(Glowimages.com/stock photo — model used for illustrative purposes only)

Think thought doesn’t matter when it comes to health? Consider the following two articles that look at how thought affects our health – both of which address all of the following:

• The placebo effect
• The nocebo effect (harmful negative version of the placebo effect)
• Fear / negative expectations
• Medical students disease (getting a disease they study).

In The Next Big Decision on Health Care May Be Your Own from the Huffington Post, author Russ Gerber writes,

• “…consider how ahead of the game you are by knowing the impact that your beliefs have on you.”
• “You don’t have to be a health care specialist to see the wisdom of discerning the quality and quantity of what you admit into consciousness, not selling out to the negative thoughts and harmful images that cycle through our day, no matter where they come from.”

In Scientific Proof That Negative Beliefs Harm Your Health, author Lissa Rankin MD shares this:

• “I was a first-year medical student… what I had feared when I was reading my chapter about cardiac arrhythmias was actually happening to me.”
• “…what we believe, especially what we fear, has a tendency to manifest itself in reality…”
• “The good news is that by changing your thoughts, you can change your health!”

Perhaps this is why people down through the ages have included prayer as a daily regimen. Prayer is often used to feel a connection with the divine, bringing assurance and calmness, but it also helps thought focus on goodness – on health rather than disease and expectations of good instead of fear. When it comes to health, it’s definitely better to have the positive – the good – “manifest itself in reality.”