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James K. Abshire, M.D.

Author of Live Love & Let Go

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Recent Posts

  • PERSPECTIVES!
  • THE 1, 2, 3
  • FEAR OF PAIN AND SUFFERING
  • Since there are Dogs, There must be a God (Part 2)
  • Since there are dogs, God must exist (Part 1)

Recent Comments

  • Tom Dunham on Since there are Dogs, There must be a God (Part 2)
  • Florene Kunder on The Gift of Healthcare
  • Diana Abshire on The Gift of Healthcare
  • Pam Harley on Difficult Times? Perspective to the Rescue
  • Dennis Antonacci on Stress = Attitude, Focus and Perspective

Archives

Combating Stress: You Have Power!

September 2, 2016 by Dr. James Abshire Leave a Comment

“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).

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Dealing with Stress, Health, James K. Abshire, Live Love and Let Go, Prayers, self-talk, Stress

Stress Avoidance

August 22, 2016 by Dr. James Abshire Leave a Comment

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.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: attitude, Aviod stress, Health, healthy lifestyle, James K. Abshire, perspective, Prayers, propane fire

Stress

August 6, 2016 by Dr. James Abshire Leave a Comment

 

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?

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Dealing with Stress, effects of stress, James K. Abshire, Live Love and Let Go, Prayers, self-talk

Willpower

July 21, 2016 by Dr. James Abshire 1 Comment

“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).

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: achieve long term objective, delay instant gratification, James K. Abshire, Live Love and Let Go, set goals, solve life's problems, willpower

The Unlucky One (Or life’s not fair)

July 8, 2016 by Dr. James Abshire 3 Comments

“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:

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: appreciation, God's perspective, James K. Abshire, life's not fair, Live Love and Let Go, why do bad things happen

Perspective

June 27, 2016 by Dr. James Abshire 3 Comments

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.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: admit your mistakes, faith, focusing on your faith, James K. Abshire, keeping a positive attitude, perspective, positive self-talk

Great + Attitude = Gratitude

June 6, 2016 by Dr. James Abshire 2 Comments

** HOLD FOR RELEASE UNTIL 11 PM EDT -- FILE ** In this 1976 file photo, actor Sylvester Stallone holds actress Talia Shire in a scene from the classic film "Rocky." The film was ranked fourth on the American Film Institute's list of inspirational films revealed Wednesday, June 14, 2006, during its annual top-100 films television special. (AP Photo) Original Filename: FILM_AFI_INSPIRING_MOVIES_LA103.jpgGratitude can be really painful. Kind of like Rocky Balboa taking a punch. It may hurt a lot in the short run, but it will make you strong enough to win by the next fight.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: appreciation, attitude of gratitude, benefits of gratitude, Give thanks, grateful, Gratitude, James K. Abshire, Prayers, thank God

The Benefits of Relationships: Longer Lives

April 23, 2016 by Dr. James Abshire Leave a Comment

Relationships. We live in a fractured society and it seemsblog6 pic2 like that is becoming more and more the case. Families are fractured-single parent homes for instance. Liberals vs conservatives. Red states vs blue states. Politically correct vs incorrect. Everywhere public discourse is becoming less and less civil. Disagreement all over the place. Everybody has their own idea of what they think is important.

We see this in the very bizarre political season that we are going through. I was talking to a patient, “Fred”, about this and he agreed, but added that he couldn’t believe that none of the candidates were talking about the most important thing.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: benefits of relationships, close family, faith, health benefits of community ties, improve health, James K. Abshire, parental support improves health

Healthy Relationships are Healthy

April 12, 2016 by Dr. James Abshire Leave a Comment

Pblog 4 pic10eople are made to have relationships. The amazing thing is how good relationships can have a positive benefit on our physical health. Let’s look at some of the data1:

  • Married people have fewer doctor’s visits and shorter hospital stays
  • Married people have less depression, substance and alcohol abuse
  • Happily married people have lower blood pressure (unhappily married people have the worst blood pressure)
  • People with loving, stable relationships have less anxiety
  • Long term couples have less headaches and back pain
  • Social support helps stress management
  • People in loving relationships get less colds and flu
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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Benefits of Healthy relationships, faith, good support system, health benefits of marriage, James K. Abshire, show gratitude, solve life's problems

Faith and Health

April 2, 2016 by Dr. James Abshire Leave a Comment

In the last blog, we looked at the benefits of faith on physical health. Now I’d like to turn to the interaction of faith and mental health.

A number of studies have looked at the benefits of faith on mental health. These studies are generally examining people who attend church on a fairly regular and weekly basis. A summary of these mental health benefits is listed below:faith 11

* Better social support1

* Better insight to medical condition and more compliant with medication2

* Lower rates of suicide3

* Improved coping skills4

* Protection against depression5

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: benefits of church attendance, benefits of faith on health, depresstion faith, faith mental health, James K. Abshire, Live Love and Let Go, Prayers

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