An article, by Hallie Levine Sklar, in the March 2013 Issue of Health Magazine discusses strategies to “Pump Up Your Immune System”. All good advice with tips on diet, exercise, and vitamins with the all American favorite strategy at the end, Cut Back On Stress. She quotes Bruce Rabin, MD, medical director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Healthy Lifestyle Program as saying “Emotional stress causes your body to release cortisol and adrenaline, which decrease T cells”. I’m neither doctor, chemist, nor scientist but that sounds like a party gone bad in my endocrine system. Fortunately there’s a way out. The author spells it out in a 3-step process. 1) Laugh, 2) Pray, 3) Dance That sounds like the perfect prescription for cold, gray, winter season.
Winter can be tough on us. It’s cold and gray much of the time. We crave sunshine and welcome it joyfully when it comes. Snow glistens when temperatures are coldest, but when the sun shines it’s at its most beautiful. If winter has you a little down and feeling blue, here are some bright spots to ponder … meditate on … think about … and un-stress your day
Laugh
Job 8:21 “He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.”
Psalm 126:2 “Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.””
Nehemiah 8:10 “Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Pray
1 Kings 8:28 “Give attention to your servant’s prayer and his plea for mercy, Lord my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence this day.”
Psalm 66:20 “Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!”
Psalm 143:1 “Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief.
Romans 12:12 “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
Dance
Jeremiah 31:4 “God will build you up again … you will take up your timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful.”
Psalm 149:3 “Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with timbrel and harp.”
Because of Grace we Press On