Is a person’s health related to his or her disposition? According to Proverbs 17:22, it certainly does. It says: A cheerful heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit makes one sick.
So, we are encouraged to be always cheerful. We are always uplifted in the spirit of cheer and positivity. Conversely, a negative or broken spirit drains us of our energy and leaves us bone tired. The fact is that when we are constantly bombarded by all kinds of news of doom or bad vibes, we can still choose to be on the cheerful end.
A story was told of Dr Norman Cousins, a prominent and highly influential political journalist, world peace advocate and author. He championed the concept of humour and laughter as a form of medical therapy in the 1960s. In 1964, he was diagnosed with having a strange, rare disease which would destroy the connective tissues of the body. Dr Norman Cousins refused to give up. He started on a regimen of exercise and high doses of Vitamin C. He also added an unusual thing to his daily regimen – hours of watching movies like The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges or episodes of Candid Camera which allowed him to laugh his head off. Dr Cousins discovered that ten minutes of genuine hearty laughtercould give him at least two hours of pain-free sleep. So he would watch those movies over and over again. As he continued with his dosage of having a merry heart, he began to get better. When the day came for his doctors’ appointment the doctors were surprised.
Dr Norman Cousins then wrote a book called Anatomy of an Illness. In his book, he pointed out that one’s mental attitude, the cheerfulness or lack thereof, has a great deal to do with whether you get sick, how bad you get sick, whether you get well, and how quickly you get well. Dr Norman Cousins died in 1990 from coronary heart disease and congestive heart failure, 26 years after his experience with inflammatory spine disease
What Dr Norman discovered was actually what King Solomon wrote about 3000 years ago - A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones. Proverbs 17:22, KJV
Mei Wong (mwrejoice@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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