	October 3, 2007 \| Issue 136
	What is Pritikin \| Pritikin Center \| Request Information

Mind-Body Health

“A healthy mind is what leads you to a healthy body – and a much happier life.”Susan Grober, PhD
Director of Behavioral Health and Wellness
Pritikin Longevity Center® Spa

“We feel emotions in our bodies,” wrote Arthur Barsky, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in his book Worried Sick: Our Troubled Quest for Wellness.

PRITIKIN TIPS

New Lunchboxes For Healthy Living

How do you stuff salad and salad dressing and other healthy goodies into brown paper bags and briefcases? It’s not easy.

Now on the market are some great new grown-up lunchboxes with features like containers for salad dressings, built-in ice packs, and storage containers for utensils. Some, like the “Fit & Fresh Salad Shaker,” have an ice pack that helps keep a full-meal-size salad cool.

Also available are containers in the shape of thermoses that provide a convenient way to bring carrots, celery sticks, and other veggies for snacking throughout the day.

You can find many of these products at retailers like Bed, Bath & Beyond, Linens ‘n Things, the Container Store, and even some supermarkets like Albertson’s.

200 Healthy Recipes

“We ‘burn with anger,’ ‘tremble’ with fear, feel ‘choked up’ with sadness; our ‘stomachs turn’ with revulsion. Everyone tends to experience unpleasant emotions as unpleasant bodily symptoms and thus to feel physically distressed when emotionally distressed.”

That’s the bad news, teaches psychology experts like Drs. Arthur Barsky and Susan Grober, Director of Behavioral Health and Wellness at the Pritikin Longevity Center in Aventura, Florida.

The good news is that we have the power to change negative thoughts and feelings into positive, rational, motivating thoughts. This transformation, which is the foundation of an emerging field in psychology called Mind-Body Health, is very important because it can greatly boost our chances of achieving what we want in life, including a fitter, healthier lifestyle.

“By changing our minds, we really can change our lives,” asserts Dr. Grober.

The Mind-Body Connection: Our feelings and thoughts are connected to our health

Mind-Body medicine originated more than 4,000 years ago, when physicians in China noticed that illness often followed periods of frustration in their patients’ lives. Today in western societies like the U. S., medical professionals also share the view that emotions, life events, and coping skills can have a very strong influence on health.

Mind Body medicine is now a part of the exciting new field called psycho neuroimmunology, which focuses on the relationship of our thoughts and emotions to our brain chemistry and our immune system.

Chronic stress can make us fat – and sick

It is the long-term consequences of an anxiety-filled existence that are particularly troubling. Over time, chronic emotional and psychological stress can:

Promote fat storage
Retain salt in the body
Destroy the body’s resistance to cancer, infections, and illness
Cause infertility and sexual dysfunction
Exacerbate diabetes
Deposit cholesterol in blood vessels
Accelerate heart rate and increase blood pressure, and thicken blood so it clots more readily, which makes you more prone to suffering a heart attack or stroke

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Pritikin Perspective - Healthy Living Made Easier
Pritikin Perspective is a publication for Alumni of the Pritikin Longevity Center. It is dedicated to helping people make healthy changes in their lives. The articles in this publication should not be considered specific medical advice, as each individual circumstance is different. You are strongly encouraged to seek medical advice before beginning a program of diet and exercise.
Editor/Writer: Eugenia Killoran.

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