Positive Health: Applying Positive Psychology to Increase Health | Positive Psychology Program

Healthcare has, for many decades, extolled the virtues of diet and exercise. If you only ate the right things and kept up with regular exercise, you would inevitably live a long and healthy life, as sure as water runs downhill. Or so the story goes. However, recent research is painting a more complicated picture. Contrary to the idea that your mind is sealed off from your body, modern science is coming to understand how thoughts can influence every aspect of your health.

Positive Psychology Program have been associated with healthier and longer lives, as well as a greater sense of well-being. Meanwhile, chronic anger, worry and hostility can lead to the development of heart disease. Therefore, the slogan of yesteryear: you are what you eat, has found a companion: you are what you think. Health isn't just a state of being; it's a state of mind.

Positive Psychology Program

Chronic Stress Damages Your Body

People appreciate the damage smoking or even drinking does to the body. But stress can be just as powerful. In the short-term, it gives you an impetus to action; but prolonged over months or even years, stress wears your body down.

From head to toe: stress causes headaches, depression, insomnia, heartburn, weakening of the immune system, high blood sugar (which leads to diabetes), increased risk of heart attack, pounding heart, high blood pressure, stomach ache, stomach ulcers, infertility, and muscular aches.

There is hardly an organ in the body that doesn’t suffer from prolonged stress. But there is a cure: Positive psychology.

Positive Psychology Heals

Positive psychology embraces the lighter side of human nature, emphasizing: gratitude, altruism, self-esteem, good humour, attentiveness, fairness, love, bravery and many more valuable attributes. It channels these through exercises and changing negative thought processes, such as:

-          Filtering: focusing on negatives

-          Personalizing: making tragedy personal

-          Catastrophizing: envisioning the worst-case scenario

-          Polarising: seeing everything in black and white

However, one of the best ways to learn more is to engage with the positive psychology program offered by the School of Positive Transformation.

The benefits are beginning to look astounding. Many doctors will report patients with a positive attitude survive longer than those who fall into depression. But beyond these anecdotal stories, optimism and positive thinking has been associated with better recovery from specific medical procedures, improved immune system functioning, better survival rates, and improved adherence to healthy activities. 

There has even been some suggestion that positive psychology may lessen the frequency of illness, improve wound healing, enhance recovery time, and ensure greater physiological longevity. One 2019 study found that positive thinking increases the chance of ‘exceptional longevity’, with participants living 11 to 15% longer than their less optimistic peers.

How to Apply Positive Psychology?

-          Keep a gratitude journal: Gratitude is the power to realize how good life is, and can be.

-          Practice loving-kindness meditation: Practitioners focus on increasing their positive attitude, self-compassion and empathy for others, by internalizing positive statements, such as 'May you be safe'.

-          Relax with other positive thinkers: Positivity is infectious; in a good way. Spending time with like minded people will increase your sense of happiness and optimism. Join the positive psychology program, and you'll discover positivity in both staff and students alike.


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