7 Traits You Can Develop to Stay Healthy
The Immune Power Personality: 7 Traits You Can Develop to Stay
Healthy
by Henry Dreher
"Before long, medical researchers may discover that the
human brain has a natural drive to sustain the life process and to
potentiate the entire body in the fight against pain and disease.
When that knowledge is developed, the art and practice of medicine
will ascend to a new and higher plateau." -- Norman
Cousins
The 1990's have seen the dawning of a new model for promoting
health and preventing disease. This model accepts that genes,
environmental pollutants, disease agents, and diet are all factors
in the genesis of illness. But it also accepts the role of the
mind, both in illness and in health. As the mind-body field
blossoms, we are learning that psychological factors influence the
immune system, the body's network of defense and healing. Thus, the
mind can contribute to our risk and our recovery from almost any
disease.
Discoveries by today's mind-body scientists are compelling us to
replace outmoded ideas about stress and health. Stress has been a
buzzword since the 1960's, when our culture began disseminating the
notion that external pressures and upsetting events are key
psychological factors in illness. Recent investigations have
altered that view. They reveal that stress is an inevitable and
sometimes even positive force in our lives. The pivotal
psychological factor in illness is not stress, but rather how we
cope with stress. And how we cope depends, in large part, on our
personalities.
A small band of scientists on the cutting edge of mind-body
research has identified personality traits that enable us to cope
effectively with the emotional wear and tear of daily existence.
These traits represent facets of our psychological makeup that
protect us from internal distress caused by external stress. By
buffering us from the harmful effects of stress, healthy traits
keep us strong in mind and body. Over the past ten years, I have
written exclusively about the burgeoning fields of mind-body
science and medicine. In the course of my investigations, I have
identified a group of seven researchers, each of whom has uncovered
a particular personality trait associated with psychological and
physical well-being. Since each trait has been directly or
indirectly linked to a vigorous immune system, I call them Immune
Power traits. This book is about Immune Power traits, the research
that has uncovered them, and the strategies each one of us can
employ to become an Immune Power Personality. These strategies
offer new hope that our own psychological resources can be
activated to prevent and to heal diseases affecting every organ and
system of the body.
What is an Immune Power Personality? The research I have
explored suggests an individual who is able to find joy and
meaning, even health, when life offers up its most difficult
challenges. The Immune Power Personality handles stressful events
not with denial, but with acceptance, flexibility, and a
willingness to learn and grow. These characteristics prevent the
Immune Power Personality from breaking down emotionally and
physically in the midst of life crises. Psychologists have long
documented the role of healthy traits in maintaining a healthy
state of mind. Now mind-body scientists are demonstrating the role
of healthy traits in maintaining a healthy state of body.
In each chapter of The Immune Power Personality, I follow the
searches of one investigator who has defined and studied one Immune
Power trait. Here are the traits and the researchers who identified
them:
1. The ACE Factor: Attention, Connection, Expression:
University of Arizona psychologist Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D. has
shown that people who are tuned to mind-body signals of discomfort,
pain, fatigue, distress, sadness, anger, and pleasure cope better
psychologically, have a better immune profile, and a healthier
cardiovascular system. 2. The Capacity to Confide:
James W. Pennebaker, Ph.D., a psychologist at Southern Methodist
University in Dallas, Texas, has demonstrated that individuals who
confide their secrets, traumas, and feelings to themselves and
others, have livelier immune responses, healthier psychological
profiles, and far fewer incidences of illness.
3. Hardiness: Commitment, Control, and Challenge:
Suzanne Ouellette, Ph.D. a psychologist at the City University of
New York, originated the concept of personality hardiness.
Hardiness includes the "three C's": A sense of control over one's
quality-of-life, health, and social conditions; a strong commitment
to one's work, creative activities, or relationships; and a view of
stress as a challenge rather than a threat. People who exhibit the
three C's suffer far fewer chronic illnesses and symptoms that
those who don't. Other investigators have found that hardy
individuals have stronger immune systems.
4. Assertiveness:
George F. Solomon, M.D., an early pioneer of psychoneuroimmunology,
conducted the earliest studies on personality and immunity. He has
shown that people who assert their needs and feelings have
stronger, more balanced immune responses. They more readily resist
and overcome a range of diseases associated with dysfunctional
immunity--from rheumatoid arthritis to AIDS. Solomon has found
immune-power connections to other traits as well, including the
ability to find meaning in stressful life circumstances.
5. Affiliative Trust: The Motive of Unconditional Love:
A world-renowed motivational psychologist, David McClelland, Ph.D.
of Boston University, has discovered that individuals who are
strongly motivated to form relationships with others based on
unconditional love--rather than frustrated power--have more
vigorous immune systems and reduced incidence of illness.
6. Healthy Helping:
While heading the Institute for the Advancement of Health,
investigator Alan Luks conducted a large survey showing that people
committed to helping others get a "helper's high" that is not only
mental and spiritual, it is physical as well. These individuals,
displaying the personality trait of altruism, suffer fewer
illnesses than others who are not similarly motivated or engaged.
Luks has become a one-man clearinghouse for the research of
scientists and psychologists who have verified findings from his
own survey.
7. Self-Complexity: The Healthy Hydra:
Patricia Linville, a psychologist at Duke University, has
demonstrated that people who explore many facets of their
personalities- -called "self-aspects"--can better withstand
stressful life circumstances. In her research, people with many
"self-aspects" were less prone to stress, depression, physical
symptoms, and bouts of flu and other illnesses in the wake of
stressful life events. They also had higher self-esteem. Linville
found that individuals high in "self-complexity" have strengths to
fall back on when one part of themselves is lost or wounded.
I have interviewed these investigators, studied their data, and
spoken with many of their patients. In each case, there is a story
to tell. They are stories of scientists on a path of discovery who
overcame the biases of both traditional and alternative medical
communities. They are also stories of new and penetrating visions
of human functioning, and advances in the mind-body field that will
change the face of medicine. Other scientists have investigated
health-promoting personality traits, but these seven have emerged
with the most sophisticated theories, substantial research
findings, and practical approaches for self-development. With one
exception, they are psychologists or psychiatrists who have
conducted original studies published in leading scientific
journals. (The only exception is Alan Luks, a non-scientist whose
vision propelled him to conduct a large survey on the role of
helping and altruism in health. Luks has collected hard data from
other scientists confirming conclusions of his survey--that people
motivated by altruism experience better health.) Despite the fact
that their findings have challenged the conventional wisdom of
established medicine, the rigour of their scientific methods has
been recognized. Indeed, many are viewed as pioneers in their
respective fields.
Interestingly, the researchers themselves exhibited Immune Power
traits, often the very ones they studied. They had to be assertive
to survive professionally in an academic community that is
skeptical about psychological factors in health. Their sense of
commitment, control, and challenge in confronting academic and
scientific roadblocks was unerring. They designed and advocated
methods that empower people to benefit from their discoveries.
Every one of them had a flinty sense of humor.
THE STRESS MODEL--AND BEYOND
Why isn't stress reduction enough? Why do Immune Power traits
represent a leap forward in mind-body medicine? The current--but
increasingly outdated--model of mind and body teaches us that
stress is bad, plain and simple. The public continues to be fed
this old dogma in trivialized form: "Avoid stress in your life,
stay positive, and you'll remain healthy." At times, it seems as
though prescriptions for mind-body health can be reduced to Bobby
McFerrin's made famous lyric: "Don't worry, be happy!"
The mind-body researchers whose work forms the heart of this
book have abandoned this overly simple model. From both a
scientific and practical perspective, they have concluded that mere
stress reduction and having a "positive attitude" are insufficient
guides to mind-body wellness. One of these scientists, Suzanne
Ouellette, who originated of the concept of hardiness, scoured the
literature on stress and turned up this finding: If you were to
predict illness from a knowledge of stressful life events, you
would only be right less than 15 percent of the time. Her work, and
the work of the other scientists, demonstrates that how we respond
to stress-- emotionally, cognitively, and behaviorally--is critical
in determining whether stress will make us sick.
For instance, during hard economic times, it's unrealistic to
think that we can remain hermetically sealed off from the
uncertainties, the job insecurity, or the financial difficulties
that have become part of our lives. Moreover, we weren't built to
avoid stress. Could our prehistoric ancestors, whose survival
depended on dangerous hunting forays into the wilderness, have
stayed cloistered in their caves in the name of stress management?
Certainly not. In the modern era we cannot sidestep the stress that
accompanies our pursuit of financial stability and creative
enrichment in our work; our quest for more gratifying
relationships; and our search for meaning as we confront everyday
problems and inevitable losses. Consider the Chinese symbol for
"crisis," which combines two words: danger and opportunity. When
confronted with personal upheaval, we face the danger of regression
or collapse, but we are also presented with opportunities for
growth. Immune Power trait research is defining forms of personal
growth that promote mind-body health.
From THE IMMUNE POWER PERSONALITY by Henry Dreher. Copyright
@ Henry Dreher, 1995.
Reprinted and located at:
http://www.thebody.com/dreher/primer.html
Reprinted by arrangement with Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin
Books USA, Inc. To order the book please call
1-800-253-6476.
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