Synopses & Reviews
Feeling Good Is Good For YouHow Pleasure Can Boost Your Immune System and Lengthen Your Life
What excites you, inspires you, tickles your funny bone, fills you with awe, or just generally makes you feel good? For health reasons you probably never fathomed, you need to be doing much more of it-- each and every day.
Breakthrough research by Dr. Carl Charnetski and Dr. Francis Brennan supports the notion that everyday pleasures cause a measurable increase in your body's ability to fight disease. Their results, amassed over 18 years of study, have garnered headlines and won them the respect of the medical community. And now, in Feeling Good Is Good for You, you too can learn their pleasure formula for supercharging your immune system to help prevent colds, flu, coughs, and other everyday diseases.
Among the provocative discoveries:
* A bad mood can quickly compromise your immune system.
* Too little or too much lovemaking can leave you vulnerable to attack by pathogens (find out the ideal number of times per week to keep your resistance up).
* A genuine smile-- or even a faked one!-- can have a profound effect on immune-system function.
* Stress is in many ways the opposite of pleasure, and your body reacts characteristically to both.
* Positive thinking can not only change your life but maybe even save it.
Perhaps the best news of all is that with a working sense of humor or even the slightest taste for self-indulgence, you can greatly increase your quality of life.
So live better, and live longer, knowing that the connection between pleasure and your immune system is for real. And while you're at it, why not double your pleasure by reading Feeling Good Is Good for You.
Review
"This book is one of the very few I know which engages the no-man's land between psychology and physiology. . . . A most stimulating work on what is usually an unreadable subject."--Norman Mailer
Synopsis
The media love to report how sex, laughter, and other simple pleasures are good for you. And you love to hear it. But is inciting pleasure a legitimate medical prescription for boosting a person's immunity? Can you literally fight off infection with a smile?
Researchers Carl Charnetski and Francis Brennan say yes, and in Feeling Good Is Good for You they present a convincing amount of evidence to support this comforting claim. Drawing on the results from hundreds of studies, including their own extensively publicized findings, the authors explain the science behind the connection between pleasure and the immune system, and suggest fun ways to receive its full benefits.
Feeling Good is Good for You addresses one of the most fundamental questions in medicine: How can we better teach our bodies to protect us from disease? A virtual explosion of information has emerged in recent years about the wide range of factors that can influence health. But some of the most promising research focuses on the role the mind plays in influencing the body. As this book reveals, the power that positive thought, joy, and emotional well-being have over the body's immune system is not only measurable but influential.
Pleasure not only feels good, it does good things to our bodies. It promotes good health and helps protect us against disease. Anyone can boost their immunity by accepting the Immunity-Pleasure Connection. When the payoff is pure pleasure, what's not to like?
Synopsis
The media love to report how sex, laughter, and other simple pleasures are good for you. And you love to hear it. But is inciting pleasure a legitimate medical prescription for boosting a person's immunity? Can you literally fight off infection with a smile?
Researchers Carl Charnetski and Francis Brennan say yes, and in Feeling Good Is Good for You they present a convincing amount of evidence to support this comforting claim. Drawing on the results from hundreds of studies, including their own extensively publicized findings, the authors explain the science behind the connection between pleasure and the immune system, and suggest fun ways to receive its full benefits.
Feeling Good is Good for You addresses one of the most fundamental questions in medicine: How can we better teach our bodies to protect us from disease? A virtual explosion of information has emerged in recent years about the wide range of factors that can influence health. But some of the most promising research focuses on the role the mind plays in influencing the body. As this book reveals, the power that positive thought, joy, and emotional well-being have over the body's immune system is not only measurable but influential.
Pleasure not only feels good, it does good things to our bodies. It promotes good health and helps protect us against disease. Anyone can boost their immunity by accepting the Immunity-Pleasure Connection. When the payoff is pure pleasure, what's not to like?
Synopsis
What excites and inspires you, tickles your funny bone, fills you with awe, or just generally makes you feel good? For health reasons we might never have fathomed, you need to be doing much more of it--each and every day.
For more than 18 years, Dr. Carl Charnetski and Dr. Francis Brennan have been performing extensive studies on the immune system and how factors such as music, sex, laughter, pets, optimism, and pessimism affect it. Their breakthrough research supports the notion that everday pleasures cause a measurable increase in your body's ability to fight disease. And now, in Feeling Good Is Good for You, they reveal their 13-step pleasure formula for supercharging your immune system through daily lifestyle choices to help prevent colds, flu, coughs, and other everyday diseases.
Learn which scents boost immune levels, how sexual frequency affects your health (and how many times per week is ideal for keeping up your resistance), and why Fido may be your best health protector. With Feeling Good Is Good for You, you can live better and longer, knowing that the connection between pleasure and your immune system is for real. Positive thinking can not only change your life--it can save it. Now get out there and enjoy life!
Carl J. Charnetski, Ph.D., is a full professor and former chair of the psychology department at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He is also a practicing licensed behavioral psychologist.
Francis X. Brennan, Ph.D., is a research scientist at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, specializing in stress, immune activation, and learning.
About the Author
Carl J. Charnetski, Ph.D., is a full professor and former chair of the psychology department at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He is a practicing licensed psychologist and is board certified by the American Academy of Pain Management. Dr. Charnetski holds staff privileges at three hospitals and is president and vice president of the boards of directors of two major behavioral health organizations in Northeastern Pennsylvania. He has conducted research in psychoneuroimmunology, the focus of this book, for nearly 20 years.
Francis X. Brennan, Ph.D., is a graduate of St. Joseph's University and the State University of New York at Cortland. He received his Ph.D. in behavioral neuroscience from the University of Colorado at Boulder and is currently associate director of the Neurobehavioral Research Laboratory at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in East Orange, New Jersey. He is the principal investigator on a project examining the relationship between cytokines and unexplained illness for the Center of the Study of War-Related Illness in East Orange. He and his wife, Tina, reside in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.