Inspiring everyone to be healthy

We are all on a journey in life. As we walk through this journey we have to realize that God has a plan for each one of us. He wants us to be great and be a great influence on others. 
My name is Dr. Pawel Pyrda. I have retired after being in healthcare for about 14 years and during that time I have helped thousands of people to get back on track in their journey for better health. Both of my parents have passed away at a much younger age than what is expected. My dad was 59 and my mom was 63. They have always worked hard and ate what is typically considered a standard diet. As children, we quickly learned from them that it's ok to eat on the run and hard work took precedence over family time. As with many Americans, vacation time was limited to the 2 weeks that their employer gave them time off for. This was nice but the equation does not add up. How could 50 weeks of stress be erased with just 2 weeks of vacation. What is even worse is that a majority of Americans do not even take their 2 weeks vacation because of a number of reasons cited in the research. For the people that are employed, 78% of them either dislike or hate their job. That's roughly 4 out of 5 people going to work and being miserable.

At what point will you become so frustrated with being sick and tired that you will get inspired enough to make a change in what you are doing? Maybe today is the day for that change. 

Exercise was something that was never mentioned or "needed" because "we are always busy and moving around at work". Why is that not enough or not effective? Is it possible that jumping to conclusions and beating around the bush is not enough to burn the calories that we eat? 

We have entered the technology age, where we don't have to do physical labor in order to feed our families any more. We are able to drive to the drive thru and order food that has been farmed, prepared and processed by somebody else. We have gotten away from eating food and instead now eat things that are no longer grown but are chemically synthesized in the lab. Most of the items on the ingredient labels are no longer words that we can pronounce and most of the time are not substances that we would be able to find at a farmers market.

Cancer is another thing that was rare 20 years ago and now, it has touched the life of so many people around us. If it has not touched your family directly, look at your neighbors or friends, I am sure you will find somebody that has been touched by it.

Split families....
Divorce, infidelity, and break-ups have become so common in todays' society that it is becoming more of the norm. There is nobody that is shielded from its effects any more.  Is it possible that in this world of instant gratification, we have become impatient, or is it possible that we have just become lazy and don't want to put forth the effort necessary to make it happen. God has made it necessary for two people to get together to make babies because He knows how difficult it is to raise children alone. Some parents have become more child like and they retreat from their responsibilities by playing video games and hiding behind electronic devices. Parents want to be cool and they let their children be in charge. The kids make the rules and based on what their peers are doing, they pressure their parents into believing that this is the norm and that it is socially acceptable to be like the other dysfunctional families.

Be different! Being normal sucks. Being normal means that you will have 2 and a half children, 2 pets and will be overweight or obese. Being normal means that you will be on 11 different medications by the time you reach retirement age, that is if you live long enough to retire. Two out of three people that reach retirement age will still be living from pay check to paycheck and will not actually be able to "retire". The reality of being normal truly does suck.

The good news is that you can change this by taking small steps every day and by thanking God for what you already have.

Do something great..... God is amazing!

What's stopping you from doing something great? Fear of failure stops a lot of people and it may not even be that you fear failure yourself but it may be that you are fearing the fact that God may see you as a failure if you don't totally follow through with it or stop short. Some people are just embarrassed to be doing something they’re uncertain about. They’re afraid of being rejected or appearing foolish. Realize that you have an amazing support system, people that will help you if you ask, people that will guide you in areas where you are uncertain and people that will help finish the job in areas that you are weak in. God has his hand on all of us and loves us. Take that blessing and do something great with it!

Research proves the importance of religion in your health!

Want to live longer ? Medical research from the national Institute of Healthcare Research in America that was published in June of 2000 suggests you might be better attending church than going to the gym.

The analysis of 42 research studies investigating the role of religion in health, in which 126,000 people were interviewed, has established that religious involvement was helpful in the prevention of specific medical problems such as cancer, heart disease and mental illness. For example, the religious have lower blood pressure than the non-religious, but this is the first study to examine so comprehensively perhaps the most definitive measure of health : how long you live.

"The odds of survival for people who rated higher on measures of public and private religious involvement were 29% higher than those people who scored lower on such measures", said the psychologist Dr. Michael McCullough, who was the lead author.

The results indicated that involvement in public religious activity was particularly important in predicting mortality. In other words, although those who say they are religious are likely to live a little longer than those who profess no religious beliefs, the real health benefits of religion kick in most significantly when religious activities such as regular church attendance is involved. Even within religious communities , the more you attend church, the better your health.

Another recent study included in McCullough's pooling of results, involving more than 21,000 representative American subjects, found that those who never attended church had almost twice the risk of death in the nine-year follow up period, compared with those who attended more than once a week. This translated into a seven-year difference in life expectancy at the age of 20 between those who never attend and those who attend a religious ceremony of some sort more than once a week.

"Moreover, results seemed to indicate that those people with a high level of religious involvement were also less obese", said McCullough. "In part, the effects of religious involvement on physical health variables like obesity appear to explain why religious involvement predicts reduced risk of mortality."

Many religions are proscriptive about excessive alcohol use, eating meat, drug abuse and even smoking, and this may go some way to explaining why the religious live longer.

The authors suggest that people who are actively religious also tend to take better care of themselves in several health areas, perhaps because they have greater respect for the body. It is also true, however, that many of us turn to religion only after we have already become ill, making these results even more surprising.

In addition, the health benefits of being religious may also be partly due to the social support and friendship-making derived from frequent attendance at religious services. Mental health benefits may be significant. There is a strong link between psychological and physical health - for example, depression and hostility have both been found to predict heart disease.

The meaning to life that religions offer and the sense that all injustice will ultimately be corrected by God seem to bring hope in the face of despair and so assist in coping with psychological stress.

The authors of the study speculate that the psychological benefits of religion may in particular explain why women seem to benefit much more from religious involvement than men in terms of longevity. Although both sexes live significantly longer if they take part in religions, women gain almost twice the benefit that men receive. This might be because women are twice as prone to depression as men, and may receive more psychological support from religion as a result.

A recent study from the University of Texas confirmed that long-term survival after open-heart surgery was significantly linked to positively deriving comfort from your religion. The authors of the Texas study also suggest that the religious perhaps suffer from less anxiety about death than the non-religious, thanks to a comforting belief in the afterlife, and this in itself could explain a better mortality. Perhaps becoming stressed at the prospect of death merely makes it all the more likely.

But science also finds support for the idea that religious involvement is helpful beyond the more mundane benefits of group support.


Another intriguing finding is a study from Yale University that found that the religious are much less likely to die in the month before their religious holidays. A scientific explanation is that the anticipation of a time when religious rituals will take place provides more psychological support.

McCullough, a scientist with a PhD in psychology, points out that his study does not provide any guidance on whether taking up religion in the hope of living longer had the same impact on your health as if you genuinely believed for other reasons. Specialists in the area of the health benefits of religion speculate that, if a faith is used as a means to an end, rather than being taken up purely or itself, it won’t have the same psychological impact.

McCullough argues that, as religion has been found by science to be considerably helpful in prolonging life, this is a phenomenon that deserves much more research attention than it has previously received from doctors. The effect of religion on mortality appears to be as powerful as other variables that traditionally receive more attention, such as social class and wealth.

This suggests that religion should now be routinely taken into account when doctors are trying to predict lifespan. Some Medical Doctors have now started praying with their patients as part of the routine office visit.

Could the disciplines that religious observance encourages simply achieved by being more disciplined, without having to attend all those boring sermons ?

Perhaps the answer lies in a Gallup poll of Americans that compared people in low "spiritual commitment" with highly spiritual people. The latter were twice as likely to say they were "very happy".

Religion appears to bestow on believers a contentment and resilience in the face of misfortune that is due to the hope provided by faith, with which modern medicine and psychotherapy can still, even after thousands of years, simply not compete. Increasingly close links are being uncovered between mental well-being and physical health - for example, if you feel good about yourself, you are more likely to take care of body - so it would appear that this is probably the true secret of the power of religion to extend life.


Read the complete research paper at http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/hea193211.pdf

Disclaimer:
Please understand that God has a plan for each one of us and only God knows what that plan is. There are some conditions/diseases that don't have a cure but this may be God's way of calling his children home early. Please consult a medical professional before making any changes in your lifestyle, starting a new diet , adding supplements or changing your medication. We are not giving medial advice on this website and all the information found on this website is of general nature and should be used as a source of encouragement to do more research and ask more questions. Some of the articles published on this website may have come from other sources and it is a good idea to do the research for yourself. May God Bless You.