Harvard Archives - H e a l t h T h o u g h t s

Why caring about Cecil the lion is good for our health

August 19, 2015 By christianscienceminnesota 1 Comment

@Glowimages: Lion (Panthera leo) sitting in a path, Okavango Delta, Botswana — © GLOW IMAGES

I live not far from the Minnesota dentist/big-game hunter who killed a treasured African lion by luring him out of his protected national park, wounding him with an arrow and then tracking him for two days before finishing him off with a gun. My British Columbia colleague, Anna Bowness-Park, helps us understand that the uproar (pun intended) caused by this kind of brutal slaughter, indicates a moral shift that can have profound effects on both societal and individual health. Here’s Anna…

The senseless killing of Cecil, the nationally beloved lion in Zimbabwe by an American big-game hunter has provoked a media storm of angry protest and controversy. Closer to home last year, Cheeky, a grizzly bear beloved by the First Nations who shared his territory, was shot and killed by an unapologetic NHL hockey star. This angered First Nations’ people as well as many other British Columbians.

But the critical newspaper articles and social media frenzy in response to what has been historically a commonplace practice – i.e., hunting – indicates that these instances (and others) have awoken something in our hearts. Is it that the senseless killing of creatures for nothing more than the purpose of sport is beginning to make less and less sense as we grow in our understanding of the connectedness and value of all life?…

Cecil and Cheeky may be rallying points for public anger, but there is no doubt that the moral compass regarding how we treat each other and the animals with whom we share this planet is undergoing a major rethink in Western society. But does it have any staying power amid our flighty attention spans? I think it does, especially as we begin to understand that how we treat each other and our fellow creatures is essential to both individual as well as universal health.

Please click here to read the rest in its original context…

To be healthy – focus on HEALTH, not disease

April 8, 2014 By christianscienceminnesota Leave a Comment

@Glowimages PVL00559. — © GLOW IMAGES (models used for illustrative purposes only)

If your test comes back negative, you’re glad because “They found nothing.”

Is that really true? Was nothing found?

Yes, the diseased condition or problem they were looking for isn’t there. Then what is there? Health. And health is not nothing, it’s something. Something was found.

It’s popular to think of health just as the absence of disease. I remember being struck by this years ago while in a “health” food store. Every product was geared not on wellness, but on treating or warding off sickness.

Most agree that our health care system is primarily designed for the treatment, management and sometimes prevention of disease rather than establishing and maintaining health.

Recent efforts to promote healthy lifestyles as a path to wellness mostly emphasize nutrition and exercise. There’s been little shift in how we think of health. People still see these lifestyle changes as strategies to evade disease.

Accepted logic says that disease is inevitable and you deal with it either through mainstream or alternative treatment, management and prevention. But that’s upside down. What about gaining a better understanding of health itself?

Health and wellness are our normal state of being. Shouldn’t we begin with health as inevitable, lasting and powerful and disease as a detour? Or at least with health as the rule and sickness as the exception?

Expectation — the ultimate placebo effect

May 3, 2012 By christianscienceminnesota Leave a Comment

Everyone knows that the placebo effect depends on not knowing that it’s a placebo, right? Wrong!!

Here’s the link to a 1/10/12 piece from, The Wall Street Journal, called “Why Placebos Work Wonders: from weight loss to fertility, new legitimacy for ‘fake’ treatments”.

The author, Shirley S. Wang, gives several impressive examples of effective placebo treatments but also reports this: “It doesn’t seem to matter whether people know they are getting a placebo and not a ‘real’ treatment.” What?!

She mentions a study done by Dr. Ted Kaptchuk, director of Harvard’s Program in Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Encounter. Patients were informed that what they were taking was made with inert ingredients and yet they still had beneficial results.

Can forgiving and being forgiven improve your health?

April 26, 2012 By christianscienceminnesota Leave a Comment

During the last decade plus, there has been a growing number of studies showing the beneficial effects of forgiveness on the body. As far back as 2004, a Harvard Medical School publication) was able to sum up:

“Reduced stress. Researchers found that mentally nursing a grudge puts your body through the same strains as a major stressful event: Muscles tense, blood pressure rises, and sweating increases. Better heart health. One study found a link between forgiving someone for a betrayal and improvements in blood pressure and heart rate, and a decreased workload for the heart…Reduced pain. A small study on people with chronic back pain found that those who practiced meditation focusing on converting anger to compassion felt less pain and anxiety than those who received regular care.” (Also see 11/23/11 report by the Mayo Clinic staff)