If you want to get healthy and stay that way, start with healthy thoughts. Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship, wrote in The Divine Romance that sickness and health are both dreams of the mind. Cultivate joy, tranquility, optimism, and a sense of wonder. Laugh a lot, since laughing has been proven to produce health benefits. Become childlike in your view of life, nature, and the wonders that already exist around you. Minimize the amount of pessimism, doubt, and worry you allow yourself to experience. Do not be enslaved by the whims, desires, and demands of the body. Take care of it, but be its master.

Here are some ways to begin to implement healthy thinking. Cultivate feelings of self worth. Think about how you felt at a time when you were at the peak of good health. Ask yourself what brought about the decline in your health. Is it something that can remain in the past or is it still a factor? If it is still a factor, what can you do to get rid of it or minimize its impact?

How committed are you to improving your health, stamina, and overall well-being? What steps will you take in the next moment, hour, or day to get on the road to good health?

Remember, poor overall health can attract other problems and even shorten your life expectancy. Every thought you think, every act you do to achieve good health can bring huge health benefits and, in some cases, extend longevity.

Andrew Weil, M.D., a leading expert on integrative medicine and author of a plethora of books about health, believes good health is primarily in the hands of the individual. Like other health practitioners, he advises people to reduce stress (try breathing exercises, for example), eat right (consume lots of fruits and vegetables while reducing the intake of red meat), quit smoking, and engage in regular physical activity (take up walking). But he asserts that maintaining a healthy mind is equally important.

Change Your Thoughts, Improve Your Health

Find ways to engage your mind in interesting endeavors. A healthy mind is an engaged mind. For example, your mind is stimulated when you endeavor to learn how to speak a new language, play a musical instrument, and do crossword or Sudoku puzzles. A healthy mind also focuses on positive rather than negative thought patterns. Perhaps you have noticed in your own life a link between periods of positive thought patterns and feelings of wellness versus negative thinking and maladies.

Tools of Healing

You can use sound healing, aromatherapy, massage, breath work, herbal and hydro therapies, and guided meditation for mind/body healing. They are techniques found in virtually every medical tradition, including the ancient health teachings of Ayurveda, and increasingly Western-trained physicians may include those therapies along with medications and other conventional treatments. People working deliberately with the Law of Attraction may gain increased benefit from such treatments because of their optimistic outlook for improving their conditions.