A Positive Mind: Your Passport to Longevity

Healthy Living
A Positive Mind: Your Passport to Longevity
Healthy Habits

Whether you call it self-hypnosis or self-induced brain washing, the fact remains that the power of mind over body can prove to be a great tool to ensure a sounder health for yourself. Your body will do wonders if you can simply make yourself believe that it is relentlessly busy in keeping the diseases away.

Am I OK?

This is one question you probably ask your doctor every time you visit him. If your doctor is a reasonably good man he takes one look at you and pleasantly says, ‘yes’. You instantaneously feel great about it.

Another time, another doctor. After a series of tests and examinations, you pose the same question, with a hint of a smile on your face. This doctor takes a pause, becomes a little contemplative and then says, ‘yes’. Your smile fades. Even though you do not feel terribly demoralised, the earlier happiness you felt last time was now missing!

It is apparent that your mind reacted differently to the two separate situations and regulated your mood accordingly. Whether you believe it or not, your toned-down mood may quite adversely affect your well being, irrespective of what the doctor’s reports said. What this really implies is that if you can fine-tune your own mind a little positively, you will be a lot more happier and healthier.

Mind Vs Body

The power of mind over body has incontrovertibly been recognized since the olden days. Lately being termed as ‘auto-suggestion’, it implies that positive or negative symptoms in the body are greatly influenced by the thoughts and beliefs of a person.

It is, therefore, obvious that manoeuvring your mind or will power in a positive manner can make you your own doctor. As a matter of fact, the old age ‘think healthy, be healthy’ can apply to you if you could power your mind adequately to ensure a sound physical and mental health for yourself.

The Mind-Powered People

While it is a well known fact that a balanced diet and habitual exercise are basic elements to keep one fit and healthy, personality traits also influence people’s physical health and their susceptibility to illness. The various mind-related factors that can effectively promote good health and general well being are:

• Positive Attitude to Life. A person who is mentally strong always tends to look at everything - including serious adversities – positively, at every stage of life. Such people love challenges and are totally committed to their profession, family and relationships.

• Selflessness. One’s selfless attitude of helping others brings such a degree of satisfaction that can actually be reflected in the positive transformation in the physical health of the person. This kind of altruism also helps in increasing the levels of one’s pain-killing endorphins that facilitates the sense of well being in the person.

• Self-Awareness. The inherent capabilities to understand our own body and feelings as well as our abilities to clearly spell out our needs can make us relatively healthier than others. Such self-awareness is believed to result in increased circulation of monocytes- disease-fighting white blood cells, which almost always aid in resisting infections.

• Assertiveness. A person can accomplish relatively much more in terms of good health and happiness by being more assertive on all matters rather than being a passive onlooker. Positive, but unpretentious assertiveness is known to have been extremely effective in protecting people against autoimmune conditions such as lupus and rheumatic arthritis.