Transcripts

Bernie Siegel:
If you write your feelings, not your schedule but your feelings down, you'll live a longer healthier life.

Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of 101 Exercises For The Soul...

To give you specifics, people with asthma (and I think arthritis was the other thing), one group was told to go home and write down their feelings every day for half an hour. The other group was told to write down what they did every day. And at the end of the month, the ones who wrote about their feelings were healthier.

Bernie Siegel believes that animals are great role models for living a healthy life.

You know, they don't need support groups and they don't go home depressed worrying about the future. I have a friend who had cancer - adopted a cat - and learned that the cat had cancer and they were both told they had a year to live. And she said, "I came home and I was depressed and the cat wasn't." And to make a long story short, over 15 years later, they're both alive. And I think if the cat hadn't had that attitude, I don't think my friend would be alive today.

Bernie Siegel believes that we should all live an "authentic" life - and for good reason.

There are so many studies that show what you call "the good kid" - you know, you're trying to make Mommy and Daddy happy and please everybody and never express your feelings - you will turn your emotions inward, and are more likely to develop all sorts of diseases, from cancer to arthritis. But if you stop being the good child to please others and express appropriate anger, then you start on a path to understanding, forgiveness, health and wellness.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net. I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.