The Secret Of A Healthy Lifestyle

Contemporary researchers have taken pains to document a truth which the Bible first established: human beings are an integrated whole. What we often divide into the physical, mental, social, and spiritual parts of a person are really interrelated and inseparable. In other words, what affects the mind, affects the body. Our spiritual condition has an impact on our physical condition, and vice versa. What affects one aspect of our being also touches all the others. We are a whole person.

For example, researchers Dr. Lee S. Berk of Loma Linda University and Dr. William F. Fry of Stanford University found in controlled studies that happy, joyful laughter produces measurable changes in a person’s immune system (Loma Linda Scope, July-September, 1992, p. 55). You can actually help your body fight disease better by being happy! This and several other studies show how closely the mind and body work together.

Thousands of years ago God’s Word pointed out this vital connection which has only recently been accepted into medical theory:

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
—Proverbs 17:22. (Unless otherwise noted, all Scriptural texts in the DISCOVER guides are from the New International Version of the Bible [NIV].)