Positive thinking and optimism, besides helping improve your relationships, career and general outlook in life, have many proven health benefits.

A new study from the University of Pittsburgh, the largest study on the effect of positive thinking on health to date, suggests that being an optimist can significantly reduce the risk of heart attack and even death.

Some 97,000 women were monitored as part of a long term study and were asked simple questions to define who was an optimist and who was a pessimist. The researchers found that optimists had reduced their risk of developing heart disease by nine percent and their risk of dying from any cause by 14 percent.

Also, scientific evidence shows that optimism influences recovery time. Patients who have positive thoughts and expect to recover well usually do.

Your mental attitude can greatly influence your physical health. Whatever you focus your constant and consistent thoughts on are often manifested into reality. That is why positive thinking is one of the most profound things you can do to stay optimally healthy.

You can exercise and strictly follow a proper diet and lifestyle but if you don’t pay attention to your emotional health, your other healthy living efforts may go to naught.

Dr. Joseph Mercola recommends the Meridian Tapping Technique (MTT) (formerly known as the Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT ) as one of the top strategies to help give you a positive outlook on life. EFT is a simple and effective method which helps turn positive affirmative statements into reality in your life.

Keeping a journal, meditating and praying are also other tools you can use to improve your outlook. Seeing a half-empty glass as half-full can help you live a fuller and healthier life.

Americans tend to eat under a state of stress and anxiety, says Marc David, director of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. When you are eating under the physiological stress response, you could be eating the healthiest food but you won’t necessarily be digesting, assimilating and burning the calories from that food.

When under the physiological stress response, your heart rate goes up and your blood pressure rises. Blood is shunted away from your midsection and goes to your arms, legs, and head. Your digestion also completely shuts down.

In relation to digestion, stress causes:

• cortisol and insulin levels to rise
• as much as four times less blood flow to your digestive system, leading to decreased metabolism
• decreased flow of oxygen and decreased enzyme production (up to 20,000-fold) to your gut
• decreased nutrient absorption
• water soluble vitamins, macrominerals, microminerals and calcium to be excreted and wasted
• a spike in your cholesterol and triglyceride levels
• an increased risk of food sensitivity or heartburn
• decreased gut flora population

Corisol and insulin are two hormones that tend to track each other. When your cortisol levels consistently rise under a chronic low-level stress response, you’ll likely have problems losing weight and building muscle.

The worse part is, with rising cortisol, you’ll tend to gain weight around your midsection. Body fat, particlularly visceral fat (fat around your midsection that gathers around your internal organs), increases your risk of diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

Eating under stress puts your body in the opposite state of where it needs to be so it can digest food, assimilate nutrients and burn calories. In short, eating under stress is a recipe for weight gain!

So what can you do to avoid eating under stress?

Stress management is an important part of optimizing your overall health. Though it is not possible to completely eliminate stress, there are several ways that will help you minimize the stressors that seriously disrupt your digestion and other important bodily functions.

Here are some stress-busting strategies:

• Use the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). Meridian tapping helps restore your mind and body’s balance by clearing emotional blockages from your system.
• Exercise is another effective and natural way of providing your body with relief from stress. Endorphins, your body’s “feel good” chemicals are released into your brain during exercise.
• Get proper sleep.
• Meditate.

EFT combines the two sciences of Mind Body Medicine and acupuncture (without needles) to provide the patient with the benefits of the two fields at the same time.

EFT pioneer Gary Craig describes the method as an emotional and non-invasive version of acupuncture wherein the patient can stimulate certain meridian points by tapping on them with his/her fingertips.

This addresses a new cause for emotional issues (unbalanced energy meridians). When properly done, it frequently reduces the therapeutic process from months or years down to hours or minutes.

Because emotional stress can contribute to pain, disease and physical ailments, patients often experience physical relief from EFT.

Tapping on specific meridians on the head and chest with the finger tips, along with voicing positive affirmations, helps clear out emotional blockages from your system to help restore your mind and body’s balance.

Since EFT is a safe and gentle technique, it can be used along with other medical treatments or self-help methods. Practitioners have been using EFT to treat conditions including:

• fears and phobias
• addictions and obsessions
• trauma and abuse
• pain management
• eating disorders and weight loss
• allergies
• children’s issues
• insomnia and other sleeping problems
• post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• asthma
• headaches caused by tension and migraines
• relationship problems
• vision problems

In order for EFT to work for you, you first have to realize that emotional health is absolutely essential to your physical health and healing because the two are inseparably linked.

How to Use EFT

You have to master two basic areas before you can effectively use EFT: the tapping locations and technique, and the positive affirmations.

Proper EFT Tapping

The first thing to keep in mind is that you will be using your fingers to tap on the acupuncture meridians. There are several acupuncture meridians on your fingertips; when you tap with your fingertips, you are using not only the meridians you are tapping on but also the ones on your fingers.

In traditional EFT, you tap using the fingertips of your index finger and middle finger and with only one hand; either hand works just as well. Most of the tapping points are found on either side of the body, so it doesn’t matter which side you use, nor does it matter if you switch sides while tapping.

While it is important to tap the correct area, you don’t need to worry about being absolutely precise with your tapping, as tapping the general area is sufficient.

Using EFT Affirmation Statements

Tapping is just half of the process. You also need to “tune in” to the problem you want to address and state positive affirmations while simultaneously tapping on the acupuncture meridian points.

For example, if you’re using EFT to help address your alcohol drinking problems, you first select the appropriate affirmation statement, tune in by simply thinking about the problem and state the affirming statement in a loud voice with passion, energy and enthusiasm.

You can say something like: “Even though I have this craving for alcohol, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

Thinking about your problems causes energy disruptions that need to be balanced though EFT. If you don’t tune in to a problem, EFT will not work.

This information is meant to give you an idea on how EFT works. But the best way to learn EFT is through visual/audio instruction. For more information on finding the exact tapping locations, the specific affirmation statements and how to use EFT anytime and anywhere to reduce or eliminate emotional and physical problems, Dr. Mercola recommends the EFT instruction guide Try It On Everything.