Keith J' Karren, PhD

1
The Gift of Positive Energy for Optimal Health

• Keith J. Karren, PhD
• Dept. of Health Science, BYU

2
POSITIVE ENERGY

• Does positive energy and positive psychology
  really impact our health? Is positiveness a gift
  that only some people are blessed with, or can it
  be developed? Current research gives us the
  answers to these questions!
• The impact of positive energy and positive
  psychology on our health. It is a gift for all.
  It is a gift given by a loving God to all his
  children who seek it.

3
POSITIVE ENERGY

• Examples
• Zeezrom burning fever (wickedness) Mind/Body
  Alma believe in Christ, Have mercy and heal
  him according to his faith. Zeezrom was healed
  immediately.
• Isrealites healed of serpent bites
• Alma 4640 Nephites dying of fevers but health
  because of the excellent qualities of the many
  plants and roots which God had prepared to remove
  the cause of diseases.

4
POSITIVE ENERGY

• Positive Psychology and Authentic Happiness
  Martin Seligman
• Dr. Seligman the new psychology
• The things in life that make it worthwhile!
• Martin Seligman ...there is a set of human
  strengths that are the most likely buffers
  against mental illness courage, optimism,
  interpersonal skill, work ethic, hope, honesty
  and perseverance.
• A new science of strength and resilience
• Move from helpless and hopeless to helpful and
  hopeful
• PP Making normal people stronger and more
  productive as well as making high human potential
  actual

5
POSITIVE ENERGY

• As I listened to his presentations, this champion
  of learned optimism and the new psychology gave
  me a new vision of a very rich and fulfilling
  second half of life through high self-efficacy,
  learned optimism and hope, the development of
  wisdom and courage, and a vision of optimal human
  functioning through the impact of mindfulness
  living, flow and spirituality, attachment and
  connectedness, love and flourishing
  relationships. Dr. Seligman was giving us the
  concept of living well at every stage of life,
  and I was fascinated by this new, positive
  psychology.

6
POSITIVE ENERGY

• High-energy positive emotions like joy make
  people playful, and play is deeply implicated in
  the building of physical resources. There is
  direct evidence that positive emotion predicts
  health and longevity.
• Positive emotion also protects people against the
  ravages of aging. You will recall that beginning
  nuns who wrote happy autobiographies when in
  their twenties lived longer and healthier lives
  than novices whose autobiographies were devoid of
  positive emotion, and also that optimists in the
  Mayo Clinic study lived significantly longer than
  pessimists. Happy people, furthermore, have
  better health habits, lower blood pressure, and
  feistier immune systems than less happy people.

7
POSITIVE ENERGY

• Not only do happy people endure pain better and
  take more health and safety precautions when
  threatened, but positive emotions undo negative
  emotions.
• Happy people were more likely to demonstrate that
  trait. They display more empathy and are willing
  to donate more money to others in need. When we
  are happy, we are less self-focused, we like
  others more, and we want to share our good
  fortune even with strangers. When we are down,
  though, we become distrustful, turn inward, and
  focus defensively on our own needs. Looking our
  for number one is more characteristic of sadness
  than of well-being.

8
POSITIVE ENERGY

• A meaningful life is one that joins with
  something larger than we are and the larger
  that something is, the more meaning our lives
  have. Partaking in a process that has the
  bringing of a God who is endowed with
  omniscience, omnipotence, and goodness as its
  ultimate end joins our lives to an enormously
  large something.
• You are vouchsafed the choice of what course to
  take in life. You can choose a life that forwards
  these aims to a greater or lesser degree. Or you
  can, quite easily, choose a life that has nothing
  to do with these aims. You can even choose a life
  that actively impedes them. You can choose a
  life built around increasing knowledge learning,
  teaching, educating your children, science,
  literature, journalism, and so many more
  opportunities.

9
POSITIVE ENERGY

• You can choose a life built around increasing
  power through technology, engineering,
  construction, health services, or manufacturing.
  Or you can choose a life built around increasing
  goodness through the law, policing, firefighting,
  religion, ethics, politics, national service, or
  charity.
• The good life consists in deriving happiness by
  using your signature strengths every day in the
  main realms of living. Using these same
  strengths to forward knowledge, power, or
  goodness. A life that does this is pregnant with
  meaning, and if God comes at the end, such a life
  is sacred.

10
POSITIVE ENERGY

• There are many studies that correlate positivity
  with later health, longevity, sociability, and
  success, the balance of the evidence suggests
  that in some situations negative thinking leads
  to more accuracy. Where accuracy is tied to
  potentially catastrophic outcomes (for example,
  when an airplane pilot is deciding whether to
  de-ice the wings of her airplane), we should all
  be pessimists.

11
POSITIVE ENERGY

• Health is an attitude or orientation comprising
  our basic values and beliefs about ourselves and
  the world around us. It is an inner quality that
  gives rise to particular health practices but
  cannot in itself be reduced to those practices.

12
POSITIVE ENERGY

• As cardiologist, Dr. Paul Dudley
  White explained, Body,
  mind, and
  soul are inextricably woven together,
  
  and whatever helps or hurts any
  one
  of these three sides of the whole
  man
  helps or hurts the other two.

13
SEVEN STEPS TO WELLNESS
Rediscovering love
Reaching forgiveness
Building self-esteem
De-addiction
Meditation
Enjoyable exercise
Einstein energy diet
14
Supportive of Health and Well-Being
Non-Supportive of Health and Well-Being
15
POSITIVE ENERGY

• Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors influence a
  virtual orchestra of biological responses that
  can promote health and prevent disease. This is
  a symphony played by mind, emotion, brain,
  behavior, and body. (ME-B3)

Mind
Brain/Body/Health
Emotion
Behavior
16
QUIZ DO YOU HAVE POSITIVE ENERGY?

• Do you exude a sense of support and compassion
  with others?
• Yes No
• Do you think others feel safe and relaxed with
  you?
• Yes No
• Are you a generally positive person?
• Yes No
• Are you non-judgmental with yourself and others?
• Yes No
• Are you compassionate with your own shortcomings
  and try to heal them?
• Yes No
• Do you feel peaceful much of the time?
• Yes No
• Are you able to let resentments go rather than
  harbor them?
• Yes No
• Do you laugh frequently?
• Yes No
• Are you kind to family, friends and people you
  dont know well?
• Yes No

17
BENEFITS BE AN OPTIMIST

• Healthy, optimistic thinking can help you
• Improve your mood, self-esteem, and overall
  happiness
• Decrease depression, anxiety and hostility
• Lessen pain and other bodily symptoms
• Speed recovery from surgery
• Enhance your immune function
• Possibly extend your life

18
CHECK YOURSELF ARE YOU AN OPTIMIST?

• Do you agree or disagree with the following
  statements? Dont respond with what you think
  you should say, but how you typically view your
  life.
• In uncertain times, I expect the best
• Im optimistic about my future
• Every cloud has a silver lining
• If something can go wrong, it will
• Things never work out the way I want them to
• I rarely count on good things happening to me
• If you agree with the first three statements and
  disagree with the last three, you are an
  optimist.
• If you disagree with the first three statement
  and agree with the lass three, you are more
  pessimistic.

19
A NEW SCIENCEPOSITIVE HEALTH

• Principle investigator Dr. Martin Seligman, U.
  of Pennsylvania
• Positive health predicts increased longevity,
  decreased health costs, better mental health in
  aging, and better prognosis when illness strikes.

20

• A focus on health rather than illness will be
  cost saving and life saving.
• Bringing about well-beingpositive emotion,
  engagement, purpose, positive relationships,
  positive accomplishmentmay be one of our best
  weapons against mental disorder.

21
RESEARCH FINDINGS

• Women who flashed Duchenne (genuine) smile in
  their yearbook positive photos as freshman have
  more marital satisfaction twenty-five years later
  (Harker Keltner, 2001)
• Brief raising of positive mood enhances creative
  thinking and makes positive physicians more
  accurate and faster to come up with the proper
  liver diagnosis (Fredrickson, 2001 Isen, 2005)
• The relation of national wealth to life
  satisfaction is dramatically curvilinear after
  the safety net is met, increases in wealth
  produce less and less life satisfaction (Diener,
  Sandvik, Seidlitz, Diener, 1993).
• In business meetings a ratio of greater than
  2.91 for positive and negative statements
  predicts economic flourishing (Fredrickson
  Losada, 2005).
• Peripheral attention is superior under positive
  emotion (Fredrickson Branigan, 2005).

22
OTHER RESEARCH FINDINGS

• A state of positive health will increase
  longevity and improve prognosis.
• High optimism produced a remarkably low hazard
  ratio of 0.23 for CVD death.
• A high correlation was found between high levels
  of optimism and increased protection against
  cardiovascular events.

23
OPTIMISM

• Depression significantly increases the risk for
  cardiac events.
• Optimism and positive emotions are linked to
  recovery after a major cardiac event.
• Optimism and positive affect may be protective
  against other physical deterioration.
• Positive emotional style may also act as
  preventive against the onset of the common cold.
• There seems to be a strong link between positive
  psychology and positive health
• So, you can learn to take control of your health
  just by changing the way you feel about yourself
  and the way you look at certain situations.

24
CHANGE

• All of us can benefit from applying a little
  common sense to our everyday life, reaping the
  rewards in better relationships, healthier bodies
  and active minds.
• Your future should be better than your past
  because you can shape your future but the past is
  gone.
• To make changes to your life you first need to
  recognize that changes have to be made. It may be
  that your doctor has told you your cholesterol is
  too high or you have bad blood pressure.
• One of the greatest tools that you can use to
  make changes in your life is a diary, where you
  write down your goals, thoughts and feelings then
  record what positive steps you undertake each day
  to meet your goals.

25
REDUCE STRESS

• Reduce stress by surrounding yourself with
  Positive Energy.
• Negative self-talk and negative energy can create
  many health problems.
• Developing positive self-talk reduces stress and
  increases health.
• Maintain a positive frame of mind (which will
  help with positive self-talk), by surrounding
  yourself with positive energy in your life.

26
POSITIVE ENERGY

• You can get that by adding the following elements
  to your life
• 1. Uplifting music soothing, melodious and
  uplifting messages (e.g. Wilson Phillips Hold
  On).
• 2. Inspirational Books Books on strength,
  personal power, enlightenment, or self help can
  be good resources to help you change your outlook
  and the things you say to yourself. Rather than
  triggering habitual self-defeating thoughts, you
  can find yourself thinking of new can-do concepts
  when times get tough. (For shifting your
  paradigm, I love Gary Zukavs The Heart of the
  Soul, or Sarah Ban Breathnachs classic Simple
  Abundance.)

27
POSITIVE ENERGY

• 3. Positive People One of the most important
  ways you can get (and keep) positive energy in
  your life is with the company you keep. Do your
  friends uplift you, or bring you down? Are they
  critical, or complementary? Ideal friendships
  provide support when youre down, fun when youre
  up, wisdom when youre lost, and positive regard.
  Good friends can inspire you to reach greater
  heights, and see your strengths even when you
  dont always. Pay attention to how your friends
  make you feel, and if theyre less than
  supportive, start putting your energy and time
  toward people who are better suited to be your
  friend.
• 4. Practice Affirmations Positive affirmations
  can subtly but pervasively change your self talk
  from negative to positive. See this article for
  some creative ways to begin working positive
  affirmations into your life.

28
GENERATE POSITIVE ENERGY!

• Positive people shine with energy, goodwill and
  vivacity. They have an aura of confidence and
  success they smile and appear confident they
  enjoy life.
• Each time you think negatively, a neurological
  pathway in your brain fires and that negative
  thought, plus the mood associated with it, is
  activated. The more negatives you think, the
  more frequently negative pathways are activated
  and the worse you feel about yourself.
• Thought Stopping is a technique for replacing
  negative thoughts with positive ones. Habitual
  thoughts have well-established neurological
  pathways and, just like using a pathway in a
  forest, the more traffic the pathway gets, the
  bigger it becomes. Establishing a new pathway
  takes work. If every time you trigger a negative,
  you use this to consciously replace it with a
  positive and make that positive more powerful,
  you can create new neurological pathways that
  change your thinking habits.

29
THE THOUGHT STOPPING TECHNIQUE

• Every time a negative thought strikes, you
  replace it with a reasonable, alternative,
  positive thought. You repeat this positive
  thought aloud, and if possible, write it down.
  Saying positive thoughts employs multiple brain
  processes the frontal lobes for decision-making
  language centers for expressing and comprehending
  speech auditory centers for hearing lower brain
  centers for breathing and coordination motor
  strip for muscle movement temporal lobes,
  hypothalamus and limbic system for mood and
  memory. When we write, we activate visual
  processing, eye-hand coordination, spatial skills
  and the kinesthetic feel of reading and writing.
• Next time any nasty, negative thoughts strike
  you create realistic alternatives. "I'm ugly,"
  can change to "I look okay," or "I have a nice
  smile."
• After two or three weeks of practice it becomes
  second nature to self-correct. If you have
  thoughts like No-one likes me I'm never good
  enough I'm stupid I'm a rotten person who'd
  want to be my friend, try these kinds of
  substitutes I have friends I am likeable
  It's normal to make mistakes I'm not stupid.
  I'm not perfect I have good qualities.
• Make creating positives your new feel-good habit!
  Positive self-talk nourishes not only your
  emotional and psychological health but also your
  physical health and well-being via the body-mind
  connection.

30
POSITIVE ENERGY Dr. Judith Orlaf

• Energy Psychiatry the subtle energetic
  components of health and behavior
• It blends the practice of mainstream medicine
  with subtle energies our life force (Qi or Chi
  or Prana)
• Dr. Orlof has formulated ten essential
  prescriptions for boosting energy, improving
  relationships, and combating energy vampires.

31
POSITIVE ENERGY Dr. Judith Orlaf

• Awaken your intuition and rejuvenate yourself
  and learn the cure for techno despair and
  overload from emails, computers, and phones.
• Find a nurturing spiritual path that fits your
  own beliefs and inner stirrings.
• Design an energy-aware approach to diet,
  exercise, and health and learn how to avoid the
  energetic overeating that sabotages attempts to
  lose weight.
• Generate positive emotional energy to counter
  negativity.
• Develop a heart-centered sexuality.
• Open yourself to the flow of creativity and
  inspiration to achieve greater job.
• Celebrate the sacredness of laughter, pampering,
  and the replenishment of retreat its not
  selfish to take care of yourself.
• Discover how to attract positive people and
  situations.
• Protect your energy vampires with specific
  shielding techniques.
• Create abundance and a continuing flow of energy.

32
POSITIVE ENERGY

• The signs of positive energy in people
• They exude an inviting sense of heart,
  compassion, and support.
• You intuitively feel safe, relaxed, wanting to
  get closer to them.
• They emanate a peaceful glow.
• You feel better around them.
• Your energy and optimism increases.

33
CHALLENGE YOUR WOULDA, SHOULDA, COULDAS!

• Rehearse success
• When you arent happy with the way you handled a
  particular situation, try this exercise
• Write down three ways that it could have gone
  better
• Write down three ways it could have gone worse
• If you cant think of alternatives to the way you
  handled it, imagine what someone whom you greatly
  respect would have done
• Or think what advice you would give to someone
  else facing a similar situation
• Remember that mistakes arent failures. Theyre
  good to learn. Mistakes give you the chance to
  rehearse other ways of handling things. This is
  great practice for future crises.

34
FOCUS ON WHAT YOUVE GOT

• Use your thoughts to increase your happiness.
  Make it a goal to think about positive events and
  experiences in your daily life as much as
  possible. Focus on what you have, not what you
  lack. Rather than mulling over your shortcomings
  or difficulties, think about the good things in
  your life. It might be your family, your friends,
  your work, or something you are looking forward
  to. Every one of us can find something to be
  grateful for.

35
AN IMPROVED SELF-IMAGE

• By taking positive steps to improve your health
  and looks, you gain a feeling of control over
  your life and body.
• That sense of accomplishment and confidence will
  carry over to other areas of your life, raising
  your overall self-esteem.

36
FOLLOW YOUR BLISS

• Passions lead to good health
• A positive attitude to life contributes to joy
  and health
• For positive psychological health
• Be authentic with your feelings
• Let go of blame, guilt, and fault
• Keep your attention on what feels good
• Happiness the life force and energy that keeps
  us vital and healthy

37
(No Transcript)
38
(No Transcript)
39
REMEMBER

• Remember, spend time with your loved ones,
  because they are not going to be around forever.
  Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up
  to you in awe, because that little person soon
  will grow up and leave your side.
• Remember to give a warm hug to the one next to
  you, because that is the only treasure you can
  give with your heart and it doesnt cost a cent.
• Remember to say, I love you to your partner and
  your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss
  and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from
  deep inside of you.
• Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for
  someday that person will not be there again.
  Give time to love, give time to speak, and give
  time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

40
28 SECRETS TO HAPPINESS

• Live beneath your means and within your seams.
• Return everything you borrow.
• Donate blood.
• Stop blaming other people.
• Admit it when you make a mistake.
• Give all the clothes you havent worn in the last
  three years to charity.
• Every day do something nice and try not to get
  caught.
• Listen more talk less.
• Every day take a 30-minute walk in your
  neighborhood.
• Skip two meals a week and five the money to the
  homeless.
• Strive for excellence, not perfection.
• Be on time.
• Dont make excuses.

• Dont argue.
• Get organized.
• Be kind to kind people.
• Be even kinder to unkind people.
• Let someone cut ahead of you in line.
• Take time to be alone.
• Reread a favorite book.
• Cultivate good manners.
• Be humble.
• Understand and accept that life isnt always
  fair.
• Know when to say something.
• Know when to keep your mouth shut.
• Dont criticize anyone for 24 hours.
• Learn from the past, plan for the future, and
  live in the present.
• Dont sweat the small stuff.

41
ATTITUDE

• The longer I live, the more I realize the impact
  of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more
  important than facts. It is more important than
  the past, than education, than money, than
  circumstances, than failures, than successes,
  than what other people think or say or do. It is
  more important than appearance, giftedness, or
  skill. It will make or break a company...a
  church...a home. The remarkable thing is we have
  a choice every day regarding the attitude we will
  embrace for that day. We cannot change our
  past...we cannot change the fact that people will
  act in a certain way. We cannot change the
  inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on
  the one string we have, and that is our
  attitude...I am convinced that life is 10 what
  happens to me and 90 how I react to it. And so
  it is with you...
• we are in charge of our attitudes.

42
IN MEMORY OF DONALD BOGGS

• What Cancer Cant Do there is a natural body,
  and there is a spiritual body. One of the most
  dreaded sentences a patient might hear is, You
  have cancer. these words bring a chill to the
  heart. Although great progress has been made in
  treating cancer, recovery can be long and
  painful, and some people do not survive. An
  enthusiastic believer in Christ, Don Boggs, lost
  his battle with cancer. But his life demonstrated
  that even though the physical body may be
  destroyed by disease, the spirit can remain
  triumphant. This poem was distributed at his
  memorial service
• Cancer is so limited...It cannot cripple
  love,It cannot shatter hope,It cannot corrode
  faith,It cannot eat away peace,It cannot
  destroy confidence,It cannot kill a
  friendship,It cannot shut out memories,It
  cannot silence courage,It cannot invade the
  soul,It cannot reduce eternal life,It cannot
  quench the Spirit,It cannot lessen the power of
  the resurrection.

43
Mother Theresa

• People are often unreasonable, illogical, and
  self-centered Forgive them anyway.
• If you are kind, people may accuse you of
  selfish, ulterior motives Be kind anyway.
• If you are successful you will win some false
  friends and true enemies Succeed anyway.
• If you are honest and frank, people may cheat
  you Be honest and frank anyway.
• What you spend years building, someone could
  destroy overnight Build anyway.

• If you find serenity and happiness, they may be
  jealous Be happy anyway.
• The good you do today, people will often forget
  tomorrow Do good anyway.
• Give the world the best you have, and it may
  never be enough Give the world the best you've
  got anyway
• You see, in the final analysis, it is between you
  and God It was never between you and them
  anyway.

44
Nelson Mandelas Inaugural Speech (1994)

• Our deepest fear is not that we are
  inadequate.Our deepest fear is that we are
  powerful beyond measure.It is our light, not our
  darkness that most frightens us.We ask
  ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,gorgeous,
  talented, fabulous?Actually, who are you not to
  be?You are a child of God.Your playing small
  does not serve the world.There is nothing
  enlightened about shrinkingso that other people
  won't feel insecure around you.We are all meant
  to shine, as children do.We were born to make
  manifest the glory of God that is within us.It
  is not just in some of us it is in everyone.And
  as we let our own light shine, we
  unconsciouslygive other people permission to do
  the same.As we are liberated from our own
  fear,our presence automatically liberates others.

45
AGING WELL (Harvard Study) Dr. George Vaillant

• Iris Joy, the healthiest ager
• She chose loving parents.
• Did not smoke or abuse alcohol.
• Knew how to savor joy.
• Knew how to turn lemons into lemonade.
• Learned from her children, but Biology flows
  downhill.
• Remembered that all life is a journey.
• Knew the seeds of love must be eternally resown.
• Knew how to give, to serve.

46
(No Transcript)
47

• ALWAYS REMEMBER
• Life is not measured by the number of breaths we
  take but the number of moments that take our
  breath away.

48
The Wind, One Brilliant Day

• The wind, one brilliant day, called to my soul
  with an odor of jasmine."In return for the odor
  of my jasmine, I'd like all the odor of your
  roses.""I have no roses all the flowers in my
  garden are dead." "Well then, I'll take the
  withered petals and the yellow leaves and the
  waters of the fountain."The wind left. And I
  wept. And I said to myself,"What have you done
  with the garden that was entrusted to you
  ?"Antonio Machado