Feeling the love, healing with love

If you’ve been knocked back by a heart attack, stroke, or other serious illness or injury, the road to recovery can feel endless. A top doctor offers suggestions for healing body and spirit.

When you’re recovering from a serious illness—or a chronic disease that’s been acting up—you may need more than medical attention to get well. Even if you’ve taken your medication exactly as prescribed and followed your doctor’s directions to a T, you still may not feel your best. That’s because your healing journey doesn’t end when you leave the hospital or doctor’s office. In fact, that’s when it really begins.

This is the time to dig deeper, to care for yourself as a parent would care for a much-loved child. How can you do this? One way, according to a new book, is to surround yourself with love. Health Monitor spoke with Julie Silver, MD, author of Super Healing (Rodale Books, 2007) about how people can use love to maximize the body’s healing power. Below, Dr. Silver talks about the importance of loving yourself and surrounding yourself with loving people.

Love Yourself
“It may not be easy to give yourself permission to take the time to heal. You probably have a lot of responsibilities and people counting on you. The fact is, most of us are better at nurturing others than at nurturing ourselves. If you find it difficult to take the time to nurture yourself, you’re in good company. Many wonderful people are not good self-nurturers. Nevertheless, it’s important to try to change this as you mend.”

The three keys to healing
Here, Dr. Silver answers questions about some of the issues discussed in her book.

Q: Your Super Healing plan en¬¬compasses so many aspects of life, from exercise and diet to spiritual energy and loving relationships. What are the three most important things you can do to heal from a serious illness?

A: Therapeutic exercise; getting adequate, good-quality sleep; and following a diet focused on helping you heal. Exercising in a therapeutic manner means not doing things that wear you out. Instead, you should do exercise designed to build strength and endurance. You could start by calculating how many steps you take each day with a goal of eventually reaching 10,000 steps daily. Many factors—worry, pain or other physical symptoms—adversely affect sleep when you are sick. Getting adequate sleep boosts the immune system, increases energy, and helps with physical recovery. Finally, you should eat to heal your body. Habits that may have worked in the past, such as skipping breakfast, using coffee as a pick-me-up, or just climbing an extra set of stairs for exercise, will not work as well when you are trying to heal. You must make a concerted effort to do the things that really facilitate healing.

The time to heal is now
Q: If someone I care for refuses to slow down and take time to heal, how can I help them?

A: I always stress that taking the time to heal is not only a way of nurturing yourself, it is also a way of nurturing everyone you care about. The healthier and stronger you are, the more you are able to nurture others. Most people have a long to-do list, but a lot of what they have on that list is not all that important. A person who is healing needs to evaluate her priorities, look at her to-do list, and bump healing to the top.

How love heals
Love and connection physically help people have better health when they are healing. -- Julie Silver, MD

You may be wondering what the scientific literature has to say about how love and connection support the healing process. You may also want to know what happens to physical recovery when people who are not nurturing and supportive surround you. Could the toxic people in your life—and most of us have them—keep you from healing optimally? Health Monitor asked Dr. Silver about these important issues.

Q: In your book you discuss a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry that explores the connection between personal relationships and physical healing. Can you talk about this research?

A: One of the things this study looked at was whether a bad marriage negatively impacts health. We know that a good marriage actually helps health, but they wanted to find out whether a bad marriage could harm it. According to this study, the answer is yes. Researchers rated couples based on how they interacted. They looked at whether the couples were good at problem solving, and whether they seemed to have a loving or a contentious relationship. Couples that had a more loving relationship healed faster. That’s not surprising; we know that stress tends to make wounds heal more slowly, and being in a relationship that is not loving and nurturing is stressful. This doesn’t mean that if you are trying to heal you should necessarily leave your spouse. There may be other people in your life who are more able to nurture you. Spend more time with them so you get the support you need.

To start your healing journey, begin with small steps; here are some suggestions to get you started…

Creative Activities

• Draw or paint a picture.
• Write a letter, e-mail, journal entry, poem or short story.
• Play a musical instrument.
• Mind-Enhancing Activities
• Do a jigsaw or crossword puzzle.
• Read a good book or magazine.
• Mind-Body Activities
• Listen to music, talk radio, audio books, or a relaxation tape.
• Perform deep breathing and relaxation exercises.