James K. Abshire, M.D.

Author of Live Love & Let Go

Difficult Times? Perspective to the Rescue

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I’ve been seeing and talking to patients for over 25 years now. That’s roughly 125,000 patient visits. That’s well over one hundred thousand patient stories. Plenty of stressful lives. Lots of tear jerkers. Illness, injury, death of loved ones, work stress, financial disasters, legal problems, abuse and infidelity. Tons of life stories that at first glance it appears that life couldn’t get any worse. It saddens me that some of these people are truly so depressed.

We’ve been looking at how keeping a positive attitude and remembering to focus on faith helps with our day to day problems. Perspective can also help us to cope, but it can be used to our great disadvantage as well. Perspective is a disadvantage when we examine the situation from our everyday perspective (i.e. the current life here in the United States).

A modern perspective leads us to the following types of thoughts:

  • I need to have things like so and so down the street (keeping up with the Joneses)
  • It doesn’t get any worse than this
  • I need this problem fixed…NOW!
  • I don’t have time for this
  • If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all
  • If they can put a man on the moon, why can’t they fix or heal my problem?

Face it; we are spoiled from great abundance and modern technology when compared to our forebears. Even the poor in this country are relatively well off compared to other countries. Indeed, you don’t hear of anyone in this country starving to death (at least not due to lack of supply-there may be other social factors).Also, there are medicines and treatments that will help alleviate almost any symptom (maybe not cure but at least provide some relief). The poor in this country often have microwaves, cars, clothes, and get warm meals and shelters. (Before you think I’m insensitive, please consider that I’ve worked in inner city hospitals, and I’ve even had to collect cans so that I could eat that day-so I do have some experience).

Now compare your modern life to that of Daniel Boone who had as stressful a life as anyone I’ve ever heard of. As you may recall from past blogs, almost everything you could ever think of happened to Daniel Boone: fought in a war, shot, attacked by bears, panthers, and Indians, personally kidnapped, daughter separately kidnapped forcing him to go rescue her, son tortured to death, robbed-which caused him to be $20 million in debt, sued, blazed his way through the wilderness and later accused of being a traitor to the people he led. Certainly for anyone who is having a stressful life, Boone would probably gladly trade with you. (In fact, Boone might just be glad to be alive again.)

Keep in mind that the average life expectancy during Boone’s time was in the 30’s. He was used to seeing women die in childbirth, young kids die of illness, people crippled for life from injuries that are treatable today. If you’ve ever had pneumonia, gallstones, your appendix out, or a C-section, then you probably wouldn’t still be alive if you were living during Boone’s era. He did not have electricity, heating, air conditioning, transportation, comfortable and abundant clothes and housing. He would have had to hunt and farm daily in order to eat. I think most of us have gotten so soft that we probably would have starved to death if we had lived 200 years ago. Indeed, my idea of roughing it now is staying at the Holiday Inn. I thought I was going to die the week I had to stay in a bunkhouse with my wife’s family…next time just give me a bear to wrestle and call it a day.

No, instead of lamenting our current situation, we should look at our lives from Boone’s perspective and just be grateful for everything we have. Giving gratitude to God will help to lift us up. It won’t make our problems all go away, but it will help how we react to them.

I encourage you to find a perspective that will make your current problems to be not so bad. Using your ancestor’s perspective can definitely help. Next time we’ll take up the eternal perspective.

Using Focus to Reduce Stress

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In our last blog, we discussed the stress filled life of Daniel Boone, and how we can use his life as a model to see how we can turn down the stress. As you may recall, Boone endured just about every stressor that one could have. If you think your life is hard, think about being Daniel Boone. (Imagine being $20 million in debt, being sued, having your son being tortured to death, your daughter kidnapped, being chased by a bear, and just when you thought your day couldn’t get any worse…you go to the outhouse and realize your wife just used the last corncob).

Previously, we discussed how keeping a positive attitude, a continued focus on you faith, and examining the situation in proper perspective can help your handling of the situation. Last time, we saw how Boone could keep a positive attitude. This time, let’s look at focus.

When I refer to focus, I’m talking about constantly reminding yourself to think about your faith. Remembering your faith helps to keep a positive attitude and examining life situations in proper perspective. You need to constantly remind yourself of your faith as we all tend to forget our faith at times. Let’s consider some Biblical characters that saw or talked with God and/or witnessed amazing miracles and yet still seem to forget God:

  • In Genesis 20:2, Abraham gives up his wife, Sarah, to King Abimelech telling him that she is his sister. One would think Abraham would have remembered to ask God for a better solution (unless Sarah was like Boone’s wife and had used the last corncob).
  • In Exodus 32, the Israelites make a golden calf to worship while waiting for Moses.
    Here we find out that the same people who had just witnessed the parting of the Red Sea can’t remember who their real God is? It’s incredible how short our memory can be. (In fact, a quick look at my wife’s journal indicates she learns this lesson once a week.)
  • In 2 Samuel 11, King David forgets God’s laws and commits murder and adultery to get Bathsheba. You’d think that one of his seven other wives would have reminded him. Maybe they didn’t have rolling pins in those days.
  • In 1 and 2 Kings, the story of Elijah tells us of the incredible power and miracles that the prophet could do, including: calling down rain and fire, and raising the dead. However, he had clearly forgotten God when he ran and hid from Queen Jezebel.
  •  At the last supper, Jesus tells Peter that he will deny Christ three times that night; Peter’s response was that would never happen. It took a cock’s crowing to remind him. Pretty bad when a rooster has better memory than you do.

When under stress, we all tend to forget the Lord. Remembering can help us find a positive attitude, gain a better perspective, and give us strength (knowing that He is on our side).

There are many ways we can find reminders:

  • Music, artwork, books
  • Reading the Bible, frequent prayer and meditation
  • Thanks to today’s phones and computers, you can get constant reminders.
  • I keep a small stone in my pocket with the word ‘rejoice’ inscribed. I’m reminded at the end of the day, whenever I empty my pockets.
  • Jews use a mezuzah, which is a small case containing parchment paper with the Shema prayer – Deuteronomy 6:9, ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.’ The mezuzah is placed on the doorframe, so each time they go in, they touch it and/or say a prayer as a reminder. Interestingly, the mezuzah is tilted at an angle as the early rabbis couldn’t decide whether to hang it vertically or horizontally, and so they compromised.

 

Whatever the problem, when we seek and remember God’s world, our problems fade in comparison. Next time, we’ll examine the benefits of God’s perspective to reduce stress.

Stress = Attitude, Focus and Perspective

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And you thought your life was stressful. Compare your life to the early American pioneer, Daniel Boone.(1)

First, let me point out that talking about Daniel Boone is not politically correct:

  • He killed animals, upsetting future generations of PETA members
  • He fought Indians, clueless to the plight of Native Americans
  • He blazed trails through the wilderness, disturbing environmentalists
  •  He owned slaves, not realizing that Black Lives Matter
  •  In general, he made future white guys like me take the blame for everything.

Ok, now that we’ve established that I’m a bad person because of Daniel Boone(2), let’s examine the stressful events in his life:

  • As a boy, he was attacked by, and killed a panther.
  • Boone was a Quaker, but his father was expelled from the community because he had siblings marry non-Quakers.
  • He fought in the Revolutionary War; he was shot in the ankle, while his brother was killed. He was also falsely accused and had to reprove himself in a court martial trial.
  • When he lived in Virginia, he had lots of financial problems and was often taken to court for nonpayment of debts
  • Legend has it that he killed a bear with a knife and carved into a tree ‘D Boon kilt a bar’. He was not a great speller. (see earlier blogs to see how stressful, and funny, bears can be)
  • His daughter was kidnapped by Indians and he had to go rescue her.
  • Later in life, he was kidnapped by Indians and he had to rescue himself.
  • He had 10 kids. Any parent can tell you that having one can be stressful.  His eldest son was tortured to death by Indians.
  • He led a group of settlers through the wilderness to establish Boonesborough, Kentucky. He collected $20,000 (a huge amount in thosedays) from the settlers to purchase the land. It was later stolen from him, and it took him years to pay the settlers back.
  •  In the process of negotiating with and tricking the Indians to save his village, the other settlers accused him of being a traitor.
  • Later in life, he engaged in land speculation in Kentucky and was very poor at it. There were many lawsuits against him, and even a warrant for his arrest.
  • He moved to Missouri to avoid debts in Kentucky, and later had to sell off land to pay his debts.
  • His wife died 7 years before he did.  His last spoken words at age 86 were “I’m going now. My time has come.” (Those were the last words that he spoke. The last words that he wrote actually were ‘Eye’m go-ween now. Mi thyme has cum.’)

So Boone really defines a stressful life with multiple deaths of relatives, financial and legal problems, fighting in a war, being shot, kidnapped, having his daughter also being kidnapped, and having his son being tortured to death. Using Boone’s life as an example, let’s see how we can use the tools of attitude, focus, and perspective to relieve stress.(3)

If you have a problem, whatever the problem may be, if you work on keeping a positive attitude, continually focusing on your faith, and consider the situation from proper perspective, it will help how you handle the situation.

Take attitude for example. Keeping a positive attitude will help your response to the situation. For instance, when Daniel Boone’s daughter was kidnapped, he didn’t take a defeatist attitude, he had a can-do attitude and went out and rescued her. Two other important aspects of a positive attitude are gratitude and maintaining a positive purpose to your life.

The many advantages of giving gratitude were discussed in blog 10. In Daniel Boone’s case, he could certainly give gratitude for all of the successes he had despite all of the obstacles he had to overcome. In our case, we can look to Boone’s life to realize all of the things we can give gratitude. For instance, most of us can give gratitude because:

  • We haven’t had to fight wild animals, including bears
  • We haven’t been kidnapped, nor have we had our child kidnapped
  • Our financial and legal problems have been small in comparison
  • We didn’t have a huge fortune stolen from us and then had to repay it
  • We didn’t have to fight in a war, or get shot
  • We don’t have to blaze paths through the wilderness, and then defend land from multiple attacks
  • Our child was not tortured to death
  • We know how to spell, and even if we don’t, there is spellcheck
  • We don’t have to wear coonskin caps, which can be itchy and have fleas
  • We have much better food supplies, and heating and air conditioning not to mention modern plumbing. Toilet paper is softer than corn cobs, just trust me on this.
  • Our family and neighbors have soap, deodorant, and mouthwash

A final point about attitude is that we need to find a positive purpose to our lives. Victor Frankl discovered this when he was a prisoner in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Frankl saw that the prisoners who survived were the ones with a strong mental attitude in the form of finding a positive purpose to their lives.

I suspect Daniel Boone’s resilience against hardships came from a strong positive purpose to his life. His purpose certainly would be struggling for survival for himself, his family, and the settlers that he led. He would have to work every day to put food on the table as well as provide safety for his family. It would have been a do or die situation.

I believe this is harder for us to do because of our relatively lenient lifestyle. If Boone stopped for a day, then he wouldn’t eat. The luxuries in our life allow us to dwell on the negative instead of finding a positive purpose to give us an inner drive.

I do encourage you to find a positive purpose to your life. It doesn’t have to be big. For instance, it could be just providing companionship to someone who needs it.

Remember: When you’re faced with a stressor, look for the positive, find something to give gratitude for (and compared to Boone, this should be easy), and get a strong positive purpose to your life.

Next time: Focus and Perspective

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1. I had remembered reading about Daniel Boone when I was growing up. I credit Wikipedia for refreshing my memory and adding new insight.

2. Please note that I don’t condone the negative aspects of Daniel Boone’s life. I chose his life purely for the purposes of this blog. Also, almost every character from history would be politically incorrect by current standards.

3. The themes of attitude, focus, and perspective run throughout the book Live, Love, and Let Go to develop a positive proactive approach to the gamut of problems encountered in the last phase of life.

Combating Stress: You Have Power!

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“Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard”

“Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard”

The hospital loudspeaker blared away while the three doctors ran through the hospital with patient’s lives on the line. Mayhem everywhere.  Fortunately, it was just a Three Stooges movie short. Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk.

But I remember experiencing those types of days in real life (although with slightly less pies flying through the air). Working for 20-plus hours and then just getting to sleep right before being called for a code blue and have to run straight from bed to a patient’s room to perform CPR with a life on the line. Trying to save patients who are septic, throwing up blood, having a heart attack, a stroke, or pneumonia, and all of that on the same day (I really hate Mondays).

Yes, I think being a doctor is stressful. A soldier in wartime is probably the most stressful occupation, but law enforcement, firefighters, and airline pilots would also rank high. But all jobs can be stressful: all it takes is a hard boss, demanding customers or a troublesome coworker. However, the level of stress can be greatly influenced by how we perceive and manage it.

There are several suggestions to lower stress levels:

  • Prayer and meditation
  • Exercise. Target 30-60 minutes a day, most days of the week
  • Relaxing music, most likely not something from Metallica
  • Hobbies and crafts. One idea is adult coloring books. Be careful with these, though, because someone recently gave me one of these to do and I got more stressed out when I realized there were no numbers to tell me what colors to use (like they have in the kids coloring books)
  • Try and get a good night’s sleep
  • Massage and warm baths
  • Don’t turn to alcohol and street drugs. Any perceived short term benefit will be offset by worsened problems down the line.
  • Talk to family, friends, a counselor or a clergy member
  • Forgiveness. If you hold anger or a grudge towards someone, then find a way to forgive them. It will benefit you (by lowering your internal stress levels) far more than whoever you are forgiving. For instance, injured patients who have a worker’s compensation claim or lawsuit against whoever injured them seem to not recover as well. I don’t think this is because the patient is ‘faking it’ or ‘malingering’, but rather because of increased stress over the issue.  Of note, I did not originate this idea. It’s based on what other physicians have told me of their observations.
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT- see Blogs 8 and 9). If you have any negative self-talk, then you need to stop it as it only ramps up your stress levels. In fact, negative self-talk may be a big source of your stress.
  • Find short term goals. It helps you get through stressful times. There have been plenty of tough days where the idea grows in my mind that I can’t manage to do this for the next ‘X’ number of years. At these times I tell myself that I just need to get through that day and then I can go home and relax a bit. Thirty years later I’m still going strong.
  • Don’t forget to find humor in the situation….. “Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard”.  Don’t forget to duck when things are flying at you, and don’t forget to block when you see a two-finger eye poke coming your way. Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk.

Next time: Using the concepts of attitude, focus, and perspective to control stress.

Stress Avoidance

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Life is inherently stressful. But is there anything we can do to reduce stress? We cannot completely eliminate stress, but we can reduce it as well as improve our ability to handle whatever stress that we do have.

Careful planning can reduce potential stressful experiences. Consider the example in the last blog of being chased by a bear. This stress could be avoided by:

* Don’t go where bears hang out. Listen to your mom.

* If you are silly enough to go where the bears are, then lock up all your food so as not to attract them. Either that, or cook with lots of habaneros.

* If you hear bears, make lots of noise by rapping on pots and pans to scare them away. Actually, bears aren’t scared of anything, they just don’t like rap music.

Further planning can help you handle the stress when it occurs. For instance, check out what Ranger Bob says about bear encounters:

* Stand tall, strong, look brave and pray that the bear goes away.

* Don’t bother to run unless your name is Usain Bolt, or you have a slower friend with you.

* If the bear attacks, lie down on your stomach and play dead. But remember to put on a backpack first so that the bear has to chew its way through to you. Keep your smartphone in the backpack in hopes that the bear gets into a game of Pokemon Go.

* Forget Ranger Bob, pull out a big gun and shoot the bear.

Now this type of planning is clearly helpful if you live like Grizzly Adams, but the same concept can be applied to a more conventional lifestyle.

In general, you will tend to have a less stressful life by doing the following:

> Listening to your mom.

> Apply yourself in school.

> Seek a rewarding career.

> Strive to be financially comfortable, but avoid the trap of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’.

> Go to church, pray often, and put your faith in God.

> Be smart in your choice of spouse, as well as your friends.

>Exercise regularly, at least 30 minutes a day, most days of the week.    

>Get married before you have kids. Work at staying married.

  > Drive defensively.

> Don’t abuse alcohol or street drugs.

                   > Do the right thing.

Sometimes life stressors hit you despite your most careful planning. Sometimes you make mistakes and venture into bear country. As with the bear analogy, you should not beat yourself up, but rather look for a ‘Ranger Bob’ and develop a back-up plan. Have that back-up plan in mind before things go wrong.

Examples of a back-up plan can include insurance policies or a back-up career plan. However, some stressors are very unpredictable and harder to plan for.  Examples might be a major illness or sudden trauma. A back-up plan can be developed for these medical episodes and it’s called a strong support system.

The support system is a combination of family, friends, community, and church family. You develop this support system by being a good, supportive member of that support system, not with the expectation of getting anything out of it, but because it’s the right thing to do…

It was a beautiful September evening, and I had gone out to start the grill for a wonderful dinner that Caryl (my wife) had planned for my sister, Nancy, who was visiting. A mishap with an overfilled propane tank quickly changed the dinner plans. The resulting propane fire set me on fire and torched the hair and skin off my face, arms, hands, and knees. It actually set my head on fire, and in the process of rolling on the ground to put out the fire, I managed to knock a disc out in my neck, which caused subsequent nerve damage. I eventually had to spend some time in the burn ward to take the dead skin off. I also had to have neck surgery with a bone graft, plate and screws to repair the damaged nerve.

Needless to say, this was perhaps the most stressful event in my life (probably even worse than that time I took the kids grocery shopping). Immediately after putting the fire out on my head, I knew I needed to develop a back-up plan. The planned great dinner was ruined, and I knew what my back-up plan needed to be: I went into the house with my face all charred and reported to Caryl that dinner was going to be a little late. She immediately thought I must be delirious, called the ambulance and the rest was history.

The pain was tremendous, but the stress was greatly reduced by my support system. Caryl and Nancy took care of needed dressing changes. Great friends and community support helped by preparing food and doing some chores. I can only be forever grateful.

Next time we’ll look at more ways to reduce stress when it happens.

Stress

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Today you decided to take a nice walk in the forest after you got home from work. It’s a good way to unwind after a long day. As you walk down the trail, enjoying the beauty around you, you hear some strange rattling in the nearby bushes. You step closer to see what’s causing it, and suddenly realize it’s a mama grizzly and her cub. She lets out a loud roar. Before you have time to even think, you’re darting 20 feet in the opposite direction. This is the most stress you’ve ever felt in your life. But what is stress?

Stress is our reaction to a force or event that adversely affects us. We can be stressed by a wide variety of potential forces.  Some examples:

* Being chased by a bear. (I chose a bear here because bears are the funniest animal exceeding even the lobster.  Hopefully choosing a funny bear will make this blog less scary for you, and less likely to stress you out. You can even imagine it’s a teddy bear if that helps.)

* Personal illness or injury.

* Illness or death of a family member or friend.

* Being robbed or assaulted. (Also, I’m told robbing or assaulting someone is also stressful.)

* Getting a new job, or promotion.

* Birth of a child. (Especially Sam)

* A troublesome boss, coworker, or employee.

* Moving place of residence, church, or school.

*  A graduation or retirement.

* A new relationship or breakup of a relationship.

* Thinking about who our next president might be. Where’s that bear when you need it?

* Financial or legal problems.

* Winning the lottery. Yes, people who win the lottery tend to get stressed out and not do well.

* Going to see the doctor, or in my case, going to see the patient.

* Loss of a pet.

* A child leaving home. (Unless it’s Sam)

* Being a caregiver.

* Preparing for a vacation, reunion, or party.

* Performing a task. Deadlines. Writing a blog.

We can spend all day thinking of stressors, but as you can see, not all stressors are bad, but they still put stress on us because we have to adjust to a new situation. Stress can even be a good thing by helping us to escape a bad situation, like being chased by a bear.

When put under stress, our bodies undergo changes which can be good and even improve our chance of survival. The classic example of this is the ‘fight or flight’ response which happens when you are being chased by a bear. Under these stressful circumstances, your body’s sympathetic nervous system releases adrenaline causing your heart rate to increase, you’ll breathe faster, muscles will tense up and receive more oxygen, and the liver will release stored up energy (in the form of fatty acids and glycogen). All of this is to help you be more alert and run faster, or even fight the bear (don’t take it personally, but I have $50 on the bear). Other changes also occur…for instance our blood will clot easier so we don’t bleed as much and endorphins are released which decrease pain, and that’s important for when the bear catches us.

A few other changes accompany the ‘fight or flight’ response. For instance: the pupils dilate (making our eyes look big), hairs on the skin stand up, sweating, and relaxation of the urinary bladder sphincter muscle – which may cause you to wet yourself. This is important so that the bear can see that you’re really scared and may have pity on you and let you go, which is your last chance for survival when a bear is chasing you.

The ‘fight or flight’ response is a short term response to stress. There are numerous long term responses to stress which are harmful. They include1:

* Release of cortisol into the blood stream which weakens the immune system and makes us more predisposed to illness.

* Increased blood pressure and predisposition to arrhythmia, coronary disease, and heart failure.

* Increased headache, neck, shoulder, and back pain.

* Worsened irritable bowel and acid reflux digestive problems.

* Worsened asthma and chronic bronchitis.

* Dysfunction of the reproductive system such as infertility, erectile dysfunction, and painful menstrual cycles.

* Worsened acne and psoriasis.

* Elevated blood sugars in diabetics.

* Psychological effects such as irritability, anger, depression, anxiety, fatigue, sleep problems.

The big problem with chronic stress is that life itself is inherently stressful. The above list of potential life stressors are almost all typical life events (except for being chased by a bear and winning the lottery). In fact, I have personally experienced almost all of them. However, many of these stressors are internally generated…in other words; the stress is increased by how you deal with the problem. This gives us a chance to reduce stress, which is our goal.

Next time: Ways to decrease stress

1. Stress Management – Effects of stress, Web MD, 2016.

Willpower

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“Stay!”blog 14 aussie

Cassie gazed up at me with her one blue and one brown eye. She stared back down at the piece of cheese.

“Stay!”

Cassie looked back up at me and wagged her tail. She had played this game once before and knew she could out-wait me. She also knows that the cuter and sadder she looks, the sooner that I’ll give in and give her the ‘go ahead’. Cassie is perhaps the smartest dog I’ve ever seen. In fact, I think the only thing that holds her back is the lack of opposable thumbs (and her leash).

I’d like to think I taught Cassie the ‘sit and stay’ trick, but she actually figured it out from watching a Charlie Brown cartoon. You know- the episode where Charlie runs to kick the football and at the last second Lucy pulls it away. Cassie knows if she goes for the cheese too soon that I’ll pull it away before she gets to it. So she sits and waits for me to give the ‘go ahead’ at which point she gets her reward.

Cassie has mastered the art of ‘willpower’. The key is to focus on the reward.

Willpower…easy to say and yet, so hard to do. It certainly would help solve many of life’s problems if we only had more of it:

  • Obesity- willpower to eat less and exercise more
  • Addictions- willpower to refrain
  • Unwanted pregnancies- willpower to abstain
  • Accumulation of wealth-willpower to save
  • Broken relationships- willpower to overcome hard times
  • Name your long-term goal-willpower to delay instant gratification while you work towards the goal

Life’s temptations and the rewards of instant gratification can be hard to ignore, especially in this day and age. You have to ask yourself if the long term objective is worth it, and the answer is usually yes.

St. Augustine was one of the world’s greatest theologians, influencing all of Christianity. But before he became a Catholic priest and bishop, he had lived a colorful life. After his conversion, he struggled with the idea of celibacy. In fact, he famously said:

Lord, grant me chastity, but not yet. (Paraphrased, I believe from his book Confessions…if only I had the willpower to check and be certain)

Resisting temptation is difficult but we can strengthen our resolve. Some ideas:

  • Focus on your long term goal. Make sure you really want it.
  • Develop a strong support group of family and friends. This provides you both positive encouragement as well as someone to turn to when times are tough.
  • Try and be well rested. Our resistance is down when we are tired.
  • Exercise regularly. Our mind is better when the body is strong.
  • Keep the temptation away from you. Out of sight, out of mind.
  • Pray for strength when you are tempted. Also, prayer, meditation, and deep breathing exercises help to calm your mind, self-regulate, and make better choices.
  • Make willpower a habit by resisting other, smaller temptations.
  • Remember your faith, strengthen your faith, and try and tie your long term goal to that faith. Tying your goal to serving God will strengthen your resolve. For example, you could choose to have a goal of a healthy lifestyle (i.e. exercise and weight loss) in order to use your body to serve the Lord. Or, you could choose to save money so that you could have resources to support God’s work.
  • Make a plan in advance to deal with temptation when it arises. For instance, my son has a to-go box come at the start of a meal and puts half the food into the to-go box and ties it off prior to ever eating. That way he cuts potential calories in half and avoids overeating.

Once again, focus on your long term goal and keep that first and foremost, particularly at times of temptation. You will be better for it.

And now, I think I’ve earned my cheese too. Take care till next time.

The Unlucky One (Or life’s not fair)

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“It’s not fair.”

“I’m really unlucky.”

“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”

“I didn’t deserve this.”

“Why is all this happening to me?”

“There must not be a God or else this wouldn’t have happened.”

We’ve all had these types of thoughts when bad things happen. What are we to make of this and how do we deal with it? How could a benevolent God allow bad things to happen?

Perhaps the answer lies in comparing our (i.e. humanities) viewpoint of life events with God’s perspective. Let’s start with some examples in Biblical history of people’s response when good things have happened to them:

  • Adam and Eve. They were given everything – the Garden of Eden, paradise, everything they needed (except clothes). And yet, they were not appreciative, they wanted more.
  • The Israelites in the Exodus story. They had just been rescued from slavery. The Red Sea had been parted for them. And yet when Moses was up on Mt. Sinai receiving the Commandments from God, the Israelites made a golden calf and started worshipping it. They were not whole-heartedly pleased with God, they wanted more.
  • King David. He was king of Israel and according to 1 Chronicles 3, he had at least 6 wives (plus concubines) before taking the wife of another man and marrying Bathsheba. Hadn’t he ever heard of using the 7th day for rest? Once again, a case of man not being totally satisfied and wanting more.

So when we’ve been given a lot, we continue to look for more. Just giving things to people does not help build character. In fact, it may do the opposite. Consider this:

  • Kids who are given everything they ask for become ‘spoiled’. Not fun to babysit.
  • We have more appreciation for that which we’ve worked for and earned.
  • We learn more through experience than just being fed information. In medical school parlance, seeing more patients is considered ‘learning opportunities’.
  • Painful as it may be, we learn more through our mistakes.

If we examine the human condition from God’s perspective, we realize that we inherited an imperfect world with Adam and Eve’s fall. But by going through hard times, we will truly appreciate it when we receive our eternal heavenly reward. At that point, we will be fully satisfied and will not need to repeat Adam and Eve’s mistake of seeking the tree of knowledge (although the slow learners among us will probably make the same mistake).

Now when we are suffering hard times, this stance may seem to be awfully harsh from a ‘good’ God. Before we run too far with this train of thought, we should reflect on what Christ may have been thinking at His crucifixion:

It may have been ‘this is not fair’ or ‘I didn’t deserve this’.

But it may also have been:

‘They’re really going to appreciate this someday.’

I suspect it’s this second thought that helped sustain Him through His ordeal.

It should sustain us too.

A final thought:

In the late 1960’s, Walter Mischel at Stanford University conducted an experiment on young children. The children were each given a marshmallow. If the child ate it immediately, they would only get the one marshmallow. However, if they could wait a few minutes before eating it, they would get a second marshmallow. What they found was that the children who could delay gratification were more successful later in life.

Next time… some more thoughts on willpower.

Perspective

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jka car 2 “CRUNCH!”  What was that? I turned to look forward and saw the emergency phone pole. It suddenly became painfully obvious that I had been wrong. I had thought the pole was put there for someone to use the phone in case of emergency. But no, it looks like the pole was actually put there to create an emergency. I got out of the car to survey the damage…and yes, I had just totaled my car going 10mph through an otherwise empty parking lot.

I was angry at myself, but I wanted to blame whoever designed the lousy parking lot. Why on earth would they put FOUR emergency phone poles scattered out in the middle of a parking lot that’s not much bigger than your average supermarket lot? Do they really think that many people are going to have emergencies all at once? For that to occur, something major would have had to happen-like if somebody is bombing the city, in which case nobody would need to be using the emergency phones. I’d be willing to bet nobody has ever used any of the phones. One phone on the side of the fence would have sufficed. Also, they made the parking spaces so narrow that if you aren’t in an end space, then you may only have about six inches to get in and out of the car.

My embarrassment was laid bare when I had to explain the accident to the insurance lady. My responses to her questions went something like this:

“Yes ma’am, it was 7am. I was coming to work. I hit a pole in the middle of the parking lot. No, the pole wasn’t damaged – they make those things to last, but the car – not so much.”

“No ma’am, I had not been drinking any alcohol.”

“No ma’am, I don’t use street drugs.”

“No ma’am, I was not using my cell phone.”

“Yes ma’am, I hit a bright yellow emergency pole that was all by itself out in the middle of the parking lot. Did you know bright yellow poles don’t look so bright yellow with sun glasses on? Anyhow, I had looked to see there were no cars or people in that area of the parking lot, and then I had my head turned while I was looking to circle around to get an end parking space so that I could get out of my car without having to worry about whacking somebody else’s car door when I get out of my car. Next thing I knew was the pole had stopped my car. Do you know that lots of other people have hit that pole, too?”

“No ma’am, I was not doing donuts in the parking lot. Believe it or not, I’m actually a respected physician…, or at least I used to be.”

In my book, Live, Love, and Let Go, I discuss the themes of attitude, focus, and perspective. If you have a problem, whatever the problem may be, then reemphasizing on keeping a positive attitude, focusing on your faith, or looking at it with a different perspective will help with how well you cope with the situation. In the case of my totaled car, it would be easy to remain angry, mad, embarrassed, and get depressed over the situation. Instead I chose to keep a positive attitude and look at the situation from a different perspective:

  • There are a couple hundred people that work in my building. It was amazing that all of them seemed to know all about my car. People I didn’t even know came up to me. Instead of being completely embarrassed, I choose to feel good that so many people know who I am.
  • I could be upset over rising insurance rates. Instead, I’m glad that I have insurance that will give me money to help buy another used car.
  • My car had been a used car (2003). It’s much better to wreck a used car then a new car.
  • My kids are happy. They figure they have a pass in case they ever wreck a car.
  • My wife is happy as I’ve proved to the world that I’m human.
  • I’m happy that I haven’t done anything this dumb in a long, long, time.

This episode also highlighted a couple of valuable concepts to me. The first is that when you make a mistake, it’s best to just fess up and admit it from the outset. Mix in a little self-deprecating humor and people will often identify with you and even give advice. In my case, many people came up to tell me about other people hitting that pole. Advice included suggestions for a replacement car (including not to get a new one), and ‘be careful in parking lots.’ The concept of owning a mistake is something that many politicians would do well to heed.

The second important concept relates back to perspective. We all go through difficult events and times in our lives. From a perspective standpoint, it helps to ask yourself if the problem will matter 5, 10, 50, or even 100 years from now. If you project far enough out into the future, the problem will become trivial. After all, someday in the afterlife, we will be reunited with loved ones in a loving and forgiving environment. Our current problems will be small in comparison. Use this concept to ease your troubles. It will let you let you find humor when relatively small things like trashing your car happen.

We will explore another perspective on life’s difficulties in the next blog. Until next time, peace be with you and watch out for those bright yellow emergency poles…they can be hard to see! – James

The Truth About Lies

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It’s not good to do it, we aren’t supposed to do it, but we do it anyhow. Lying, that is. Studies have shown that the average person lies at least once a day1. Some people lie up to 40 times a day. We won’t say what profession that is, but the incidence probably goes down in non-election years. On average, we are lied to several times a day.

There have been many famous lies and liars throughout history3:

* Herodotus – considered the father of history, the world’s first historian was known for telling false stories

* The Trojan horse – it’s unknown whether the horse itself was a lie to sneak soldiers into the city or whether the whole story itself was a lie

* George Washington chopping down a cherry tree – the story telling us of Washington’s honesty was itself a lie

* Bernie Madoff lied to investors to con them out of $50 billion.

* The idea that the earth was believed to be flat prior to Columbus.  It was actually felt by most to be spherical.

* Richard Nixon’s giving the ‘I am not a crook speech’ in response to the Watergate investigation.

* Bill Clinton saying ‘I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.’

* Hitler blaming the Jews for everything

And some of my favorite examples of lying:

* Santa Claus

* The Easter bunny

* The tooth fairy

* Oskar Schindler saved over 1000 Jews by lying to the Nazis

* Raoul Wallenberg saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust by lying to the Nazi’s

Lying is bad for both our mental and physical health. Lying increases heart rate and blood pressure. It increases stress hormones making us more prone to infections, back pain, headaches, and fatigue. It also causes more anxiety, guilt, and depression. Honesty improves self-esteem and personal relationships.1,2

People lie for a variety of reasons:

* To make themselves look good

* To gain attention

* To avoid taking the blame

* To tease someone

* To be mean or cruel to someone

* To avoid doing something we don’t want to do

* For personal gain

* To test boundaries (particularly with kids)

* Out of habit

* Scared or embarrassed to tell the truth

* For personal safety

* To protect  someone else’s feelings ( i.e. the white lie)

The white lie is often thought of as an okay or maybe even a good thing to do.  This is not always the case. For instance, I’ve often been an innocent victim of the white lie. The scenario goes like this: we are at someone’s house and they have made a fancy looking dessert. My wife takes a bite and tells the hostess that it is wonderful (white lie) and that I need to eat some, which I unfortunately feel compelled to do (innocent victim). At this point, I wind up with some awful tasting thing in my mouth trying to figure out how to gracefully spit it out.  Incidentally, my personal experience has been that the fancier a dessert looks, the worse it will taste. Also, the worse it tastes, the more people will rave about it.

We would be better off by not lying, and yet we do it. The way to stop is to look at the advantages of being honest and then developing the intestinal fortitude, the guts to tell the truth. The result again will often be relief that you don’t have to lie anymore, and improved stronger relationships.

The worst type of lie may be when we lie to ourselves as we our only hurting ourselves when we do it. It may also be the most common type of lie, as we sometimes lie to ourselves all day long. It is often done as we don’t want to face the truth. Sometimes, we lie to ourselves so much and for so long that we actually start to believe the lies. For instance, I often have patients tell me that they don’t eat anything and exercise all day long and yet they are gaining weight. This would only be possible if it was all water weight (usually not the case), or if their body is the only place on earth that defies the laws of chemistry and physics.

I believe the best way to avoid lying is to turn to God.  Talk to God in your prayers, and keep it mind that there is absolutely no point in lying to God as He already knows everything. He knows the truth so you might as well start by telling Him the truth and asking Him for the strength and means to tell the truth to others, including yourself.  I believe this would put a smile on His face, and you’ll be better for it. God Bless.

P.S. I apologize for the lack of humor in this blog. The thing about me having a lousy dessert in my mouth wasn’t funny at all.

1. Haupt, Angela, ‘How Lying Effects Your Health’, US News and World Report, August 20, 2012.

2. Doheny, Kathleen, ‘Fewer Lies, Better Health’, WebMD, August 6, 2012. 3. Ferreira, Becky, ‘The 20 Biggest Lies in History’, Mindhut, www.sparknotes.com,  Jan 9, 2014.