Health for a Lifetime

Stress And Relaxation

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Don Mackintosh, Skip MacCarty

Home

Series Code: HFAL

Program Code: HFAL000092


00:47 Hello and welcome to "Health for a Lifetime"
00:49 I'm your host Don Mackintosh
00:51 Are you relaxed?
00:52 You should be... that's what our guest is going to
00:54 share with us today and how to do that!
00:56 We're glad that Skip MacCarty,
00:58 Dr. Skip MacCarty, Fellow of the American College of Stress
01:02 is with us today.
01:03 He's going to be sharing really
01:05 how we can RELAX. Isn't that right? Right
01:07 You know, I've heard a lot about
01:09 type A, type B personalities,
01:11 does this have anything to do with relaxation?
01:13 Well, it has something to do with stress,
01:15 and this series on stress
01:17 and relaxation is a component of that...
01:19 But yes, type A, type B personality is very interesting
01:22 how that was discovered by 2 cardiologists,
01:24 Dr. Meyer Friedman and Ron Rosenman
01:26 And there was an upholsterer that was going around the city
01:29 just upholstering different office furniture,
01:32 and he happened to mention to them...
01:34 He said, "Yours is the only office I find where the
01:37 arm rests on your chairs, the end of those arm rests
01:40 are clawed!
01:41 And, of course, they're doing all these open heart surgeries
01:44 and they started talking about that and saying...
01:46 "I wonder if our patients are really different,
01:47 if they're just nervous or what"
01:49 And they did this research and then came out with
01:52 the type A, type B personality characteristics.
01:55 The type A personality is someone who is
01:58 highly competitive.
02:00 They are competitive even if they're playing a table game
02:04 with their kids; they go out to WIN.
02:06 Very time-urgent, trying to pack as many things as possible
02:10 into the shortness period of time as possible;
02:11 aggressive, very ambitious.
02:14 They feel guilty relaxing; they have a hard time relaxing
02:18 because they feel they need to be accomplishing something
02:20 They're not accomplishing something when they're relaxing.
02:22 Impatient, kind of hostile.
02:24 The toughest thing... the hardest thing on a
02:26 type A person is a type B person ... a more relaxed-type person.
02:29 And they're very fast-action in speech.
02:31 If you ever talk to somebody and you get in the middle of a
02:34 sentence... you kind of lose your train,
02:36 they'll finish the sentence for you... apply the missing word!
02:39 And because of this, because they're so demanding
02:43 of other people and also demanding of themselves,
02:45 they tend to be somewhat socially isolated
02:48 because it's hard to be around them for very long.
02:51 You're not a type A person are you?
02:53 You have to ask my wife,
02:55 but on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest
03:00 you can be on a type A,
03:02 we both rank me about an 8... Yeah
03:05 So, a type B person, what are they like?
03:08 Well, type B would just about be the reverse of the type A
03:13 They're more easy-going, more relaxed.
03:17 They are easily satisfied more;
03:19 they play for fun, not necessarily just to win.
03:23 They are much easier to roll with the punches.
03:26 They're not compulsively driven; they are still successful.
03:29 A study of 100 government leaders found that
03:32 40% of them were type B
03:34 So it doesn't mean you're not successful if you're type B;
03:37 it just means you're not DRIVEN compulsively.
03:39 They don't try to cram as many events as they
03:43 possibly can into a limited period of time...
03:45 That's the type B person.
03:46 And none of us, Don, are totally type A...
03:48 well - some people may be totally type A
03:50 I have some people tell me they are 11 on a scale of 1-10 type A
03:53 And very few people are down at #1
03:55 We're somewhere usually in-between.
03:57 And, you're the type A-enders or the type B-enders
04:01 So, in other words, on this show I see that there is
04:04 absolutely no upholstery left here on these.
04:06 You have relaxed people.
04:10 Okay, so type A... just really going for it all the time;
04:13 type B... more laid-back but still we need to be
04:17 a mix or we need to...
04:19 Yeah, well if you're type A, you need to be aware
04:22 that Dr. Meyer Friedman and Dr. Ron Rosenman did research
04:25 on 3,000 patients and found that you were 70% more likely
04:30 to have open heart surgery and a heart attack
04:34 if you were type A, a high-end type A
04:37 So you need to build some things into your lifestyle
04:41 that will buffer the effects of being type A.
04:44 Now, you have a seminar that's entitled "Stress Beyond Coping"
04:49 and you became a fellow of the American Institute of Stress
04:52 as a result of this seminar...
04:53 What do you tell people that are type A?
04:56 As I'm listening to you, I think, and probably my wife
04:58 is thinking too right now...
05:00 You know, he really needs to be listening to this,
05:02 this is one of those tapes she'll have playing
05:03 when I come home maybe.
05:05 What should a type A person do?
05:06 Well a goal, Don, of all stress management;
05:10 one of the goals is what I call the "Concord Factor"
05:14 The Concord was the British transatlantic flight airplane
05:18 that still, even though... subsequent even to the crash
05:23 of Paris in the year 2000,
05:25 the Concord is still the safest plane ever built,
05:28 and it flies at supersonic speeds.
05:30 When it's traveling at supersonic speeds,
05:33 it can be 69 degrees outside the plane,
05:37 but the shell, because of the friction cutting through
05:39 the atmosphere is 261 degrees+ F
05:44 It is minus 69 on the outside, a difference of over 300 degrees
05:48 and it puts great strain on the plane.
05:51 The body actually lengthens by several inches,
05:56 and to accommodate that, the coach on the inside is built
06:00 on rollers and they have 4 huge air-conditioners,
06:04 so you're in living room comfort on the inside
06:06 while all this turbulence is on the outside,
06:08 and one of the goals of stress management is
06:10 to achieve a peace and tranquility within
06:13 while there is great turbulence and distress outwardly.
06:15 We need to be like the Concord.
06:17 Be somewhat like the Concord... right!
06:19 All right, so anything else we should do?
06:23 Well, the way to get to the Concord is relaxation,
06:28 and relaxation is... there are 7 keys to managing stress
06:31 And going back to the stress tank that we've
06:33 developed in another program...
06:36 The 7 keys to managing stress that prevent the
06:43 build-up of stress in our lives, in our stress-tank, so-to-speak,
06:47 to the overflow point is relaxation.
06:50 One of those keys is relaxation, a very important one on charts
06:52 So that releases the pressure. Right!
06:55 And if we look at the stress pyramid,
07:00 relaxation is about halfway at the stress pyramid
07:03 with the most important being at the top,
07:06 and working down from there...
07:07 relaxation is a very important component.
07:09 All the stress experts...
07:11 In fact, there are 19 different corporate wellness programs
07:14 studied by Dr. Richard Lazarus,
07:15 and 12 of them taught ONLY relaxation techniques...
07:18 So relaxation is VERY important for stress management.
07:20 So we need education in how to relax... We all do - we all do.
07:26 All right... Do you ever feel guilty when you're relaxing?
07:30 Yes, but you know, I've learned and one of the things that
07:34 makes it hard for type A people to relax is that
07:38 they feel like they need to be accomplishing something.
07:40 When you're relaxing, you're not accomplishing something.
07:42 But when you realize the importance of relaxation,
07:45 and that with relaxation you are accomplishing something
07:48 And, in fact, because it's benefiting your health,
07:52 you're at a health risk if you don't learn how to relax.
07:55 Last night I was staying in a place where I
07:58 think some people were really relaxing;
08:00 they were laughing almost uproariously
08:02 until about 12 o'clock and I mean
08:05 just listening to them laugh, kind of made me laugh sometimes.
08:08 What about humor, does it help us at all with relaxation?
08:12 Humor is #1 on the scale of relaxation.
08:15 Is that right? Yep!
08:21 Humor is SO important.
08:22 If you've ever been in a tense situation,
08:24 and you know how... Well you're a great one at that!
08:27 You enjoy laughing, you love laughing,
08:29 and that's a great tension-reliever.
08:31 Abraham Lincoln was great at that.
08:33 One time he was debating with Douglas,
08:36 and Douglas accused him of being two-faced...
08:39 And when Lincoln got back up,
08:40 he said, "Now come on folks, if I was two-faced,
08:42 would I be wearing this one?"
08:46 And relaxation is tremendous...
08:48 Dr. William Fry at Stanford University,
08:51 likens it to internal jogging.
08:54 It gives your internal organs a workout!
08:58 And you actually tense-up during relaxation...
09:01 During a good belly laugh, you tense up,
09:03 and then they've found that the relaxation effects
09:08 subsequent to a good laugh, can last as long as 45 minutes.
09:13 Wow, so a merry heart does do good like a medicine!
09:15 And there's a book called "Don't Get Angry, Laugh"
09:24 Or "Don't Get Angry, Get Funny"
09:27 And, it talks about the misery index.
09:29 Have you ever been in a situation where you
09:32 were in a very difficult and distressing situation,
09:36 and then later on, you could look back and laugh at it?
09:37 Oh yeah, just last week!
09:39 Well, the misery index is the length of time it takes
09:45 between when you go through a situation like that
09:46 and when you can laugh at it.
09:48 And the goal, the great goal in stress management
09:51 is to get that index as short as you can until
09:55 you can actually be in a situation that's very difficult.
09:57 You can say, "Some day we're going to laugh at this,
09:59 and being able to laugh while you are
10:02 actually in that situation... And if you do that too soon,
10:04 they're going to think that maybe you need
10:05 to go to a certain type of institution
10:07 where there are lots of people with pink coats
10:09 and whatnot around you!
10:10 But it can be healthy to be able to do that.
10:12 Yeah, I agree with that!
10:14 I think that's a great point.
10:17 All right, so anything else we should do?
10:20 Well, there is just relaxation breathing,
10:23 a very simple thing but it's belly-breathing.
10:25 And when you watch a little baby breathe,
10:27 its little tummy goes up and down, it's laying on its back,
10:30 we learn when we're adolescents,
10:32 it's not too cute walking around
10:33 and have our little tummies going in and out,
10:34 so we learn chest-breathing.
10:36 But when we breathe with our bellies, let our bellies expand,
10:41 it drops the diaphragm and we can actually
10:44 take a lot more air in,
10:46 then we can chest-breathe as well, get a good deep breath,
10:49 and even in just 15 seconds, taking a GOOD deep breath,
10:52 holding it for just a few seconds,
10:54 and then letting it out slowly, can bring tremendous relief.
11:00 Dr. Robert Elliot was 40 years old,
11:03 he was chief of cardiology at the University of Nebraska,
11:05 had a heart attack. Well that's not good.
11:07 He then went into stress medicine,
11:09 and he is now director of stress medicine at Denver, Colorado.
11:12 He wrote this, "Chest breathing, the most common,
11:15 tends to be rapid and shallow especially under stress.
11:18 The slow, regular deep breaths characteristic of
11:20 abdominal breathing, on the other hand,
11:22 are associated with physical calm. "
11:24 "There's a good deal of evidence that when people
11:26 switch from chest to abdominal breathing,
11:28 even temporarily, emotional and physical distress
11:32 diminished significantly. "
11:34 He wrote an excellent book on stress called,
11:36 "Is It Worth Dying For"
11:38 I think we should just take a couple of deep breaths right now
11:40 Sounds good... Boy, that does feel good.
11:44 Now in your seminar, I also noticed that you talked
11:46 a lot about "Islands of Peace"
11:48 Is that some place in Hawaii or some place we can go?
11:51 A nice atmosphere... is that what you mean?
11:54 Or what are "Islands of Peace?"
11:55 Well, "Islands of Peace" can be a whole series of things.
11:58 They can be just taking a walk;
12:05 taking a short nap; taking a lunch break;
12:09 taking a deep-breathing break.
12:11 Changing what you're doing and doing something else.
12:13 ...Taking a vacation, taking a day off.
12:15 If you take a vacation, you want to plan to
12:17 come back a couple of days early because
12:19 most vacations are fairly stressful...
12:20 You need an "Island of Peace"
12:22 from your "Island of Peace" That's right!
12:23 The Sabbath is a great Island of Peace that God has given to us.
12:28 There's a book written by a Notre Dame graduate,
12:31 Marva Dawn called, "Keeping the Sabbath Holy"
12:34 and she talks about the importance of the Sabbath
12:35 and she tells a story in there about pioneers
12:39 going over the Oregon Trail...
12:40 And they were trying to get to the west before winter set in...
12:45 going through the Midwest and so they were debating
12:48 whether they should keep the Sabbath or not,
12:50 and they split up into 2 groups;
12:53 1 group thought they couldn't afford to keep the Sabbath,
12:55 the other group thought they would keep the Sabbath.
12:57 Interestingly enough, the ones that got to the west first
13:00 was the group that kept the Sabbath.
13:02 The Sabbath is a... it comes back to us;
13:04 that rest and relaxation comes back to us.
13:06 I remember when I was in school, after each class
13:08 I'd go up and I'd run up and I'd go through the
13:10 parking lot and come back around...
13:12 Well, it didn't really help me much in school,
13:14 but I felt a lot better! Exactly
13:15 And that's the kind of thing
13:17 you're talking about, "Island of Peace"... Yep
13:18 Another thing I noticed here that was fascinating to me,
13:21 of course coming from a healthcare background was
13:23 "Making peace with your environment"
13:25 This is so important, Don, making peace with your
13:27 environment... it simply means taking things that are
13:30 distracting to you and turning them into friends.
13:32 I was traveling across country from Salt Lake City
13:34 to Lincoln, Nebraska one time;
13:36 I was too poor to get a motel and too cheap to get a motel.
13:40 I stopped at a rest stop midway;
13:42 I was so tired, it was in the middle of the night,
13:43 rolled the window down a little bit because it was
13:45 in the summertime, early summer, to get a little fresh air,
13:49 and then there were like 20 trucks lined up behind me
13:52 just droning away, going like crazy.
13:54 Diesels you mean and that smell too and everything.
13:56 They don't turn off, man, because it too hard
13:58 to turn them back on, so they're just going all night.
14:00 And I'm thinking to myself, I'll never get to sleep this way.
14:03 But you know what, I thought that through,
14:06 and I thought, "Any of those guys could wake up at any time,
14:09 it's not very safe me being here in the middle of the night
14:11 with my window rolled down"
14:12 "But with those guys likely to wake up at any time with
14:15 their CBs, calling for help, I'm probably pretty safe here"
14:19 So then that sound of those diesels droning away
14:22 became music and put me right to sleep.
14:24 Making peace with your environment,
14:25 turning distractions into friends.
14:27 I think the same thing in the hospital...
14:28 I'd take care of patients and they had all those
14:30 monitors going off and different things,
14:32 and they'd say, "Can't we turn these off?"
14:34 I'd say, "If you turn those off, that's a bad sign. "
14:36 "You want those to keep beeping!"
14:38 And a lot of patients would say, "Hey, you know,
14:40 that really helped" They made peace with it then.
14:43 That's exactly the point!
14:45 We've been talking with Dr. Skip MacCarty
14:47 He has written a seminar called "Stress Beyond Coping"
14:50 He is a fellow of the American Institute of Stress
14:54 and we hope that what you have been learning
14:56 has been helpful to you,
14:57 and we hope you join us when we come back.
15:01 Have you found yourself wishing
15:02 that you could shed a few pounds?
15:04 Have you been on a diet for most of your life
15:06 but not found anything that will really keep the weight off?
15:10 If you've answered "yes" to any of these questions,
15:12 then we have a solution for you that works!
15:15 Dr. Hans Diehl and Dr. Aileen Ludington
15:18 have written a marvelous booklet called...
15:20 "Reversing Obesity Naturally"
15:22 and we'd like to send it to you FREE of charge.
15:25 Here's a medically sound approach successfully
15:28 used by thousands who were able to eat more
15:30 and lose weight permanently without feeling guilty or hungry
15:34 through lifestyle medicine.
15:36 Dr. Diehl and Dr. Ludington have been featured on 3ABN
15:39 and in this booklet, they present a sensible approach
15:42 to eating, nutrition and lifestyle changes
15:45 that can help you prevent heart disease, diabetes,
15:47 and EVEN cancer.
15:48 Call or write today for your free copy of...
15:51 "Reversing Obesity Naturally"
15:52 and you could be on your way to a healthier, happier YOU!
15:56 It's ABSOLUTELY free of charge, so call or write today.
16:02 Welcome back, we're talking with Dr. Skip MacCarty
16:04 He is a fellow with the "American Institute of Stress"
16:07 and we've been learning some really interesting things
16:10 about how to relax!
16:11 You know doctor, sometimes I find it very hard to relax;
16:14 my schedule just doesn't seem to allow for it. What should I do?
16:17 Well you're right, we just all have to make a commitment
16:20 to plan lighter days when we get into those kinds of situations.
16:23 Dr. Meyer Friedman, the one
16:25 who was with Dr. Ray Rosenman
16:28 discovered type A, type B personality,
16:31 and wrote the book on it.
16:35 He had a heart attack when he was fairly young.
16:38 He was just pushing, pushing himself.
16:39 He was a type A himself.
16:41 And he said that he came up with what he called
16:44 the 5-year rule...
16:46 And that is when he was asked to do something,
16:49 he would ask himself... "Will this matter in 5 years?"
16:52 He said that thinned out his calendar considerably
16:54 because he was saying no to so many things.
16:57 You know Don, in World War II, talking about this very issue,
17:01 the British people, when they converted their factories over
17:07 to war munitions factories and making war machines,
17:12 their average worker got up to 66 hours a week of work.
17:16 And they found that their quality had gone way down,
17:19 their productivity was dropping.
17:21 Just as government policy began to cut back the work hours,
17:23 they got it back to 48 hours, and found that
17:26 productivity had increased by 5% over 66 hours!
17:30 By actually working less, they accomplished more...
17:31 And the quality had gone back up to a very high degree of quality
17:34 So actually, the idea that working more - accomplishes more
17:39 has a limit, because after a certain point,
17:42 we actually accomplish LESS by working more;
17:44 don't enjoy it as much and we actually
17:47 come up with a poor quality product.
17:49 So less is more?
17:50 To a point, that's right.
17:53 You know, I think that one thing you've just shared now
17:55 is going to make a lot of people want to get this tape.
17:57 They're going to be showing it to their bosses.
17:59 They're going to show it to all these different people.
18:01 What about exercise and relaxation?
18:04 Well it's interesting, exercise is one of the things
18:06 we need to be able to relax.
18:08 You'd think the opposite of that
18:10 but have you ever been so tired you couldn't sleep?
18:13 So tired you couldn't sleep... Maybe you haven't
18:16 Yes, I have, I have. Yeah
18:17 I have too and we can do that if we're just doing
18:20 desk-type work because we get mentally
18:22 fatigued but not physically fatigued.
18:25 What exercise does, it brings a physical fatigue,
18:27 even if you exercise earlier in the day...
18:28 There's a physical fatigue that accompanies exercise
18:32 that enables you to relax.
18:34 After you're tensed up, after you exercise,
18:35 you have a deeper relaxation of response for hours afterwards
18:42 Did you sleep better last night after our 5 mile walk?
18:45 I slept much better after our 5 mile walk!
18:47 Oh man, I did too! It was great!
18:48 So that's what we need to do...
18:50 Especially if we're doing brain work. Exactly!
18:54 How much should we sleep when we go to sleep?
18:56 Research shows, Don, that we need between
18:59 7-8 hours sleep to be the BEST.
19:03 People who sleep less than that or more than that
19:06 actually die at a higher rate than those who sleep 7-8 hours
19:10 But the rule of thumb is that if you're waking
19:16 to an alarm clock, you're not getting enough sleep.
19:19 You need to wake BEFORE the alarm goes off.
19:22 Throw those alarm clocks out... That's right
19:24 This is good news for lots of people!
19:27 And, in fact, the only way that I found to accomplish that
19:31 is to manage the night before.
19:33 You can't set the alarm earlier
19:35 or just set the alarm later, that doesn't work.
19:37 You've got to try going to bed a little bit earlier
19:40 the night before.
19:41 Turn off the TV program a little earlier;
19:43 turn on the VCR and tape it if you have to or whatever
19:45 But go to sleep a little bit earlier the night before,
19:48 and keep doing that - still set the alarm at the time
19:49 you need to get up but the alarm should be the fail-safe.
19:52 You should be waking before the alarm.
19:54 Then your body has had this sleep that it needs
19:56 and you're ready to go to work.
19:59 Did you have teenagers?
20:00 Yes, I had teenagers. I had 6 of them!
20:03 Would you trust this with them... no alarm clock
20:06 Well if they were... I didn't trust myself
20:12 as a teenager with no alarm clock...
20:15 So YOU were their alarm clock probably at that time...
20:17 But we need to go to bed earlier so we can get up.
20:19 Any types of things that can help us relax?
20:22 Yes, there is a whole series of fun things
20:28 that I refer to as relaxation devices
20:31 and I've got some of them here.
20:33 Just little things I pick up that just relax me
20:35 that can sit on my desk at work.
20:37 This is a little stress ball.
20:39 There are all kinds of stress balls and you take it,
20:41 and just play with it at work. Let me see that...
20:45 Here's an herbal tea, a stress tea that my wife just loves.
20:49 That doesn't look like a stress tea.
20:51 It's a stress tea, it's an herbal tea.
20:52 Better get a close-up of that. I don't know if it works.
20:55 But even just the thought of it,
20:56 you know... you're drinking a stress tea!
20:58 My wife loves the stress tea here.
20:59 This does say, "Rx Stress Relief Elixir"
21:02 on the bottle... Actually it does!
21:05 And this is a back rubber.
21:07 You rub this up and down on your back,
21:09 and it really is quite... Someone gave this to me
21:11 at the end of a seminar that we did,
21:13 and it really is VERY comfortable.
21:14 I didn't even know how to use it but in one of my last seminars,
21:17 somebody taught me how to use this and it's wonderful.
21:19 Excellent! Are these gifts for the host?
21:22 They're not gifts for the host.
21:25 They are demonstrations.
21:26 There are all kinds of cards...
21:29 Here's one... "The best things in life aren't things"
21:32 And you just put a few of these things around on your...
21:34 "I know God won't give me anything I can't handle,
21:36 I just wish He didn't trust me so much. "
21:38 Mother Teresa either wrote that or she actually said that
21:41 but that was a card that came that way.
21:43 So these are kind of a little humorous antidotes
21:45 that make you just put things in perspective. Yeah
21:47 Somebody in one of my seminars,
21:50 in a little show-and-tell time we had,
21:51 came up with just a little post-it thing.
21:54 So how did that help you sleep?
21:55 Well, she puts this by her bedside
21:57 because she gets ideas in the middle of the night sometimes.
21:59 And she puts this by her bedside with a pen,
22:02 and she can even, in the dark, just write enough
22:05 to be able to read it the next morning,
22:06 then she can just turn off that idea and go to sleep
22:08 instead of laying there hoping she remembers it
22:10 by morning time. Excellent idea!
22:12 Here was a little something that we got at our church
22:18 It's a free sample card and it was one of these
22:23 ...It sounds like they personalized it but it says,
22:26 "Dear Pioneer Memorial Church:
22:27 We haven't a clue as to why you haven't sent for your
22:30 free sample pair of Silkies
22:32 Panty Hose, Mrs. Pioneer Memorial Church"
22:35 And they say they've got our size
22:37 and everything - so it's written to the church.
22:39 So this is a stress reliever because it was humorous.
22:42 It's humorous, that's exactly right.
22:44 It's just a little something, a little device!
22:47 Have you ever seen the manatees? Yeah!
22:49 They're absolutely wonderful.
22:51 They're like huge elephants in the sea.
22:53 Down at Sea World of San Diego,
22:55 we saw the manatees and just watching them
22:58 just drained stress out of my life,
22:59 so we bought this little thing, I put it on my desk;
23:01 when I look at that, I tell you what, if it's in a tense time,
23:04 you just feel the stress draining out of you.
23:06 Look at those eyes, don't those look beautiful?
23:09 I don't know if this is going to work for you folks,
23:11 but...
23:12 I love this, we picked this up at
23:14 Union Station in Washington, DC
23:16 It has the most relaxing colors; it's a kaleidoscope,
23:19 and it's the most beautiful colors...
23:21 And you get in a tense time, you pick that up
23:23 and just sit back for a couple of minutes and relax...
23:27 It's wonderful, it does wonderful things for you.
23:29 I'll be back with you in a minute.
23:31 These are some stress-reducing videos - Moody Bible Institute.
23:35 They've got wonderful ones here at 3ABN as well.
23:38 And one of my favorites is what they call a "stress pencil"
23:41 I ordered it out of a magazine one time.
23:43 You're in the middle of a tense meeting and you pull out
23:45 your stress pencil... It actually says on it
23:46 "My stress pencil" and on the other end,
23:48 it's got a little something... a pacifier!
23:52 So there are all kinds of fun relaxation devices
23:55 you can use to help lower the stress levels at serious times.
23:58 I've got to say that this is probably a first
23:59 on "Health for a Lifetime"
24:01 These are very helpful ideas.
24:03 So relaxation devices, anything else?
24:07 I mean, could there be anything else after this?
24:09 Well Don, the real key is... What relaxes you?
24:13 Do you know what relaxes you? I do
24:15 And do you do it? Yes I do... That's perfect!
24:19 And everybody has to ask
24:20 that question... What is it that relaxes me?
24:22 We did a little remodeling here a while back,
24:24 and my wife got herself a Jacuzzi bathtub.
24:26 She absolutely LOVES it.
24:28 And she's in that thing every night.
24:30 She spends maybe 20 minutes in that thing every night
24:32 just relaxing.
24:33 She has a high-stress job in her work.
24:36 Another thing we put in that I didn't know I was
24:38 going to like so much is a gas log fireplace.
24:41 They make them now so beautiful, they look like real logs.
24:44 It's not like the old gas log fireplace.
24:46 I didn't think I was going to like it, but you know what?
24:49 Every night when I come home in the winter
24:50 or as soon as it gets cool enough
24:52 I turn that thing on the first thing when I get home
24:54 I turn it on the first thing in the morning,
24:56 and I just sit there and read.
24:57 I just absolutely love that gas log fireplace.
24:59 So what relaxes you and then do it.
25:01 Anything that relaxes you except it can't be harmful to you,
25:03 it can't be comfort foods or something like that. Right!
25:06 It needs to be something that's along with the 7 Keys
25:09 you've been talking about in the Beyond Coping Seminar. Exactly
25:13 You have down here the Serenity Prayer.
25:16 Don, the Serenity Prayer is SO awesome!
25:19 I've had people tell me several weeks into our seminar
25:22 ...our stress seminar that they weren't sleeping
25:25 before they came but now they are.
25:27 And it's amazing to me the power the Serenity Prayer has.
25:30 One lady told me, I just repeat the Serenity Prayer to me
25:34 every night before I go to bed.
25:35 The Serenity Prayer - when people ask me,
25:38 "Give me one idea, just one idea"
25:39 They hear I do something on stress and they say,
25:41 "Give me one idea on stress"
25:42 I always start with the Serenity Prayer.
25:44 When someone comes to me under a lot of stress,
25:46 and they want some help, get some ideas,
25:48 and some counsel or something,
25:49 and I listen to their story...
25:51 One of the first things I do, after I assess the resources
25:55 that they have available to them,
25:56 is try to apply the Serenity Prayer.
25:57 The Serenity Prayer is very simple.
25:59 Many people know it, it simply goes like this...
26:13 And so many people, Don, are wearing themselves out
26:16 fighting against things they cannot change;
26:19 struggling against those things;
26:21 trying to change things they cannot change.
26:22 They're dissipating their energies.
26:24 They have no energy left to work on the things
26:26 they really can do something about...
26:28 which often are internal things.
26:31 And the Serenity Prayer is not a VOW we make or
26:37 a strong commitment where we grit our teeth
26:39 I'm going to accept the things I cannot change...
26:41 I'm going to be tough here! No
26:43 It's releasing those things. It's a prayer.
26:45 We release them into the hands
26:47 of somebody who can do something about them.
26:49 And just rest in that; we have confidence in that.
26:52 Maybe what we can do is very small.
26:54 The little change we can make is small.
26:57 But concentrating on the change we can make
26:59 and then focusing on that; continuing to pray that prayer;
27:02 continuing to ask God to help us know the difference
27:06 between what we can change and what we can't change
27:08 can bring such peace and such deep relaxation that
27:12 really brings the whole concept of relaxation
27:13 into another whole realm.
27:15 So in your seminar it probably helps them get the
27:17 wisdom to know the difference.
27:19 Well, that's one of the things we do work on, yes.
27:22 And this seminar, by the way, is available through the
27:24 Health Ministries Department of the General Conference.
27:26 We've been talking with Dr. Skip MacCarty
27:29 He has written a new seminar called, "Stress Beyond Coping"
27:33 As a result, he was given a fellowship with the
27:37 "American Institute of Stress"
27:39 and has really gone around the country
27:41 sharing these concepts with others.
27:42 We hope that this material has been a blessing to you,
27:45 and that as a result of today's program, you can find fun ways
27:48 to relax and that you can make that a priority in your daily
27:52 schedule and that you'll have
27:54 Health that Lasts for a Lifetime!


Home

Revised 2014-12-17