THE FAITH FACTOR
At this point, you may be wondering whether you must lead an exemplary life, be good and go to church to stay free of colds and flu. And anyway, aren’t you getting into a lot more than you may have bargained for? Is it worth the trouble of screening out negative beliefs and thoughts just to get over a cold more quickly? Wouldn’t it be easier to put up with the cold and soothe the symptoms by popping a few cold-remedy pills available at the comer drugstore?
The answer, of course, is that while adopting Positivism might seem a rather large order merely to get over a single cold, its long term benefits are far more expansive.
If you’ve been averaging three or four prolonged colds each winter, Positivism can reduce your exposure to cold symptoms to a maximum of three or four days each year. It can dramatically cut the risk of developing a complication such as bronchitis or pneumonia. And it can minimize your susceptibility to cancer and to every variety of viral or bacterial infection.
Positivism is easily learned while relaxing in bed with a cold or flu. It requires no physical effort. Nor does it require that you lead an exemplary life, be good or go to church. Yet it is interesting to note that several recent studies have revealed that individuals with strong spiritual faith live longer, healthier lives and experience fewer diseases and infections. For years it was thought that the vegetarian diet of the Seventh-day Adventists was the prime factor in contributing to their freedom from heart disease and cancer. But new evidence is showing that their unflagging spiritual faith and positivism may be an even stronger influence in boosting their health.
The existence of what is being called the faith factor in enhancing immunocompetence is currently being confirmed by a variety of studies. For example, further proof of the power of Positivism in overcoming cancer was recently revealed in a report give by Dr. Lydia Temoshek of the University of California, San Francisco, at a meeting of the American Cancer Society’s writers’ seminar. Dr. Temoshek made a twenty-eight-month follow-up study of forty patients with medically-confirmed malignant melanoma, a dangerous skin cancer. When half the patients had died, emotional profiles revealed that those who succumbed had twice the levels of anger, hostility, depression, dejection, tension-anxiety, fatigue, inertia and confusion as those who survived.
Dr. Temoshek concluded that upbeat emotions determine a cancer patient’s chances for recovery. Commenting on the Temoshek studies, Dr. Wallace Clark, Jr., of the University of Pennsylvania reportedly said that it offered the strongest evidence in favor of Positivism yet.
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