New Year's Resolutions, Summer Life, and Health Living

        For so many people, New Year's seems like the ideal time to begin living a healthier life. New Year's Resolutions are made and abandoned a few weeks later. I believe that is because we start at the wrong time of year. It's cold and snowy (at least here in NY it is!) We have much less daylight. Fresh fruits and vegetables are at their highest prices and honestly, their worst flavors! So what is a person to do?

        I propose we start again tomorrow on June 1st. We are entering the weeks that have the most daylight. It is certainly easier to get up a bit earlier or move into the evening, when the weather cooperates. Fresh food is tastier and cheaper or you can grow it yourself!

        Daydream for a minute. You come home from work with several hours of daylight left. How would you like to spend your time outside? Walking? A bike ride? Play hoops? Play catch? The CDC is pushing in their diabetes prevention programs to avoid using the word exercise. Instead they want to encourage people to do "meaningful movement" for 30 minutes a day. Certainly with all that beautiful weather outside your door, you can find something meaningful to make you move. And if it's raining? How about putting on your favorite tunes and dancing!

         Food is so much better in the summer too. Grilling is a healthy way to cook! Try grilling fish, corn on the cob, pineapple, or zucchini. Check out local farmer's markets for the freshest fruits and vegetables. Don't recognize something they carry? Ask the farmer what it is and how to cook it. Wander the produce section of your grocery store looking for the weirdest fruits and vegetables. The biggest stores often have recipe cards right near the produce. And don't forget all the fresh herbs. Those are plants that can sneak some extra vitamins and micro-nutrients into your body besides adding flavor to your foods.

        Are you one who really doesn't like to try new foods? How about trying a new variety of your favorite. Tomatoes come large and small, They have orange, yellow, green and purple tomatoes, not just red. Try apples in different flavors. Grapes come in green, red, and purple. Buy a few of each and taste test them. I love mini-peppers and baby cucumbers. Cauliflower is traditionally white, but also comes in yellow and purple. Why should you try your favorite food in a different color? Because the colors are created by different micro-nutrients. By simply eating an unusual colored grape or tomato, you are expanding the kinds of vitamins you are putting in your body.

         So, let's start new tomorrow. Move more. Eat differently. Smile more. Let's make the last seven months of 2019 our healthiest time ever. Actually, start today! When I finish publishing this, I think I will go out and do some yard work. A little meaningful movement that will cause me to smile when I am done and for the next few weeks.

Living Health with an Injury

      I have been anxiously awaiting the opening of a new gym in my area. They opened last week but my crazy schedule didn't allow me to go until yesterday. But over the weekend my left foot started to hurt and by yesterday, the pain was immense. I skipped the gym time and took it easy instead. Ibuprofen and rest seemed like the best course of action. Last night, as I was grading 3rd grade state exams, the pain made it hard to concentrate on the students's answers. I decided that if I was still in pain this morning, it was time to visit my favorite orthopedic office's urgent care center.

      Since the title of this is Living Healthy with an Injury, I can assume, you know I went to the ortho doc this morning. At age 54, there was definitely arthritis floating around my foot, but also a slight stress fracture. No gym for me for a while! So what does one do to stay healthy when one is injured?

      For me, it started with the doctor. A surgical boot for my foot and prescription rub-on pain relief will help with daily activities that I have to do. The extra support the boot provided was amazing! Once my foot got over being poked, prodded and x-rayed, the pain was less in the boot. My foot was stabilized. The rub-on pain meds helped even more. But I still can't hit the treadmill or do squats while my foot is healing. So?

     Next I dealt with my diet. I eat pretty well, but the extra night work of grading papers has made eating fast food too easy. In order for my body to heal properly, I need to make every bite truly count. So I spent time today cooking several kinds of healthy foods that I can grab and go easily. Lots of protein, dairy, and veggies were involved since my bones need to heal. My son helped me with things that seemed hard to do while my foot was achy.

      Exercise still needs to be some part of my routine, so I grabbed some hand weights and moved them by my chair. It may not be wise to stand and use them, but I can modify some movements to a seated position. I have also checked out chair exercises to do for a few weeks. I may need to be seated more, but I don't have to be still!

      Evaluating my schedule came next. I cannot simply go and do all that I might normally do. Resting the injury isn't just a suggestion, it is necessary for quicker healing. Tonight I will take my daughter to the grocery store as I do weekly. But I will sit in the car while she shops for both of us. I don't need to go in and walk on my foot. I might even bring a book in the car and read! Finding time to read is always tough on my schedule.

     Finally, I will work to maintain a positive attitude. When we are genuinely happy our brain releases dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine is also the chemical used in your body to reduce pain. So when you doing things that make you happy, you are also lessening the pain your body feels. When your body feels pain, it doesn't heal itself as well. So being happy (genuinely at peace and content) brings an increase in healing.

      It is possible to live healthy even with an injury or a chronic illness. You focus on what you can do and find peace and joy in those things. Eat well. Drink lots of water! Don't allow an injury to cripple your healthy living. Use it to improve your overall health instead.

Suicide Prevention through Scoring, Games, and Kindness

Suicides Prevention: Our teens

       Suicide is a complicated issue with no simple answers.  It is an area where mental and social health intersect.  Whether a suicide is the result of poor mental health (untreated depression, etc.) or poor social health (being bullied for example), we need to be able to help our young people learn better coping skills. We need to teach resiliency and inner strength, as well as how to be honest when things are not going well.

        The television shows and movies  the 20-year-olds watched as kids (Spy Kids, Rugrats, Dragon Tails) often showed them to rely first and foremost on themselves, as there were frequently no parents around to help them. It was a direct reflection of the 60’s attitude of you cannot trust anyone over 30. As a result, they don’t talk over the daily stresses of life with parents, teachers, or counselors who can help them to see new solutions or into the future when their problems won’t even bother them.

         Finding ways to teach our kids good social skills is necessary for their good mental health, as well. Some key things we can teach kids, and work on ourselves, are learning to apologize, practicing random acts of kindness, reaching out to our friends and learning not to fear asking for that hug or shoulder to cry on that they sometimes want and need.

So often our kids see failure or loss as a permanent thing. That this one moment of incompetency would define them for the rest of their life. Breaking up with this guy (or girl) will guarantee they never date again.

While there are many reasons for this, one of the contributing factors is this new idea that we don't keep score when playing sports. The theory is that not keeping score helps children to have better self-esteem. But the reality is that this behavior fails to teach kids so much. When we don't keep score, we fail to teach kids that losing is okay. We fail to teach kids that hard work and practice can make us better. That just because we lost last week, doesn't mean we will lose this week. We build resiliency. optimism, and the ethic of hard work into our students when we keep score. 

One of the ways  we can help kids learn this lesson now is to go back to playing board games.  When you lose in a video game, your character often dies. That feeds the concept that failure is permanent. But board games let you lose and then play again. And there are so many fun ones.  Have you seen all the new ones like Babble On or Speakout that require no skills or special knowledge?

Not a game player? Then work on improving social skills. Friends help you see the world in a positive manner. They can be your biggest cheerleaders. Make new friends by smiling and say something nice to three people a day. Write a note to a neighbor, family member, or shut-in that expresses something positive about them.

Use social media to  connect to others. Use a silly Facebook picture or LinkedIn’s pre-written “Congrats on your new job,” to start out. But make it a goal to write something from your own heart about each person.

Imagine a world where people are friendly that on a regular basis—social unrest, suicides, and homicides rates would come down as we learned to love and accept each other.

Bullying- A Public Health Concern

Bullying is so often thought of as a youth problem. Nearly every school in the country has a written anti-bullying policy and there are literally thousands of school based anti-bullying programs. Kids as young as 10 are committing suicide from bullying and estimates are as high as 60 percent of middle school kids report being bullied. It is estimated that schools that put in anti-bullying programs have a 50% decrease in bullying, but that is still a lot of kids bullying, being bullied and witnessing bullying.

It doesn't really get any better when the child reaches college age. There are still bullies out there tormenting students as they try to learn. Some reports say that as many as 23% of students are bullied by peers and 18% report being bullied by a professor. Bullying can be physical, verbal, social (exclusion, etc), or sexual.  Cyber-bullying (those behaviors done online) and Hazing (bullying with the "consent" of the victim in order for the victim to gain admission into a group) also need to be mentioned.  Bullying is often done to someone perceived to be different from the bully- racially, socially, in dress, in economic status, differently abled, clothing style, and intellectually. Since no two people are alike, bullying can happen to anyone.

I would love to report that bullying stops when students finally graduate and enter the career field. But that is not true. Last July, Forbes magazine mentioned that nearly 75% of workers had been impacted by workplace bullies. Impacted does not mean actually bullied, they may have been the victim or may have witnessed the behavior. Women in the workplace are more likely to bully other women and in general carry an unconscious bias against women. Additionally, bosses, like professors, can often be the bully.

And in our recent political times, bullying happens right on the streets between total strangers. People are getting attacked for their head gear, their religious clothing, their perceived genetic history. Even our news organizations are beginning to look like bullies instead of simply reporting the facts of what happened. We need more of those trained by Walter Cronkite and his "That's is the way it is" wrap of of the news. Clearly all the anti-bullying classes are not helping a whole lot.

So there must be hope when one retires right? Move into one of those wonderful senior communities and live in peace with everyone else? Nope! Not at all. I have been teaching health literacy classes for seven years. One community asked me to create a class for senior on senior bullying, not elder abuse, not caregivers harassing their clients, but one senior picking on another! After creating it, it became my best selling class. Every senior community has scheduled it. I have had communities that never pay for programming for their residents pay to bring this class in. While only 10-20 percent of seniors report being bullied, that number is likely to be inaccurate due to health concerns and fears of reporting.

We must find ways to really get a handle on bullying. The power struggle and self-esteem the bully is aiming for when he attacks must be replaced by concern for each other and a attitude of win-win.  Why? Because it impacts health... the health of the bully, the health of the victim, and the health of the witnesses.

Bullies tend to have low self-esteem. They struggle with depression and anxiety. Bullies are 5 times more likely to become a criminal and 6 times more likely to end up in jail. Bullying is estimated to be a factor in 2/3's of school shootings.

Victims may not have started out with low self esteem, but being bullied can get them there quickly. Then they will struggled with depression, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. Two out of every three victims becomes a bully to someone else. When as a society, we don't make an effort to protect the victims, they begin to adopt an understanding that this behavior is ok. Learned helplessness or aggressive, violent behavior can happen to victims. They begin to struggle with relationships. Especially if their friends witnessed the bullying and did not intervene to protect them. Drugs and alcohol may become their friends.

While we don't have a lot of research on the effects of witnessing bullying, we can look at the new studies on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) and Trauma for an idea of what happens when children witness violence. The Centers for Disease Control reports people exposed to "violence in childhood increases the risks of injury, future violence victimization and perpetration, substance abuse, sexually transmitted infections, delayed brain development, reproductive health problems, involvement in sex trafficking, non-communicable diseases, lower educational attainment, and limited employment opportunities.Chronic abuse may result in toxic stress and make victims more vulnerable to problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, conduct disorder, and learning, attention, and memory difficulties." 

We must start to solve the problem of bullying. Teachers and staff cannot continue to suggest ignoring the bully. We must move to make the victim feel safe. We must put into place 0 tolerance policies that don't require the teacher to see the bully act. But we must also help the victims become bully-proof. And we need to empower witnesses to help.

Nick Vujicic, in his book Stand Strong, had six suggestions to make yourself bully-proof or at least bully-resistant.
1. Choose Your Path- know your personal spiritual values and stay true to them
2. Create Your Safety Zone- inner security and strength can help make you bully proof
             It’s a safe space in your head where you can go to get refreshment and ignore the bully
3. Build Your Backup- strong and supportive relationships
             Based on mutual respect, trust and encouragement
             Best way to have good friends is to be one
4. Defeat the Bully Inside You- don’t allow yourself to beat yourself up.
5. Rise Above- you can call the bully on their bad behavior. If they apologize, offer forgiveness
6. What if you could find ways to learn and grow from being bullied?

Have you been bullied? How did it impact you? Have you seen yourself becoming a bully yourself? Do you have a good idea on how to improve this situation?

References
https://www.trade-schools.net/articles/bullying-in-college.asp
http://stopbullyingnowfoundation.org/main/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/pragyaagarwaleurope/2018/07/29/workplace-bullying-here-is-why-we-need-to-talk-about-bullying-in-the-work-place/#40fb5c4c3259
https://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/exc_051513.shtml
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/fastfact.html
Nick Vujicic Stand Strong;You Can Overcome Bullying (and Other Stuff That Keeps You Down) Waterbrook Publishing 2014

OPWDD Disability ID Card. It Seems OK, BUT!

         In New York State "A new state law now makes identification cards available to people who have a medically diagnosed developmental disability. These new I/DD ID cards are meant to be presented to law enforcement, firefighters and emergency medical services personnel to aid in the communication process." This law was spearheaded by my assemblyman Angelo SantaBarbara, a man I have much respect for and the father of a child who qualifies for this card.

         The moment the card was available, online support groups for families with kids with developmental disabilities began sharing that the cards were available and many families ordered them for their loved ones. But I see potential issues with this and I want to ensure that no one is injured in the use of this card.

         The front of the card looks like this

         The back looks like this

           While in theory, this seems like a great idea, the first thing this little card reminds me of is the cards that were carried in the 70's and 80's by the deaf. Initially created to help the deaf community have an easier way to communicate with stores, modifications quickly were used for begging. And not long after that, people who weren't deaf also carried the cards and used them to ask for money. While I doubt the formal state cards would be used this way, forgers create fake money and it won't take long for them to create fake state ID cards if they can figure out a way to scam money from it.

          Next, I am concerned about how we teach our kids how to use these. In order to be disabled enough to need the card, would the child be able to learn how to use it appropriately? It seems to me that the vast majority of those with developmental disabilities who need the card would not understand it's use. A person who is non-verbal and agitated if touched may simply not be able to pull the card out and show it to someone.

          I am also concerned about all those people who have communication problems, are non-verbal or easily agitated and do not have a developmental disability. For instances, those with hearing loss, traumatic brain injuries or other health problems that are not a developmental disability. If our first responders are used to being offered the card, someone with similar behaviors may be treated poorly because they don't have the card.

          And what if they travel? If the person travels to another state and who is not in somewhat familiar surroundings be able to remember to use the card if they get separated from their loved ones while on vacation. I keep picturing the person separated from his family in Texas. Stores and buildings that aren't familiar. People who talk with an accent. Would the sensory overload make it too hard for them to remember to pull out the card?  And if they try to show the card will that state have first responders trained to accept the card and adjust their behavior appropriately?

         Finally, I am concerned about the first responders in New York who may not be trained to use the card. Our police are taught to tell people to put their hands up. If people reach for their pockets, they are assumed by the police to be carrying a weapon. How do we now retrain the police to assume a non-complaint, agitated person who is reaching for something in their pocket is reaching for this card and not a weapon? Honestly, I don't think we can. I believe that either a person with a dd will be killed reaching for the card, or a police officer will be killed assuming that they agitated person is reaching for a card and not a weapon.

         We have medic alert bracelets and necklaces that can be used to alert first responders to medical concerns of a person. We should be looking at using this proven method to alert for a developmental disability. The police already scan for them and it can be reinforced to do so more. They can be used for anyone who has a condition that would make their communication difficult. The deaf. Those with traumatic brain injuries. Mental illness. Diabetes. We could even create them with a "my original language is" note for immigrants.

       This idea wasn't well thought out. I am praying that no one is killed as a result. We can do better. Let's rethink this. I would love to hear your opinion. Especially if you are a family member or a first responder. And feel free to contact your senator or assemblyman or OPWDD with your concerns or support too!


     



         

Are Your Facilities Handicap Accessible?

On Sunday Feb 10^th I am being interviewed by Jill Konopka on WNYT channel 13 at 7:20 in the morning. We are going to be chatting about one of my favorite topics- how to include people with disabilities into your community and your life. I thought I would talk about it here too.

One of the first thins you need to know, is I mean people with disabilities in the broadest sense of the word. Whether they have physical limitations, chronic diseases, mental illness or the inability to connect to others socially, we need to exhibit grace and a love for all.

So let’s start with those who have trouble walking- whether they are in a wheelchair, use a walker, or need a cane. This is where most people start and stop in their view of those with disabilities. I think it’s a result of the handicapped parking signs showing people in wheelchairs. (I love the new signs showing the person in a racing chair, but that is for another blog post.) Whether you run a business or a faith community, it’s so much more than a ramp and a handicapped parking spot. A curb ramp or cut out, needs to be smooth with no jolting spaces and cracks at the top or bottom of the ramp. Larger ramps into buildings need to end level with the doorway. There cannot be a two-inch difference between the inside floor and the outside ramp. It is too hard to push a wheelchair over the bump. If it is winter, snow needs to be adequately removed and ice needs to be cleared. It’s scary enough for your foot to slide on the ice, let alone feel your wheelchair sliding down the icy ramp.

Additionally, interior floors need to be level and smooth. No transition bumps from one flooring to another or one room to another. Bathrooms need be large enough to move around in and while many start out that way, interior decorators will fill that space with shelving and tables and eliminate the extra room. All doors, exterior and interior, need to open automatically or have a button to push to open. People who have trouble standing, cannot stand, pull a heavy door, maneuver around the door and go through.  

Which leads to my next discussion, those with arthritis. Arthritis damages the joints in the body. For those with rheumatoid arthritis the fingers often become curled up and twisted. This person may not have the ability to open the door either. If you have a restaurant, that customer may not be able to get the ketchup bottle open, let alone tear open the packets of ketchup. Lifting a large glass full of ice and a drink may be hard as well. Or using unsharp knives to cut their food can be difficult.

And while we are picking on restaurants, let’s talk about the menus. Dark lighting may make it hard for people with low vision to read the menu. Additionally, the print may not be well contrasted with the background making it harder for someone with color blindness to read your menu. Fancy fonts and squiggly letters may be hard for those with learning disabilities or children to read the menus. And this doesn’t apply to just menus. Sign boards, faded street signs, and directional boards in the malls can all have these issues. Many churches use overhead projectors to put the words of songs and outlines of sermons on the walls. But the font is often too small, and the contrast between the letter coloring and the background is too close for easy reading. And this can be made so much worse when the background has multicolored pictures or moving video in the background of the words.

We often judge people for the way they interact with us. We may view them as snobby, rude and unfriendly. But they could be simply hard of hearing, autistic, struggling with social anxiety or depressed. Giving someone a few minutes to process what we have said to them can help them respond better. Repeating ourselves slightly louder and slower may help. (Note I said slightly louder, not screaming at them!) Catch their eye and know you have their attention before you talk to them. Be aware of the background noises that may be making it harder for someone to hear you. Lower the tone of your voice, as people usually lose hearing in the higher pitches first.

Those with autism or epilepsy may have trouble with florescent or flashing lights. Bright colors and loud noises can disturb those with traumatic brain injuries. Just last week I was in Shop Rite. They were doing sales and every 2 to 3 feet they had little “Shop Rite Saves” signs sticking off the shelves. There were so many it made it hard for me to find what I wanted. I couldn’t easily scan the shelves for the items I was looking for. Someone with a brain injury, ptsd, or Asperger’s might not have been able to handle the intensity of the bright signs.

And finally let’s talk about food. With the incredible level of obesity in this country, we continue to celebrate life with low nutrition, calorie dense foods. Churches hold pot-luck suppers and joke (I hope their joking!) that calories don’t count when eaten in a church. Parties aren’t parties without fried food, dips and chips, and desserts. Thanksgiving is an ode to how much unhealthy food can we stuff in our mouths. The otherwise health veggies like green beans are smothered in cream soup and the cranberries are covered in sugared jelly. We must learn to celebrate life without ingesting food that doesn’t add to our lives.

And then there are those with dietary restrictions. Thousands of people each year chose to limit certain foods because of medical reasons (diabetes, high blood pressure), for weight loss, or because of food allergies and sensitivities. While restaurants are beginning to make adjustments, catering companies, and those church pot lucks are often filled with no-no’s. And the worst part is not the lack of appropriate choices, but the friends and love ones who bully people into eating things they shouldn’t eat. “It’s a party, eat a piece of cake!” “You used to love my chicken, go ahead and try it.” “You don’t know what your missing, this_______ is so fabulous!” This is not helpful, not loving, and not inclusive.

So I hope the next time you are asked if your company, building or church is handicapped accessible, you will think beyond the answer, “Yes we have a wheelchair ramp.” You will consider all the kinds of issues that can put limitations on a person and will seek to make sure you are addressing as many of them as possible. As my friend Denise says, “My body doesn’t make me feel disabled, the way the world reacts to my wheelchair often does!” Let’s treat everyone with respect, with kindness, and remove from our world those things that can make someone feel disabled.

If you are looking for more ideas and how to make those living with disabilities, check out my book Spiritually Abled: Help Your Place of Worship Integrate the Disabled with Ease. You can find it on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1978252757/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

What Forgiveness Does to the Human Body

                Forgiveness is most often associated with the concepts of social and spiritual health.

 Research is constantly finding that unforgiveness and true forgiveness can impact physical and 

mental health as well. “the act of forgiveness -pardoning someone who has done you wrong - can

not only metaphorically lift a burden off your shoulders, but it can do so physically, as well” 

(Bushak).

                Unforgiveness or holding grudges can make life look more challenging than it is.  Bushak explains the research this way.

The authors of the study, from Erasmus University’s Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands, had 46 undergraduate students participate in two experiments. The first involved half of the students writing about “a time when they were seriously offended by another person, and ultimately forgave them.” The other half of students were asked to write about a similar incident, but one in which they never forgave the person and continued to view them negatively.

After each writing exercise, the students in both groups walked to a certain point in a nearby hill and were asked to estimate its slant. Interestingly, those who had written about their experience of forgiving someone estimated the hill to be less steep than those who were still thinking about their negative feelings towards someone they hadn’t forgiven.

If students who were holding grudges could see the hill has steeper, you can begin to envision that they would look at most of life’s “mountains” as steeper than people who lived in forgiveness. One of the interesting pieces to pull from this study is this was done at a School of Management.   This was not research aimed at locating health concerns, but it shows the mental impact that holding grudges can have on people who are in a management position.  Deepak Chopra says “ One of the heaviest emotional burdens we carry is a lack of forgiveness — for others and especially, for ourselves.”  This self-anger can certainly add to the stress someone in a management position could have as well as in everyday life.        

                A secondary study from Erasmus University found a physical impact on people who hold grudges. Bushak  writes about it.   

In the second experiment, 160 undergraduate students from Erasmus University and National University of Singapore were divided into three groups. The first wrote about an experience in which they were harmed by another person but forgave them; the second wrote about a similar situation but one in which they didn’t forgive the person; and the third wrote about a “recent interpersonal interaction” that didn’t necessarily involve harming or forgiveness. They were then tested in an “ostensible physical fitness task,” in which they were measured by the height of their jumps. The researchers found that the students who had written about forgiveness jumped higher on average than those who focused on the negative feelings involved with not forgiving someone. However, the jumping difference between those who forgave and those who simply wrote about a neutral interpersonal interaction was minimal: proving that it was the act of holding a grudge that was “weighing” people down. 

   

We were made to live in forgiveness. From these two studies, it is easy to see that holding onto bitterness can make us see the world differently and have less physical stamina.

John Hopkins University psychiatrist Karen Swartz adds to the understanding of forgiveness on one’s body: “Studies have found that the act of forgiveness can reap huge rewards for your health, lowering the risk of heart attack; improving cholesterol levels and sleep; and reducing pain, blood pressure, and levels of anxiety, depression and stress.” “Hostility is an inflammatory emotion and, as researchers have found, the number one emotional risk factor for premature death from heart attacks and strokes. Hostility is also linked to autoimmune disorders” (Chopra.) Being disappointed, angry, or hurt places our body into fight or flight mode, “which results in numerous changes in heart rate, blood pressure and immune response. Those changes, then, increase the risk of depression, heart disease and diabetes, among other conditions” (Swartz). Chopra goes on to expand upon that idea; “It’s not a coincidence that we speak of people ‘dying from a broken heart,’ or describe a betrayal as ‘a stab in the back,’ or say that a deep loss was ‘gut wrenching.’” Things that can lead us to need to forgive someone else truly hurt our bodies.

“Forgiveness, however, calms stress levels, leading to improved health” (Swartz). “Fortunately, this body-mind is incredibly flexible, and when we let go of the emotional toxicity, our body immediately begins to return to homeostasis, which is a state of self-healing and self-regulation” (Chopra).  Swartz helps us to define what true forgiveness is. It is not about mouthing the words or a half-hearted attempt to let go of anger. “It is an active process in which you make a conscious decision to let go of negative feelings whether the person deserves it or not” (Swartz). People who chose not to forgive are at a greater risk of “severe depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other health conditions” (Swartz).

“Sixty-two percent of American adults say they need more forgiveness in their lives” (Swartz). When they do that the mental health benefits are enormous; “less depression, anxiety, stress, anger and hostility” (Swartz). Additionally, choosing to forgive allows “you begin to feel empathy, compassion and sometimes even affection for the person who wronged you” (Swartz). Chopra adds, “ In forgiving, we free ourselves from attachments to the past, and we clear encumbrances that constrict our heart and accelerate the aging process.”  Our bodies, minds, and spirits were made to live in peace, forgiving others and ourselves when things go wrong, even when things done are purposeful and horrendous. Our bodies and our minds want to let go, forgive, and be healthy.

Need a place to start? Forgive the guy that was driving like a jerk earlier today. Want to look at your whole life? Break it up in 5 year segments. List everything good or bad that happened then. Express gratitude for the good things that happened, then forgive all the people, circumstances or God who were involved in the bad things. As you practice, you will feel immense release!

Please message me when you begin to see the health benefits of your acts of forgiveness! And feel free to reach out if you are struggling to do so. Info@healthliteracyforall.org

Sources:

Bushak, Lecia. (2015). How Forgiveness Benefits Your Health: Forgiving Wrongdoers Can Expand 

          Physical Fitness. Retrieved from https://www.medicaldaily.com/how-forgiveness-benefits-

          your-health-forgiving-wrongdoers-can-expand-physical-fitness-316902

Chopra, Deepak. (2017). Why Forgiveness Has The Power To Heal & Make You Whole Again.   

          Retrieved from https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-20532/why-forgiveness-has-the-power-

          to-heal-make-you-whole-again.html

Swartz, Karen. (2018). Forgiveness: Your Health Depends on It. Retrieved from     

           https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/healthy_aging/healthy_connections/forgiveness-

your-health-depends-on-it