IINTEGRATIVE HEALTH CONCEPT:
One of the critical components of well-being is having a sense of purpose in life. From the body-mind-spirit perspective, this exploration of having a sense of purpose in life fits squarely in the "spirit" category.
When we look at the spiritual dimension of our being, we are looking at those deeper elements of what it means to be human - - such as meaning and purpose, relationships, values, motivations, inspirations etc. The traditional look at health typically focuses on the physical dimension of a person's life as that can be more easily defined, measured, observed, and studied. However, the spiritual dimension and the mind (emotional) dimension of our personhood are major drivers of our overall health and well-being.
There are many studies that have looked at life meaning and purpose and its impact on health. Some of these studies are mentioned below. One study defines a sense of purpose in life as “referring to the extent that people see their lives as having a sense of direction and goals that are anchored in core values.” We will discuss the importance of values more in the Coaching Challenge section below and will focus here on the findings in some current studies.
Individuals who have a strong sense of meaning and purpose in their lives tend to have better mental health, cognition, and overall well-being. Studies have shown that persons with a strong sense of life purpose are less likely to have heart attacks, strokes, and dementia. Other studies show that people with a strong sense of life purpose tend to engage in activities that promote health, such as exercise and preventative health measures.
One study from 2013 shows that individuals who have a sense of life purpose and meaning have better sleep and stress management skills. Managing stress and having good sleep are critical for overall health. As mentioned previously in our introduction to the series, “It is proven that chronic stress results in increased inflammation—it is pro-inflammatory. Inflammation is a frequent underlying process at work in various diseases and illnesses, such as arthritis, coronary artery disease, cancers, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases to name a few.” Anything that decreases stress and improves sleep, such as having a strong sense of meaning and purpose, can positively impact one’s health.
Often in medicine there is a focus on negative behaviors and factors that can cause disease and illness and not as much attention placed on behaviors or factors that can actually promote and improve health and well-being. In a study published by Patricia A. Boyle PhD et al in 2009 titled "Purpose in Life is Associated With Mortality Among Community-Dwelling Older Persons", they found that "greater purpose in life is associated with a reduced risk of all-cause mortality among community-dwelling older persons."
Another study by Carol D. Ryff, Burton H. Singer, and Gayle Dienberg Love looked at two types
of well being - - eudaimonic (self-development, personal growth and purposeful engagement) and hedonic (positive feelings such as happiness and contentment) and they found that those with higher levels of eudaimonic well-being had lower levels of daily salivary cortisol, pro-inflammatory cytokines, cardiovascular risk, and longer duration REM sleep compared with those showing lower levels of eudaimonic well-being. Hedonic well-being, however, showed only minimal linkage to biomarker assessments. This is another study showing the positive benefits of having a strong sense of meaning and purpose for decreasing inflammation, reducing cardiovascular risk, and improving sleep - - all of which are important for preventing disease and improving health. It is interesting to note that having life purpose and meaning (eudaemonic) was more positively impactful to health than feelings of happiness and contentment (hedonic). While there tends to be a universal human drive to seek happiness, it appears to be more beneficial from a health perspective to pursue meaning and purpose in one’s life.
When we talk of meaning and purpose in life, it involves MEANING AND PURPOSE in the
expansive sense, (capital letters), such as: How do I want my life to contribute to the world? How do I want to “walk in this world”? How can I use my gifts and talents in ways that will allow me to live my best life? It also involves "meaning and purpose" in a more narrow sense (small letter meaning and purpose). The smaller letter “meaning and purpose” can be the little ways that we honor our values that may not shout to the world around us that we are making choices that tap into our overall meaning and purpose, but we sense it interiorly with a gentle sense of contentment. These smaller meaning and purpose experiences can be as simple as watching our child’s soccer game or doing simple errands for aging parents, which speaks to
such values as presence, support, and family. When we acknowledge the connection of our actions to our underlying values, we activate the power of having meaning and purpose in our lives. That power is healing. That power brings greater health and well-being. That power improves our cognition, decreases our stress and helps our sleep. That power enriches our lives. This acknowledgement and conscious awareness of actively living out of our values allows our daily life experiences and choices to manifest in an inspired life!
COACHING CHALLENGE:
Coaching can be very helpful in the discovery process for defining and manifesting meaning and purpose in one’s life. In our coach training, great emphasis was placed on Fulfillment Coaching. Each person has their own gifts and talents, their unique passions and interests, their own life circumstances and experiences, and their own hopes and dreams. In fulfillment coaching, the
coach works with the person to explore these areas and to eventually manifest what would be thrilling in their life, what would bring a sense of aliveness and energy, what would create deep meaning and purpose for their life.
There are many ways that coaches help people craft an inspired life. One way is to dig deep into a person’s values. When you know what are deeply held values for yourself, this is a guide toward what can bring meaning and purpose to your life. Being true to values that are important to us can help inform our decisions in what we spend our time on and where we invest our energy in a way that is meaningful, and purpose filled. If we do not have a good sense of our values, of what is important to us, then we can drift in life and feel unsatisfied, like something is missing in our lives.
One exercise that I participated during fulfillment coaching training was an exercise called “Peak Experiences.” In this exercise, my coach asked me to describe in great detail a poignant, moving, or really important experience in my life – a peak experience!. While I was telling the details of the experience, they would be interrupting me frequently to identify an underlying value that I held that contributed to the reasons why it was such a powerful life experience for me. It was a wonderful exercise that named values that really do enrich my life when I honor and cultivate experiences that manifest those values.
The Peak Experience I described happened to be when I was on a medical mission trip to the Dominican Republic in 2018. My practice partner, Dr. Greg Coppola, and I coordinated a team of 26 volunteers – physicians, physician assistants, nurses, pharmacists, medical and nursing students, and college students. We were providing medical care to the Haitian immigrants who worked in the sugar cane fields and had no medical care available to them. As part of the trip,
twe were also providing a renewal program for healthcare workers that were feeling the stress of a career in medicine (physicians and nurses).
My poignant moment came when we were traveling back to the main mission on our last day of service after seeing and treating hundreds of villagers for the week. We were all traveling standing up in the back of a cattle truck (which was how we traveled to the rural villages) down the rough dirt roads. I was struck with an incredibly deep sense of gratitude and joy that is difficult to describe as I looked at all the people in that cattle truck - - I saw students chatting with seasoned physicians. I saw our local interpreters laughing and sharing with whoever they were standing next to in the truck. I saw weary people filled with a sense of deep caring. I saw a group of people that didn’t all know each other come together as a close-knit team and create a week of impactful service. I saw people just happy to be experiencing whatever was in the present moment. I felt so privileged and blessed and graced to be a part of
this group of people, part of efforts aimed at making other people’s lives a little better, part of this greater mysterious world, and part of a larger humanity where serving and being served went both ways. I felt renewed in a way that was more profound than anything I had experienced before. I felt like I belonged. I felt my gifts were used in a way that made a difference. I felt deep fulfillment at being part of something bigger than myself, that connected me to others in a deeply sacred way. Values were being lived out in profound ways.
As I described this scene on the cattle truck and all the emotions and insights and nuances, my coach stopped me along the way and we named those values important to me that were manifested in that experience - - such as community, connection, mentoring, service, compassion, teamwork, collaboration, sacredness, healing, hope, belonging, laughter, nature, adventure, being part of something bigger, making a difference, honoring the uniqueness of each person, listening generously, soulful conversations, being present to one another……
These are many of the values that bring deep meaning and purpose to my own life. I don’t know that I could have come up with that list if someone asked me to name values that are important to me. In the telling of the story, and the conveying of the emotion and insights I had within that peak experience, I was able to “mine” the experience for what really matters to me and what sparks aliveness in me. In naming what I see as important to me and bringing these values to my conscious awareness, I can then use them to guide me in my choices for how I want to live my life - - for how I want to show up in the world. It helps me in crafting my professional work, my relationships, my choices in how I want to spend my time. It also helps me discern what to say “no” to and what to seek more of for my life. As I honor these values in my day-to-day life, my sense of meaning and purpose gets more clarity and I start to live a more inspired life. When I say an “inspired life”, I do not mean a life others will admire, but a life that is infused with the values I hold dear, a life that is resonate with my deeply held values, and is authentic and deeply fulfilling,
Coaching Challenge:
Describe in detail one of your own PEAK EXPERIENCES (a poignant, moving, or really significant life experience), either within your mind, or on paper, or spoken to another trusted person.
As you dive deep into the details of this moving, poignant, meaningful experience, mine that experience for your underlying values and write those values down. If sharing with another person, have them help you name some of the underlying values within the experience.
Take your values list and craft for yourself some concrete ways in the next month to bring more of those values into your day to day lived experience.
For example: In my own list above, two of many values that came up as important to me were soulful conversations and mentoring. My concrete actions for the upcoming weeks include making arrangements to meet two different friends for coffee or a meal out because we always have soulful conversations and we each feel very renewed after being in each other’s presence and sharing our lives. This connectivity with others is very important to cultivate and maintain for me and it honors my valuing of soulful conversations. I also commit to sending a note of encouragement to a young medical student I know to encourage her amidst the daunting medical training of 4th year clinical rotations. For me to mentor another person can be impactful and life affirming for both of us. These are small actions with great investments in the meaning and purpose dimension of my life.
Now, it is your turn, through the coaching challenge above, to walk around in your own stories to find those values that are at the core of your own peak experiences and to take concrete actions to cultivate experiences that honor those values and that activate the positive impacts that a life with strong meaning and purpose can produce!
INTEGRATIVE PRACTICE: Gratitude Practices
Studies in medicine have shown the positive health benefits of gratitude practices.
Gratitude practices can infuse our lives with a greater sense of meaning and purpose. We are usually grateful for those things that honor what we value.
A 2016 study showed that gratitude writing produced significant improvement in mental health, even 12 weeks after the study ended. Those who were in the gratitude writing arm of the study wrote one gratitude letter a week to someone else. The gratitude writers had increased activation of their medial prefrontal cortex per functional MRI scanning when they felt gratitude. It was shown that gratitude causes synchronized activation in multiple brain regions and lights up part of the brain’s reward pathways. Gratitude can boost neurotransmitter serotonin and activate the brainstem to produce dopamine. These neurotransmitters have a positive impact on our sense of well-being which translates into health benefits. Gratitude has been shown to improve energy levels, improve sleep, improve mood, decrease the risk for depression and anxiety. There are many ways to practice gratitude. We present a few ideas below of gratitude practices that can be life enhancing and health promoting.
A few Gratitude Practices:
1) Gratitude Check-In at Bedtime – Before going to sleep each night, come up with 3 things you are grateful for and either write them in a journal, or just bring them to mind.
2) Gratitude Breaks Throughout the Day: Set a timer on your phone to go off 3 times during
your day separated by a few hours. When the timer goes off, pause and reflect on the positive things that have happened to you so far during your day. Allow yourself a moment of gratitude for those positive occurrences.
3) Gratitude in Motion: When you go for a walk or do your exercise routine, set aside a few
minutes to name what you are grateful for and to sink into the feeling of gratitude as you a
re within your exercise routine. This is especially helpful if you are feeling stress or negative
emotions. We like to say, “Move a Muscle, Move a Thought”.
By getting in motion AND purposefully bringing to mind what you are grateful for in your
life, this can move one out of negative thoughts and emotions to a healthier life stance. Negative thoughts and emotions are a part of everyone’s normal experience. However, dwelling there for longer periods than necessary creates the negative health effects that come from chronic stress. Gratitude and movement can help a person navigate towards health and away from illness.
4) Write gratitude letters to people you are grateful for and who have impacted your life. Expressing gratitude to others trains our brains to see more of the positive events and circumstances of our lives and it also can greatly impact the well-being of those who receive appreciation.
Author of Reflection: Dr. Karen M. Willenbring MD, On^Point Integrative Medicine, Erie, PA
For Continuing Medical Education (CME) Credits for this Reflection#2 in the Integrative Insights for Better Health and an inspired Life Written Reflection Series, please email us at info@onpointimed.com and request the CME link to be emailed to you.
Each Reflection in the series has 2 Category 1 AMA PRA Credits available.
Cost is $50 for the 2 credits. Make checks payable to: On^Point .
Mail to: On^Point Integrative Medicine, 510 Cranberry St., Suite 220, Erie, PA 16507
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