This week I want to look at the mental aspect of wellness. We understand that there is a mind/body/spirit connection that produces our overall holistic wellness. There are specific mental qualities and functions that are very important to this flow. I want to focus on the power of our attitude in promoting self-healing.
We have all experienced a negative attitude, whether in our own self, or in others. Ponder this experience for a moment. We often associate negative attitude with negative mood. We call this grumpy, crabby, or various other terms. If you recall this experience clearly enough, you will see that there was also a physical or body aspect of this state. A toddler who needs a nap is the perfect example of this. Keep this image in mind as we go forward.
There are many ways to fall into a negative attitude. One of the contributing factors is too much stress. Remember that just enough stress is healthy and keeps us motivated to improve and grow. It is when the stress level goes over a certain point that we start to experience the harmful impacts. Think of the last time you were overstressed and remember what kind of attitude you had.
Too much stress and a negative attitude will produce an energy dynamic in our entire being that is not conducive to wellness. On the contrary, they will produce harmful impacts to neurochemical, endocrine, and immune system functions (see any research on psychoneuro-immunology for supporting evidence). It is not hard to see how a negative attitude can contribute to the generation of many of the chronic illnesses that we are faced with. Please remember, this is one factor that when added to others, like genetics, diet, exercise, and lifestyle, will combine to produce disease and illness.
If we can agree that negative attitude can be one powerful contributing factor to the development of chronic illness, let’s look at how a positive attitude can be a powerful contributing factor to the development of “chronic” wellness.
Just think, if we were able to maintain a positive attitude in all of our daily experience, we would be counteracting some of the more powerful disease and illness factors that are present in our environment. Of course, maintaining a positive attitude is not a simple task. We live in a world full of stressors, and it is easy to reach the level of too much stress without even realizing we are there. Sometimes we operate at this level for so long that it becomes our new “normal.” When this happens, we are really in trouble. Over the long term, having a stress level that is too high has been shown to wreak havoc on our entire system.
Now for the practical part: We have a large body of evidence that supports a wide range of stress management interventions. The field of biofeedback has been around since the middle of the 20th century and has clearly produced excellent results in stress reduction. Let’s not forget to mention the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn and mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). And if you want to include the wisdom traditions of centuries and millennia of healing practices across the globe, you will find that stress reduction has been at the core of almost all interventions that are designed to create wellness.
In order to support a positive attitude in daily living, it is helpful to maintain a consistent practice of stress reduction, in whatever form that takes. It is a very personal experience and there is no “one size fits all” approach, no matter what you hear. Each of us needs to find the practice that is most conducive to fit our personal needs. Whatever it turns out to be, it must be applied on a daily, moment by moment basis to counter the volume of stress that is present in the environment. For some this is a spiritual approach with daily prayer and meditation. For others this is a more physical approach with daily stretching and other exercise. And for others it is a practice of positive thought exercises that generate and promote a positive attitude. And for many it will be a combination of all these practice together that will be the wellness promotion strategy.
As you can see, I am equating a large part of wellness promotion with stress management. This is due to the large relationship between excess stress and chronic illness. I am also equating the ability to maintain a positive attitude in daily living with the ability to manage stress on a daily, moment by moment basis. It should be obvious that it is not really possible to reduce any aspect of being to a separate entity that is not completely interactive and interdependent on the other. Attitude, feeling, belief, immunity, mood, thought, digestion, hormonal balance, muscle tone and flexibility, the ability to recover from injury or disease, and the ability to prevent any disease, illness, or injury are all part of the same process. Wellness is the overarching concept that encapsulates the whole picture.
Positive attitude is just another way of describe a mental state of wellness. It is the result of personal practice and action. It is the natural result of how we treat ourselves in every moment of every day. It flows from the center of our being when we are balanced and at peace. Though we cannot control external events, we can always practice ways to respond to those events that will keep us balanced and well. Regardless of everything that is happening on the outside, we have the ability to produce a positive attitude and wellness by what we do on the inside. It really is up to each of us to choose and take whatever action is necessary.
Monad Source Wellness 