When Vitality Sags, Try This Health Formula
Dr. Franklin Ebaugh of the University of Colorado Medical School maintains that one-third of all cases of illness in general hospitals are clearly organic in nature and onset, one-third are a combination of emotional and organic, and one-third are clearly emotional. Dr. Flanders Dunbar, author of Mind and Body, says, “It is not a question of whether an illness is physical or emotional, but how much of each.”
Every thoughtful person who has ever considered the matter realizes that the doctors are right when they tell us that resentment, hate, grudges, ill will, jealousy, vindictiveness are attitudes which produce ill health. Have a fit of anger and experience for yourself that sinking feeling in your stomach. Chemical reactions in the body are set up by emotional outbursts that result in feelings of ill-health. Should these be continued either violently or in a simmering state over a period of time, the general condition of the body will deteriorate.
In speaking of a certain man whom we both knew, a physician told me that the patient died of “grudgitis.” The physician actually felt that the deceased passed away because of a long-held hatred. “He did his body such damage that his resistance was lowered,” the doctor explained, “so that when a physical malady attacked him he did not possess the stamina or renewing force to overcome it. He had undermined himself physically by the malignancy of his ill will.”
If you are under par, honestly ask yourself if you are harboring any ill will or resentment or grudges, and if so cast them out without delay. They do no harm to the person against whom you hold these feelings, but every day and every night of your life they are eating at you. Many people suffer poor health not because of what they eat but from what is eating them. Emotional ills turn your body against itself, sapping your energy, reducing your efficiency, causing deterioration in your health. And of course they siphon off your happiness.
And yet people still think that when the Bible tells you not to hate or to get angry that it is “theoretical advice.” The Bible is not theoretical. It is our greatest book of wisdom.
It is filled with practical advice on living and on health. Anger, resentment and guilt make you sick, modern physicians tell us, which proves once again that the most up-to-date book on personal well-being is the Holy Bible, neglected by so many or regarded by them as purely a religious book and certainly as one that is not practical. No wonder more copies are read than all other books. That is because in this book we discover not only what is wrong with us but how to correct it as well.
Since irritation, anger, hate and resentment have such a powerful effect in producing ill-health, what is the antidote? Obviously it is to fill the mind with attitudes of goodwill, forgiveness, faith, love and the spirit of imperturbability.
And how is that accomplished? Following are some practical suggestions. They have been used successfully by many in counterattacking especially the emotion of anger. A consistent application of these suggestions can produce feelings of well-being:
1. Remember that anger is an emotion, and an emotion is always warm, even hot. Therefore, to reduce an emotion, cool it. And how do you cool it? When a person gets angry, the fists tend to clench, the voice rises in stridency, muscles tense, the body becomes rigid. (Psychologically you are poised for fight, adrenaline shoots through the body.) This is the old caveman hangover in the nervous system. So deliberately oppose the heat of this emotion with coolness—freeze it out. Deliberately, by an act of will, keep your hands from clenching. Hold your fingers out straight. Deliberately reduce your tone. Bring it down to a whisper. Remember that it is difficult to argue in a whisper. Slump in a chair, or even lie down if possible. It is difficult to get mad lying down.
2. Anger expresses the accumulated vehemence of a multitude of minor irritations. These irritations, each rather small in itself, having gathered force by reason of the one being added to the other, finally blaze forth in a fury that often leaves us abashed at ourselves.
Therefore, make a list of everything that irritates you. No matter how inconsequential it may be or how silly each is, list it just the same. This will dry up the tiny rivulets that feed the great river of anger.
Dr. Franklin Ebaugh of the University of Colorado Medical School maintains that one-third of all cases of illness in general hospitals are clearly organic in nature and onset, one-third are a combination of emotional and organic, and one-third are clearly emotional. Dr. Flanders Dunbar, author of Mind and Body, says, “It is not a question of whether an illness is physical or emotional, but how much of each.”
Every thoughtful person who has ever considered the matter realizes that the doctors are right when they tell us that resentment, hate, grudges, ill will, jealousy, vindictiveness are attitudes which produce ill health. Have a fit of anger and experience for yourself that sinking feeling in your stomach. Chemical reactions in the body are set up by emotional outbursts that result in feelings of ill-health. Should these be continued either violently or in a simmering state over a period of time, the general condition of the body will deteriorate.
In speaking of a certain man whom we both knew, a physician told me that the patient died of “grudgitis.” The physician actually felt that the deceased passed away because of a long-held hatred. “He did his body such damage that his resistance was lowered,” the doctor explained, “so that when a physical malady attacked him he did not possess the stamina or renewing force to overcome it. He had undermined himself physically by the malignancy of his ill will.”
If you are under par, honestly ask yourself if you are harboring any ill will or resentment or grudges, and if so cast them out without delay. They do no harm to the person against whom you hold these feelings, but every day and every night of your life they are eating at you. Many people suffer poor health not because of what they eat but from what is eating them. Emotional ills turn your body against itself, sapping your energy, reducing your efficiency, causing deterioration in your health. And of course they siphon off your happiness.
And yet people still think that when the Bible tells you not to hate or to get angry that it is “theoretical advice.” The Bible is not theoretical. It is our greatest book of wisdom.
It is filled with practical advice on living and on health. Anger, resentment and guilt make you sick, modern physicians tell us, which proves once again that the most up-to-date book on personal well-being is the Holy Bible, neglected by so many or regarded by them as purely a religious book and certainly as one that is not practical. No wonder more copies are read than all other books. That is because in this book we discover not only what is wrong with us but how to correct it as well.
Since irritation, anger, hate and resentment have such a powerful effect in producing ill-health, what is the antidote? Obviously it is to fill the mind with attitudes of goodwill, forgiveness, faith, love and the spirit of imperturbability.
And how is that accomplished? Following are some practical suggestions. They have been used successfully by many in counterattacking especially the emotion of anger. A consistent application of these suggestions can produce feelings of well-being:
1. Remember that anger is an emotion, and an emotion is always warm, even hot. Therefore, to reduce an emotion, cool it. And how do you cool it? When a person gets angry, the fists tend to clench, the voice rises in stridency, muscles tense, the body becomes rigid. (Psychologically you are poised for fight, adrenaline shoots through the body.) This is the old caveman hangover in the nervous system. So deliberately oppose the heat of this emotion with coolness—freeze it out. Deliberately, by an act of will, keep your hands from clenching. Hold your fingers out straight. Deliberately reduce your tone. Bring it down to a whisper. Remember that it is difficult to argue in a whisper. Slump in a chair, or even lie down if possible. It is difficult to get mad lying down.
2. Anger expresses the accumulated vehemence of a multitude of minor irritations. These irritations, each rather small in itself, having gathered force by reason of the one being added to the other, finally blaze forth in a fury that often leaves us abashed at ourselves.
Therefore, make a list of everything that irritates you. No matter how inconsequential it may be or how silly each is, list it just the same. This will dry up the tiny rivulets that feed the great river of anger.
3.Every time you feel anger say, “It isn’t worth it to spend one thousand dollars’ worth of emotion on a five-cent irritation.”
4.When a hurt-feeling situation arises, get it straightened out as quickly as possible. Go to someone you trust and pour it out to him until not a vestige of it remains within you.
Then forget it.
5.Pray for the person who has hurt your feelings. Continue this until you feel the malice fading away. Sometimes you may have to pray for quite a while to get that result. A man who tried this method told me that he kept account of the times he needed to pray until the grievance left and peace came. It was exactly 64 times. He literally prayed it out of his system. This is positively guaranteed to work.
4.When a hurt-feeling situation arises, get it straightened out as quickly as possible. Go to someone you trust and pour it out to him until not a vestige of it remains within you.
Then forget it.
5.Pray for the person who has hurt your feelings. Continue this until you feel the malice fading away. Sometimes you may have to pray for quite a while to get that result. A man who tried this method told me that he kept account of the times he needed to pray until the grievance left and peace came. It was exactly 64 times. He literally prayed it out of his system. This is positively guaranteed to work.
