Pain is good. We suffer pain because we don’t understand it. And because it hurts.
Pain serves a single purpose; it is a warning. We place our hands on a hot stove and the pain makes us remove our hand before too much damage is done (hopefully). Imagine if we could feel no pain. There are some people who can’t. They often cause damage to themselves, and they have to tip-toe through life to avoid damaging themselves even more.
When a door squeaks, it is calling out for oil. When your elbow hurts, it is calling out for…a doctor?
Perhaps.
Don’t “suffer” your pain. Embrace it. Love it. Listen to it. It is giving you a valuable warning.
Imagine you are driving down the road, half paying attention, half listening to the radio or reviewing the grocery list in your mind or steaming over some injustice at work or doing whatever you usually do while driving. (Yes, most people pay only half attention while driving down a familiar road.)
All of a sudden you see something happen on the road. There is a car or a truck or a bus that is spinning out of control. Or traffic has suddenly – very suddenly! – come to a screeching halt. Or you hear the sound of CRASH! right behind you. Before you even have time to react, you feel the sudden lunge of your car as it is hit or as it hits something else.
It all happens so fast, you can’t even be sure what happens. But you are in pain. The details will vary from crash to crash, but such are the stories of people filing claims for personal injury. Even in cases of whiplash, people don’t always know what happened, because it usually hits them from behind. People filing claims due to whiplash might not even remember all the details, because the pain might not kick in for a few days.
Their stories may differ, but their emotions don’t.
Crashes place stress on a person.
Injury places stress on a person.
The legal system places stress on a person.
Happiness After Personal Injury
There are ways to rebuild your happiness after the crash. Here are a few tips to recover emotionally:
Call in the troops.
Your friends and family are there to support you, so now is the time to ask for help. Let them help you consider your options. let them listen to your thoughts and feelings. let them laugh with you – yes, go out and have some fun with friends and family. Do things that are less painful, of course, but you need positive company to regain your strength.
Dive deep.
You are wonderful. Yes, I am talking to you. Whether you are hang gliding off the coast of Madagascar or sitting in pain on your sofa at home, you are wonderful. The crash is just a situation; it is not you. The pain is just a situation; it is not you. The legal process is just a situation; it is not you. What really counts is you – who you are deep inside. Focus on yourself, on who you are, on your values. These have not changed. This is your rock.
Look ahead.
In most cases, the pain will go away and the injury will heal. Or, you will learn to cope with the pain and manage your life with the injury. Sooner or later the lawyers will leave and hopefully you will have the extra money that you need to put your life back together. Imagine yourself past the trauma, part the anger – really, close your eyes an envision enjoying life when the doctors and lawyers have packed up their bags and gone.
“Women who mostly ate junk and processed foods were more likely to have depression and exhibit increased psychological symptoms.”
So says Dr Felice Jacka of Deakin University. She ran a research the study that tested more than 1000 women from a cross-section of Australian society, finding that those women who followed the national dietary guidelines were less likely to suffer from depression or anxiety.
The relationship between diet and mental health was strong, even stronger than the relationship between diet and
socio-economic status
obesity
illness
education
whether they smoked or not
The World Health Organization has identified 2020 as the year when depression is likely to become the second biggest cause of disability – after cardio-vascular disease. In addition to all the other benefits of good nutrition, preventing an increase in depression has just been added to the list.
When you’re feeling gloomy and someone comes up to you to give you a hug, it could really lift your spirit. But did you know that there are also health benefits to hugging? Studies have shown that it causes the release of a hormone called oxytocin. That hormone has been proven to help lower levels of stress and anxiety, reduce blood pressure, boost the immune system, increase tolerance to pain and perhaps even speed up the healing of wounds.
Hugging also just feels good and helps boost your mood. When you really need it, it could help alleviate feelings of loneliness. That is exactly what happened in 2004, to an Australian man only known by the pseudonym of “Juan Mann”. For a few months, Juan Mann was feeling lonely and depressed, suffering a great amount of personal problems. One day, he went to a party and someone randomly gave him a hug. That hug made him feel so much better that he began thinking that there might be other people, like him, in desperate need of human contact.
He came up with the idea of going in public places to give free hugs. He prepared a sign and headed to his neighborhood mall. The first time he did it, he waited fifteen minutes before an older lady finally came up to him and hugged him. From that moment on, a worldwide campaign was launched. Now, all over the world, people stand in public places and give free hugs. What a wonderful initiative.
Hugging and touching is accessible to all. It serves as a powerful way to express our appreciation and our love to the people around us. So, why not do it more often? If we do so, not only will we be improving the quality of our health, but also our happiness, the happiness of those around us, and our overall feeling of wellbeing!
You can diet. You can work out at the gym. You can take up martial arts. But why bother, when laughing is such a fun way to shed those pounds?
A burst of hearty laughter can give your body what neuroscientist Dr Helen Pilcher calls a “mini-aerobic workout”. It makes your heart beat faster. It makes your chest heave. It makes your belly muscles tighten. Facial muscles tighten (good for keeping the skin looking young). It’s a good all-round workout – a belly laugh can help shrink the belly.
There is some bad news and some good news in this. The bad news is that you have to laugh heartily for an hour to burn off 100 calories. The good news, is that an hour of extra laughing each day would be good for us party-pooper adults who forget to laugh throughout our day. How can we add more laughter?
Sign up for some humorous email broadcasts.
Follow some funny people on Twitter and befriend some funny people on FaceBook.
Get up from your desk every now and then and drop in on the office clown, or anyone with whom you have found you can share a laugh.
Tickle somebody (probably best to do this one at home); it often can end in getting very playful.
Have kids. Yes, they also can cause a lot of stress, but they give you someone you can repeatedly tickle.
How would you increase the laughter in your day? Please let us know in the comments below.
By the way, you can tweet this post by clicking here: ReTweet this
If happiness rests on health, health rests on…four pillars.
1. Nutrition. How we choose to fuel our bodies very much effects our health, and certainly as we grow older it makes a difference how mobile and disease-free we feel. If we fill our bodies with sugar and artificial coloring, will that really make us healthy?
2. Fitness. As I watch family and others age, it is clear that nothing affects their mobility more than their level of fitness throughout their lives. It’s never too late to start, and it’s always too early to stop.
3. Stress. If we feel stressed all the time, it takes a toll on our bodies. We can’t always feel relaxed, but we can take control of our stress and just say “no”. Not always easily, but we can do it.
4. Sleep. Boy, am I in trouble. Sleep affects everything else, and I never get enough of it. When we feel fatigued, we tend to eat all the wrong things, skip the workout and create stress with people around us.
How are you doing with your four pillars of health and happiness?
Imagine you were stranded on a desert island and had only 10 foods at your disposal. For your health you had better hope there was more than cheesecake, chocolate truffles and jelly beans. In fact, it is incredibly hard to choose just ten foods, but here are my picks.
For the record, I am no dietician, but I believe these make a good combination of pretty much all the nutrients we need. I would love to hear some discussion of this, so please provide some feedback in the comment space below.
Broccoli
Eggs
Salmon
Almonds
Blueberries
Milk (1%)
Multigrain bread
Cantaloupes
Garlic
Beans (not sure which type)
Of course, the reality of being trapped on a desert island would be that you would have mostly fish and leaves to eat, but this is just for fun.
A couple weeks back, I wrote about aging gracefully. Today I was reading an interview with William Shatner, and some of what he says resonates, so I thought I would share these three Q&As from the interview.
Q: Do you ever see yourself retiring?
A: Yes, as I slowly draw my last breath–not the shallow ones, where you’re panting and unconscious, but the deep one, where you say, “My God, I’m dying”–I’ll retire.
Q:It was your 77th birthday a few weeks ago. How did you celebrate?
A: I took one jump in the air and realized I could still do it.
Q: What’s the best thing about getting older?
A: Marveling that the passion’s still there. And the worst is discovering that on occasion, it’s not.
So keep that passion burning, and you need never grow old…at least not until it’s time to retire.
Watching my parents age, especially my father, is very instructive. OK, that’s the mild term for it. Nobody can watch their parents age without undergoing a whirlwind of emotions.
Just as we see so much of ourselves in our children, even our own hope for the future and carrying on our own legacy, so, too, we see so much of ourselves in our parents and we see them paving a path that bears our name on it, as well.
What I am mostly seeing now is my father unable to climb stairs or lift his foot high enough to get into the bathtub. Yes, simple things. Everyday movements. Things we take for granted without even giving it a second thought.I have never been afraid of dying (although I find it pretty surrealistic trying to imagine a world without me – not being interpreted through my own perspective), but I confess to being afraid of going old. I have always said that I don’t want to slowly waste away – just drop a piano on my head. I don’t even want to see it coming.
Of course, watching my parents lose their mobility stirs certain emotions in me.
But one surprising emotion that has appeared is gratitude. Yes. My father is showing me how blessed I am (and hopefully will remain for another half a century) to be able to walk without even thinking about it. To run. To jump. To chase my kids through the forest. To dig in the garden. To do my morning push-ups. Yes! Whatever you take for granted – that’s what deserves appreciating and cheering for the most.
And he is motivating me like nothing ever has before to keep fit. To not let fatigue or overscheduling keep me from at least carrying on some strength and flexibility exercises. This, too, is a very good thing.
NOTE: A previous article on self-esteem and aging gracefully that I wrote…um…how long ago? Gee, I’m racing toward my aging years a lightening speed!
THEHAPPYGUY.COM: ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR PERSONAL GROWTH WEBSITES ON THE INTERNET SELF-HELP HAPPINESS: ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR PERSONAL GROWTH BLOGS ON THE INTERNET
