paper and some pens.  I asked each of my four sons to fill out a slip of paper each day stating one thing they were grateful for in their life….anything at all.  My husband and I also filled out slips daily for the box.  Since I knew my parents would be joining us for Thanksgiving, I sent small slips of paper to my parents in Florida asking them to do the same thing and then to bring them along to our family celebration.  I started this ritual the day after Halloween so that there would be at least three weeks of gratitude slips.   My sons needed a little “nudging” at first to remind them to fill out a slip each day but they soon became engaged in the ritual and it was apparent that it was having an effect on everyone’s attitude around the house.  It was already our practice each night at dinner to go around the table and ask each person, “What was the best thing that happened to you today?”  This ritual not only set the mood for the rest of the evening but it was a great way to engage the kids in talking about their day.

On Thanksgiving just before we sat down to our much anticipated feast, I asked everyone to gather in a circle and pass around the “Gratitude Box” drawing out a slip at random and reading it aloud.  I was surprised by the powerful emotional reaction that this created.  As the box went round and round the circle and the slips were read aloud, eyes became moist and there was an obvious loving glow created in everyone.  It was clear that this ritual would become a permanent feature of our family’s tradition.

The Gratitude Box is now a five year long tradition and many things have changed in our family.  Our oldest son lives in Chicago,  our twin sons moved out into their own home, and my youngest son is in the Navy.  In preparation for Thanksgiving, I’m sending strips of paper in a special letter to each of our sons and asking that they continue the tradition and bring their gratitude strips along to Thanksgiving Dinner.  I’m sure they will. 

One of the most precious parts of this ritual is that I have kept all five years of strips…..reading them not only touches my heart but gives a “historical account” of all the growth and development of our sons and the family over these last five years.  Counting one’s blessings is indeed a powerful way to maximize feelings of gratitude but the added dimension of doing this exercise as a family centered around a holiday such as Thanksgiving, is priceless.  I highly recommend that you consider ways to create rituals that reinforce the practice of gratitude.  It surely adds happiness to our lives and meaning to our connections to one another!  Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum in this charged election year, it’s striking to see the fire that has been ignited in many people, especially the younger generation by the emotional call of Barack Obama’s campaign for President. To those of us who study Positive Psychology it should come as no surprise. The power of hope can not be underestimated. Hope and optimism create positive emotion and as the research of Barbara Fredrickson teaches us, positive emotion broadens and builds our thought-action repertoire. Hope is akin to rocket fuel when elicited by a speaker who feels deep passion about his cause. Fear and terror elicit deep feelings as well but in a restricting, limiting fashion. Fear calls on survival mobilization. Fear can trump all other emotions when one perceives their life to be threatened. However, it does not lend itself to creative, expansive problem solving, like positive emotions such as hope do.

The attacks on 9-11 created an atmosphere of fear and terror in our country…it might be fair to say that we as a nation were “traumatized”. Terror management theory says that at such times, an authoritarian leader can be very appealing. The black and white, simplistic posture that such a leader represents can be reassuring to frightened people. The confusion, randomness of terror tactics can create a desire for order to return above all else. An authoritarian leader can seem very desirable in such a climate. “Tell me what to do, and promise that if I follow you, everything will be okay”. When the world is painted as black and white, good versus evil, things seem understandable again. As long as I am with the good guys, I’ll be okay, right? However, nothing in this complex world is simple, black or white or can be reduced to notions of absolute good and evil. Life can be random, unfair and maddeningly confusing, even during the best of times.

What does all this have to do with chronic illness, you may astutely ask? Well, having recently been diagnosed with a serious, chronic illness, I am no stranger to feelings of fear and terror. Will I survive? What does all this mean? Why me? How do I make sense of this? Which doctor or hospital can save me from this fate? All these questions and more are certainly part of my experience (and I imagine others in similar circumstance). Initially, survival is all one can think about. All of ones energy is mobilized in the direction of surviving. Sadness, grief, anger, fear are all part of the process. However, living “successfully” with a chronic illness requires the return of hope. Hope not only gets one out of bed in the morning (or off the couch) but begins to “broaden and build a thought action repertoire”. “How do I live now?” I’m still me, just rearranged in a new, unfamiliar fashion. What creative ways can I employ to live in harmony with this unwelcome reality? I need good doctors and good medical expertise but with an incurable, rare illness, there are no black and white simple answers. No doctor can keep me safe or predict the future for me. Statistics are nice but they never predict an individual journey through unknown territory. Hope and optimism broaden thinking, making creative solutions once again possible. When dealing with a chronic illness, “realistic optimism” is indispensable, in my opinion! Remaining optimistic, positive and hopeful gives you the fuel to creatively problem solve as you move through the many challenges that illness can present. I have relied heavily each and every day on the many cognitive techniques I learned though studying positive psychology principles.

This brings me back to what I originally began talking about and to what I’ve observed these last few days being played out on the larger world stage of politics. How does a country disheartened and traumatized (not unlike being diagnosed with an illness) find its center once again and move forward with a realistic sense of hope and optimism? Well, we can either stay stuck and overwhelmed in a state of fear or worse yet, apathy and cynicism….or we can focus on what is possible in this complex and ever changing world. Those leaders that know how to inspire hope, optimism, and bring about positive emotion have the best chance of helping our country thrive in our complex world. The inclusive, creative energy of a positive, hopeful leader can mobilize what is best in its citizenry. Positive emotion and energy in balance with realistic optimism will, in my opinion, be our best hope of thriving and healing. Not unlike those elements needed to thrive with a chronic illness.

Much wisdom can be gleaned from the field of Positive Psychology. It is not just a “feel good” exercise. The research and knowledge about powerful concepts such as gratitude, hope, optimism and positive emotion, just to name a few, have answers to many human dilemmas tricher poker en lignejeu de poker gratuitspoker online argentpoker multijoueur gratuitesregles tournoi pokerjeux poker tour en lignele pokersites de poker onlineregles poker 2play seven card stud onlinejeu de poker internetjouez pokerpoker games networld of series pokerstrategie poker onlinetelecharger partie pokerjouer poker omaha en lignejeu de carte poker gratuitesjouer poker mact?l?charger de poker onlineworld champion pokerjouez au poker en lignepoker gratuites hors ligneкомпютриjeu poker freewarelogiciel jeu pokerholdem poker onlinetilt pokertable de poker en lignepoker gratuites bruelregles de jeu poker,regles poker,regles poker hold hemjouer de pokersexy poker onlineprofessional poker tourregles poker holdemjouer poker en ligne gratuitestricher au poker en lignejouer o poker gratuitementpoker gratuites sur internetregles du jeu de pokerjeux poker a telechargerstud poker onlinebonus pokervideo poker a telechargerpoker gratuites cadeaujeu poker portables ,jeu de poker en ligne,jeu pokerwam poker comsalle poker onlineregles du poker texas holdemjeu poker a telechargerpoker en ligne paypal and I believe provide the best illumination when an individual or nation has temporarily lost its way!

People often feel determined to make a commitment to do something new and different and decide a resolution for the new year. My new year’s resolution is that I go either jogging or walking, depending on my physical condition and the weather, for 30 minutes in the early morning every day for at least 5 years. I have decided this because I signed an important business contract recently. No failure is allowed in this business contract. So I must sustain myself for 5 years and maintain good physical and mental health conditions. I think that regular jogging or walking is ideal for this purpose. Let’s take a look at some literature regarding this.

The benefits of regular physical activity as described by Mayo Clinic article (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2007) are that it improves mood, combats chronic diseases, helps one manage one’s weight, strengthens one’s heart and lungs, promotes better sleep, can put the spark back into one’s sex life, and can be – gasp – fun.

Japanese physicians (Arita, H., 2003; Hara, K., Sato-Suzuki, I., and Arita, H., 2006) describe the serotonergic system in the brainstem as being activated by various regular rhythmic physical activities, including jogging, walking, Hula, Zen, etc., and thus observed remarkable improvements in psychophysiological measurements after long continuation of these activities, especially after 100 days.

A current well established public health recommendation of 30 munites’ light to moderate activity on most days of the week (U.S. Surgeon General, 1996; Japanese Ministry of Labour and Welfare, 2006) is considered effective for achieving these benefits.

I myself value jogging and walking because they provide me with a sense of control and management in my work and life. They thus blow depressive feelings away and let me feel strong confidence in my future success.

Wouldn’t you like to join me in jogging or walking to help your physical and emotional health?

Hisao Kano

Gratitude
by Linda Lawless

Gratitude is more or less important to you depending on your value system. The emerging field of positive psychology has identified Gratitude as one of its core values that helps people live fulfilling lives. You can assess your core values and even take a Gratitude self-assessment for FREE (click here).

The bottom line is that we are in the season of gratitude with Thanksgiving and the Holidays upon us, and knowing how to appreciate yourself and others is a key issue for the season.

Here’s an important tip regarding the expression of gratitude. One of the exercises Marty Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness, has students do is to write a Gratitude Letter. This letter thanks someone in your past or present for something they gave you. What he found was that when students wrote their letters they felt good about themselves and the letters recipient. Where they got into trouble was when they delivered the letter. Sometimes the letter was accepted graciously, but sometimes the recipient was confused and in some cases belligerent about being thanked for something they were not even aware of, i.e., being thanked for teaching their child resilience through frequent verbal abuse. So, when you get in touch with what you are grateful about yourself, sit with it and take in what you can. When you want to express gratitude to others, pause and ask yourself if they are ready to hear it.

During this season I recommend exploring your own value of gratitude by visiting the website above, and more simply, telling people you run into during your life, when you honestly appreciate what they have, or are doing that you appreciate them. I told my personal trainer how much I appreciated his ability to work around my aging bodies weekly needs and stopped him dead in his tracks while he dealt with being told something good for a change. I told the lady at the checkout stand in the market that I appreciated her daily good cheer and brought a tear to her eye.

On a larger scale, the Greater Good Magazine out of UC Berkeley, whose mission is devoted to the scientific understanding of happy and compassionate individuals, strong social bonds, and altruistic behavior, dedicated an article in their Summer 2007 edition to Gratitude. You can find it here.