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Mental health and Well-being: Forgiveness and Health part I

Thu, 14 Jan 2010

Recent developments in the fields of positive psychology have demonstrated forgiveness to have an important place in health care . Forgiveness research is an exciting development that has emerged over the past decade and growing exponentially.

Forgiveness is not simply psychological, but also has physiological components as well. Neuroimaging studies have identified areas of the brain that are associated with people who are both unforgiving and forgiving. There are benefits in forgiving and costs associated with unforgiving. Unforgiving is associated with anger, stress, aggression and hostility, all of which have shown to be linked to a decrease in one’s immunity. Even the brain activity during unforgiveness is consistent with brain activity during stress, anger and aggression.

Hormonal patterns in unforgiveness are consistent with hormonal patterns from negative emotions such as stress or anger, as well as changes in blood chemistry that are associated when under stress.

A persistent unforgiving attitude contribute adversely on ones physical and mental health by prolonging stress beyond the period of the original stressor, giving rise to heightened cardiovascular reactivity, impairing cardiovascular recovery even when individuals tried to focus on something else.

On the other hand granting forgiveness has been associated with a whole range of psychological and physiological benefits. Forgiveness has been associated with direct effects on our cardiovascular system. It has been found to lower heart rate and blood pressure . Best recovery rates (the time it takes for an injury to heal, e,g wounds) have been shown by those who have a forgiving traits, where as low traits of forgiveness showed the highest rates of cardiovascular reactivity and the poorest recovery rates.

Mindfulness based courses are highly effective at enabling people to deal with anxiety, fear, depression and stress. However, "Transforming Destructive Emotions" is a unique programme based around Mindfulness combined with the science of emotional intelligence and positive psychology.

Transforming Destructive Emotions can be found by clicking on the link below www.symran.com/cart/display.asp?page=8

Mindfulness courses www.symran.com/cart/sym.asp
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