What is the importance of love as it relates to your health and personal freedom? Is it possible to live up to your full potential and experience optimum health if you live in isolation, or use the people in your life only as stepping stones to get what you want?
When I began reading John Robbins’ book, Healthy at 100, I had great expectations. I had read a bit about the lives of the longest-lived people on earth, and was eager to find out all the juicy details of their daily lives, that I might get clued in a little more as to how to further impact my own health and longevity in a positive way.
I knew I would read about diet, exercise and the like; but I was surprised at Robbins’ emphasis on community and relationships. Of course I realize that people who have friends and good family relationships have a decreased risk of developing various and sundry diseases. It just never occurred to me that love might trump all else in determining how long I live in excellent health.
Upon contemplation of this idea, I began to see that love is crucial for a fulfilling life in many ways. Here are five:
1. The act of loving brings better health.
When you do something that shows love to another person, your brain releases the feel-good chemicals. These not only relieve you of stress, but provide improved mental clarity and help to boost your immune system.
2. Receiving love makes you feel more secure.
When you have someone in your life who loves you, you gain a sense of security. You therefore become more confident in yourself and your abilities, and therefore are more apt to take the necessary risks to go after your dreams and goals.
3. Loving thoughts can lengthen your life.
Your body needs to maintain a slightly alkaline state in order to be able to be at its highest state of health. Thinking loving thoughts helps to keep this alkaline state. Negative thoughts, on the other hand, turn your bodily fluids more acid, depleting your body of vital minerals and increasing your chance of developing illness and disease.
4. Love strengthens and encourages.
When you have ample loving relationships in your life, you can more easily endure and walk through life’s challenges.
5. Love conquers all.
I can’t complete and article about love without quoting from the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians: “Love never fails.” Never fails to heal. Never fails to help. Never fails to bring you back from despair. Never fails to give you the ongoing support you need to live life to the fullest.
In other words, love conquers all. When your heart is full of love, and you are surrounded by loving people, you can overcome anything because you have the greatest source of strength in the universe.
Still, there are other principles to follow in order to have optimum health. Check out my e-book Weird Health to learn how you can have a longer, healthier life than everyone else you know.
