The Oasis

UCLA Study Validates Our Stress Resiliency Tool!

I was heartened to hear about the work of the UCLA psychologists who have shown that reflection on one's personal values can reduce stress. The researchers found that any positive self-affirmation can help to buffer stress.

Positive self-affirmations include values, personal relationships and qualities that are a source of pride.

This study gives indirect validation to our proprietary tool, the Stress Resiliency Index™ that we have developed for our wellness coaches to use with clients. By using this tool, the wellness coach helps the client quickly and easily identify their positive "resiliency qualities." The client then has these qualities to use when faced with difficult situations.

So during this holiday season, take some time to reflect on your positive qualities...your health will benefit.

Flower Power

We all like to get flowers, don't we? After all, they are so pretty and they smell so good. But now we have scientific research to back this up!

Research at Texas A&M University shows that flowers and plants actually help people to generate ideas and to solve problems. Roger Ulrich, Ph.D., the lead investigator in the study, says that the addition of flowers and plants to the work environment can be "...very meaningful to businesses in the modern economy."

If you have an office that's devoid of plants, bring a green houseplant to place on your desk or other area where you have easy visual access to it. And if you own a business, consider providing more greenery or vases of flowers for your employee's work areas.

Not only will you be boosting your employee's creativity and productivity, they will probably think you are pretty special too!

Rocky Mountain High

Researchers have found that people who live in mountain areas not only live longer, but are less likely to die of heart disease than those who live at lower elevations.

The really wild thing about this particular study was that the folks who lived at higher elevations had worse coronary disease profiles (high cholesterol, higher blood pressure) than those who lived in the lowlands. But...

in spite of their bad heart health profiles, they were less likely to die of heart related causes!

Why?

The researchers believe that because the people who live in the mountains had to adapt to conditions there, such as hilly terrain, lower oxygen levels and the like, that their bodies adapted to these factors. With that adaptation came protection from heart disease.

I haven't yet seen the results of the original study, but this causes me to also wonder if there was not another hidden effect of living in the mountains.

What could that hidden effect be?

Think of where most people go for vacation. Either the mountains or the ocean.

Mountains have aways been associated with beauty. Awesome vistas, magnificent snow capped peaks.

Many people feel a sense of awe, even reverence in the mountains.

So...you ask. What's that got to do with living longer?

Maybe everything.

There is a whole body of scientfic research that shows natural beauty is not just pleasant to look at but is actually good for our health! Roger Ulrich, a professor of landscape architecture, is the author of the classic View from a Window study, first published in the journal Science in 1984.

Two groups of patients who had come into the hospital to have their gallbladders removed (in those days a major painful operation requiring a long hospital stay) were assigned to one of two rooms, a room with a view outside or a room that faced a brick wall of the building next door.

The patients in the room with a view recovered faster, required less pain medication and had fewer surgical complications than those who didn't have the benefif of the view.

Another interesting thing about this study was that the view from the hospital window wasn't spectqcular. The patients could see outside and could also see a tree in the hospital yard.

Nothing spectacular. No awesome mountain views.

Just think...if a view of a tree could have such spectacular results on surgical patients, what might living in the magnificence of the mountains do for your health?

But it turns out that even pictures of nature are good for you! Of course, no picture can hope to match the miraculously infinte detail of even a single snowflake, not to mention the complexity of a mountain meadow or the shining depths of an alpine lake. But for those who are ill or otherwise incapacitated, or just too busy to get away, a nature based video, such as Primal Waters' Telly award winnning The Fifth Season, can provide a wonderfully soothing respite from the hectic pace of life.

A Whole New Mind

A Whole New Mind is the title of Wired Magazine contributing editor Daniel Pink's new book, to be published by Riverhead Books this March.

So what's new about the mind?

And furthermore, why should you care?

Well, what's new is plenty and the reason you should care could hit you right in your pocketbook.

By now, nearly everyone is familar with the concept of the left and right brains. You know, the logical, linear thinking left brain and the intuitve, artistic, empathetic right brain.

Pink's thesis is this: all of those left brain linear logical capablities are not enough in a world in which jobs which require these capabilites are rapidly being outsourced. Jobs like computer programming, law research and even the reading of American CAT scans are being outsourced to Asia!

Pink exhorts us to leave the linear, logical Information Age behind, before it's too late, and delve into the Conceptual Age, the age of artistry, empathy and emotion. Now that others can do left brained work more cheaply, it's incumbent upon us to do right brain work better than anyone else.

But how do we do we develop these right brain capabilites?

We can begin by exploring and developing ancient traditions that are being combined with modern technologies, such as heart intelligence, mastery of breathing techniques, developing our capacity to see with our minds' eye, cultivating our sense of appreciation and graditude, and more.

These are the very techniques and the body of knowledge on which our 24-week Stress Resiliency Coaching™ Foundations Class is based.

As author Daniel Pink says, "Want to get ahead today? Forget what your parents told you. Do something foreigners can't do cheaper...computers can't do faster...Go right, young man and woman, go right."

Coaching and the Immune System

Coaches, as well as their clients, now have another reason to rejoice. Coaching is good for your health!

How?

Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) found that when you strive for goals that are associated with more meaning in your life, such as goals around personal development or exploring possibilites, something wonderful happens...

your immune system responds favorably!

No one really knows exactly how this works, but researcher Julienne Bower, Ph.D, the study's lead psychologist, thinks it probably has to do with enabling the body to counteract the effects of stress hormones which are produced in reaction to our hectic, fast-paced lives.

But the really good news is this...

your immunne system gets a boost just by attempting to reach the goal...

even if you never make it to the finish line!

The study was published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Volume 25, Number 2, 2003.