Author Archives: Bob Cummings

Dealing With Grief

Consider these thought-provoking questions about grief: Is grief a mental illness? Do drugs help or hinder the healing of grief? What brings comfort to the grief caused by loss and pain? Anna Bowness-Park, of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, answers these questions in a tender, heart-warming article in which she shares how she found freedom from intense (or

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Looking for Potential

With the Boston Marathon being run today, this guest post by my friend and colleague Stormy Becker Falso in Georgia seems especially relevant. A runner for some time, she ran in her first marathon earlier this year. Enjoy her insights.

Looking for Potential
By Stormy Becker Falso

(©GlowImages.com/StockPhoto)

(©GlowImages/StockPhoto)

I heard the rhythmic footfalls quickly approaching from behind. I was running my fastest, but I could hear them overtaking me. A runner, tall and lithe, effortlessly passed me. I watched as he disappeared into the distance. As I continued my steady gait, I thought about his efficient movement and grace.

Instead of feeling impatient with my own plodding pace, I spent time thinking about how this runner’s example of effortless speed, revealed possibilities for my own improvement. I see the same possibilities when I read about people who have been healed of illness through prayer. I find these reports of healing not only in religious and spiritual literature but also in popular non-fiction. For example, have you read the incredible story of Louis Zamperini in “Unbroken”? He left PTSD and raging alcoholism behind virtually overnight as a result of a spiritual experience.

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A Moment of Laughter

Today – Sunday, April 14 – is International Moment of Laughter Day, National Moment of Laughter Day, and Moment of Laughter Day. In a recent piece, Bob Clark, a Health Blogger in Florida, discusses humor, including a PBS special called Benefits of Humor which found that humor provides: Physical benefits; Cognitive benefits; Emotional benefits; Social benefits. So, take a

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Who’s Missing From a List of 50 Women in Health?

Women in Health ListPerhaps her prominence in the field of health is sometimes overlooked because of her historical association with a religion and the fact that medicine and medical research, in her day especially, were almost exclusively the purview of men.

In celebration of Women’s History Month the Huffington Post ran an article last month with pictures of “50 Women Who Shaped America’s Health“. Numerous comments were shared online noting that this list is incomplete.

The Huffington Post listened and added 5 more women taken from their readers’ input. That makes this list 50+5.

Certainly there are many more. But here’s one woman that surely should be included in the field of health – Mary Baker Eddy.

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Spirituality Can Help Lift Us Above Life’s Storms To Better Health

It’s springtime, when the rains bathe and nourish nature and then the winds come to dry things out. This week has been designated in Michigan as Severe Weather Awareness Week. Already, we’re seeing occasional wind advisories in our weather forecasts. For safety’s sake, it’s certainly wise to be alert and aware. And just as flying above the

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Time for the WHO to Revisit Their Definition of Health?

Fifteen years ago the World Health Organization (WHO) proposed adding the word “spiritual” to the definition of health contained in their constitution – at the time, a significant change for an organization created to coordinate and improve medical and health services around the globe. Sunday, April 7, World Health Day commemorates the creation of the

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Heal Guilt For Better Health

The discomfort produced by guilt is not limited to mental agony; it brings physical torment as well. And since guilt starts in our heads, that’s where its cure needs to begin. As Keith Wommack of Corpus Christi, Texas writes in a Houston Chronicle article last week, “in order to heal a body affected by guilt,

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With Life Think LONGER and BETTER

“A study by the Danish Aging Research Center is projecting that half of the babies born in the U.S. today are likely to live past 100” writes my colleague, Stormy Becker Falso from Georgia. Think of it – more than half of us living past 100! Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization,

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IN THE NEWS: Cultural Change in Health Care

Here are three articles in the news this month that indicate a growing cultural change in the use of drugs for health. (1) Heart Drugs: Too Many Medication Types Are Compromising Health, Doctors Say From Reuters, by Debra Sherman, posted on HuffingtonPost.com, March 13, 2013 Excerpts: “We are eager to add medicines and reluctant to take

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