{"id":4018,"date":"2013-11-11T22:35:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-12T04:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=4018"},"modified":"2013-11-11T22:36:32","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T04:36:32","slug":"the-healing-power-of-human-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/the-healing-power-of-human-connection\/","title":{"rendered":"The Healing Power of Human Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today started out rough.\u00a0 I had to deal with a situation related to someone from the past that I once considered to be a friend, but who turned out to be an incredibly dishonest person who did a lot of horrible things that caused a lot of damage to a lot of people. Not exactly a fun way to start your day off. \u00a0I came home feeling worn out and not really in the best mood.<\/p>\n

Then, as I sat on my computer answering emails tonight I saw an email come in to my box from my son who is out serving a mission.\u00a0 For those who are not familiar with the rules that missionaries follow, they are only allowed to email home one day a week and then they can call on Mother\u2019s Day and Christmas each year.\u00a0 As a mother I live for his weekly emails to arrive.\u00a0 And once in a while, on a rare occasion when I happen to be on my computer right as his email is coming through, I can respond quickly letting him know I am there and we can email back and forth for a few minutes as if we were having a normal conversation with one another.\u00a0 It has only happened a few times like that over the last 18 months that he has been gone, but when it does it is like my whole world lights up!\u00a0 Having those few minutes of human connection with someone you love so dearly is better than any gift a person could give you!<\/p>\n

After we finished emailing back and forth a few times I sat and thought about how overwhelming the joy you feel is when you connect with another human being you care about.\u00a0 It has the ability to lift any burden, lessen any anxiety, and put life back into proper perspective.\u00a0 For me it totally relieved the burdens I had been carrying throughout the day and it once again lifted my spirits and helped me get back to that place of gratitude for the blessings in my life.\u00a0 All from that one little email exchange with my amazing son.<\/p>\n

I was amazed at the power of healing from a simple human connection.<\/p>\n

“The needs of the spirit are as crucial to health as those individual organs which make up the body.”<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0 -Florence Nightingale<\/p>\n

I decided to do a little research and see if anyone had studied this phenomenon of the healing powers that a human connection can have and sure enough there are tons!\u00a0 Here are a few powerful examples:<\/p>\n

There was a study in which 10,000 men were followed for development of heart disease, and what the study found was that whether or not these men answered “yes” or “no” to the question, “Does your wife show you her love?” predicted the development of angina over the next five years (source: http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/798490<\/a> ).<\/p>\n

Another study showed that patients receiving cardiac catheterization who either were not married or who did not have a close confidant were three times more likely to die over the next five years than those who had a spouse or close confidant. (source: http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/1729574<\/a> )<\/p>\n

Wow! Human connection really can cure us \u2013 spiritually, emotionally, and even physically.\u00a0 So my advice to everyone today is to go and connect with someone you care about \u2013 all it takes is a few minutes of picking up the phone, or typing an email, or sending a text, or dropping by their house, or sending a package.\u00a0 Do something to connect with a loved one and then see how impactful it is on healing whatever ails you right now.\u00a0 I can tell you that it did wonders for me tonight!<\/p>\n

Have a great day!
\n~Amy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today started out rough.\u00a0 I had to deal with a situation related to someone from the past that I once considered to be a friend, but who turned out to be an incredibly dishonest person who did a lot of horrible things that caused a lot of damage to a lot of people. Not exactly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[168,697,2689,174,63,2579,2688,2683,645,2681,2682,2424,1261,2685,2684,33,591,1679,65,55,180,451,2687,464,764,1455,2103,35,80,351,1372,2686,1814,1782,1987],"class_list":["post-4018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adversity","tag-anger","tag-angina","tag-anxiety","tag-blessings","tag-burden","tag-cardiac-catheterization","tag-connect","tag-conversation","tag-corrupt","tag-damage","tag-dishonest","tag-email","tag-emotionally","tag-florence-nightingale","tag-friend","tag-friendship","tag-frustration","tag-gratitude","tag-happiness","tag-happy","tag-heart","tag-heart-disease","tag-joy","tag-lds","tag-lds-church","tag-lift","tag-love","tag-mission","tag-missionary","tag-overwhelming","tag-physically","tag-rules","tag-spirit","tag-spiritually"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4019,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4018\/revisions\/4019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}