Tag: Healing

You Have to Laugh!

Cancer is not much to laugh about. Right? But actually laughter is good for us as I was reminded the other day by a doctor who suggested watching comedies rather than the news.

Sadly the news is rather depressing these days with wars, weather, politics and the economy. In fact there are a number of articles online about this very thing. One I found is entitled “Is Watching the News Bad for Mental Health?“. It is slightly out of date having been written when Covid was at its height, but it nevertheless made the point how damaging it can be to get too much news. And if it affects the mind, it affects the body and affects our healing. Certainly we need to keep informed, but we need to avoid being worried or upset about things we can do nothing about. I remember recently hearing someone say that he rationed his news intake to one day a week, when he did his catching up on what was going on in the world. And when he did that he used sources with differing political biases so as to get a more balanced picture.

I guess the beneficial effect of laughter has been known for a long time, but is not something that I have thought about. I don’t see The Readers’ Digest any more, but I remember seeing copies some 60 years ago with a page or more of humour “Laughter is the Best Medicine”, and likely they still have it.

I did an internet search on the beneficial effects of laughter and there were loads of results. One from the Mayo Clinic HERE. So there is plenty of evidence that we need to laugh for the sake of our mental and physical health. If we have a physical health condition like cancer, it doesn’t do us good to dwell too much on the negative aspects of it. A good laugh gives us a break and does us good.

I looked up a few joke websites and they didn’t do much for me. I guess we are all different in this respect. I am not a great fan of stand-up comedy either. Other people just love it. But I have been having a great time looking at sitcoms on catch-up TV and there are some good funny films an catch-up TV and streaming channels too. We each need to find what we enjoy that makes us laugh and then use it to help heal our bodies.

I have pointed out in other blog posts that recovery from cancer needs to be a matter of healing the whole person – body, mind and spirit. Laughing is something that we can practice to assist that process.

Gratitude

This is one of a series of three posts on connections between faith and healing. The others are on Meditation and on Love. These three are not of course exclusive to the Christian faith, or even to faith at all, but they are integral to the Christian faith. And they all support healing.

You might well think “I’ve got cancer, what do I have to be grateful for?” Actually for quite a lot, probably including the cancer.

Gratitude is scientifically proven to have health benefits. Quoting from the Mayo Clinic website ” Expressing gratitude is associated with a host of mental and physical benefits. Studies have shown that feeling thankful can improve sleep, mood and immunity. Gratitude can decrease depression, anxiety, difficulties with chronic pain and risk of disease”. Who would have thought it?

This is yet another area in which healing parallels faith. The Holy Bible has a vast number of statements or exhortations concerning giving thanks to the Lord in both the Old and New Testaments. As a Christian, I am so fortunate in being able to thank God for the wonder and beauty of His creation and for all the blessings I have received in my life. When the cancer or its treatment gets on top of us, it may be hard to think of the things we have to be grateful for, but there is always something or someone to be grateful for.

I try to make it a habit at the end of each day to think of everything that I have to be thankful for that day and thank God for the things and people that have been a blessing to me. If you don’t believe in God and believe the universe created itself, your health will still benefit from gratitude for the good things and good people in your life. Gratitude is an overwhelmingly positive emotion that drives out the negative emotions that hinder healing.

And we must remember to thank people personally for the good things they do for us. When Jesus healed ten lepers, only one bothered to go back and thank him. We must make sure we are the one in ten. The person we thank invariably appreciates it too, so they benefit as well as ourselves.

What rather surprised me was that a number of people who specialise in treating cancer said that patients were grateful for their cancer. It forced them to take stock of their lives, reassess priorities and recognise what was most important to them. So yes, some people are even grateful for what their cancer has done for them. Certainly, however dire our situation, we need to be grateful for the good. Concentrating on the good generates more good.

One way of training ourselves in gratitude is to keep a “gratitude diary” in which we jot down things and people that we are grateful for at the time. Then when things are bad, we can look back and see that there is a lot to be grateful for. Training our mind to be positive through Meditation, Love and Gratitude can only improve our lives and our health.

Love

This is one of a series of three posts on connections between faith and healing. The others are on Meditation and on Gratitude. These three are not of course exclusive to the Christian faith, or even to faith at all, but they are integral to the Christian faith. And they all support healing.

Dr Flavin wrote a lovely article on Love and it’s role in healing. I strongly recommend reading it HERE: In particular she emphasised loving ourselves. And illustrated her article with examples of people who unconsciously sabotaged their healing by not thinking they were worthy of it. Here again, health connects with faith. Christians absolutely believe that God loves each and every one of us. So who are we not to love ourselves? (And others!)

This is a bit of an eye-opener. Love in relationships is already well-documented to have a beneficial effect on health. But there isn’t so much on the importance of loving oneself and feeling worthy of love and worthy of healing. The importance of the mind in healing the body is now well-recognised, so we need to do everything we can to make our minds healthy, so as to promote healing rather than hinder it. I hope these three posts – Meditation, Love and Gratitude will help. These are things that we have to work on ourselves, all the time. They are the perfect medicine – without harmful side effects.

A necessary part of loving ourselves is also forgiving ourselves for the things we wish we hadn’t done (to put it mildly). But as Christians, we believe that God forgives us. So our reaction has to be to forgive ourselves and, where possible, apologise to those we have wronged and make amends where we can. Of course people may still not forgive us. It took me a while to recognise the blunt truth that it’s their problem. As we say in the Lord’s Prayer “Forgive us our sins (trespasses) as we forgive them that sin (trespass) against us”. That makes very clear our responsibility to forgive others, and this is now known to be essential for our mental and physical health.

Not forgiving leads to anger and resentment, which only hurts the person who doesn’t forgive. If we can make it easier for others to forgive us, we should do so, but ultimately it is their responsibility to themselves. Forgiving ourselves is not always easy, but we have to learn to do it. Guilt is a very negative emotion that can sabotage our health or prevent healing. It helps to be able to confess it to the Lord and ask for forgiveness and for help forgiving ourselves.

Loving ourselves means wanting to be the best we can be. We all have different gifts and different limitations, so we need to make the most of what we have and the least of what we don’t have. If we are sick, it means striving to be well and making the most of the life we have. It is not a case of “I’ll be happy if ….. “. Happiness is knowing where you are going and taking the journey. I am reminded of The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. Christian starts on his journey which is filled with joy, learning, struggles and mis-steps. And he gets to his destination. Not everyone does, but you have to love yourself enough to keep on trying.

Meditation

This is one of a series of three posts on connections between faith and healing. The others are on Love and on Gratitude. These three are not of course exclusive to the Christian faith, or even to faith at all, but they are integral to the Christian faith. And they all support healing.

According to healthline “Meditation has been shown to offer many benefits. Although it’s well known as a technique to reduce stress and anxiety, research shows that it may also help enhance your mood, promote healthy sleep patterns, and boost cognitive skills.”. And there are other potential benefits too, which you can search on the internet. But even without digging further here are 3 or 4 major benefits for the cancer patient – reduced stress and anxiety and better mood and sleep.

The Bible has many references to meditating on God’s word and in the words of Psalm 46.10 “Be still and know that I am God”.

In the case of Christians, we can meditate on Scripture. I recently read a book on Biblical Meditation, which advocated meditating on a verse or short passage of the Bible, and finding that helped to receive better understanding of the passage and meaning for our lives.

Also, we can meditate on the glory of God and His creation and all the wonderful things He has done which brings us back to “Be still and know that I am God”.

Prayer too can be a form of meditation. Prayer is not just a matter of “asking for stuff”, but a matter of communicating with God. Thanking him for His blessings, recognising where we have fallen short, and requesting His help. And staying still to understand His response.

Inevitably, I think of meditation in a Christian context. But if you are not a Christian, you can still obtain benefit from meditation. There is a lot of on-line help to do that. And while you are meditating, God just might speak to you if you ask Him. Who knows? As with all things, keep an open mind.

The human body, including the mind, is a wonderful thing with a huge capability of healing itself. Think of all the injuries and diseases that we overcome without medical intervention. When it more seriously breaks down, as with cancer, then we need to marshal all our body’s resources to combat it. Our mind is such an important part of our healing and we have to give it our full attention, That is what these three posts are about – Meditation, Love and Gratitude. in the words of the Roman poet Juvenal “mens sana in corpore sano” which translates as healthy mind in healthy body. We need to strive for both.