Weekly Wisdom – Healing Power of Joy

A joyful life cannot be measured in years, but in the quality of the experience.

When was the last time you experienced pure joy?

Not simply feeling okay. Not relief because your test results were good. Not getting through another difficult day.

I mean the kind of joy that makes you laugh unexpectedly, lose track of time, become fascinated by something beautiful, or simply feel grateful to be alive.

As a doctor, I spend a great deal of time talking with people about illness. We discuss laboratory results, pain, fatigue, medications, nutrition, treatments and prognosis. All of these things matter.

But there is another question I believe we should be asking:

What happened to your joy?

A diagnosis can quietly begin taking over a person’s identity.

Life becomes organized around appointments, treatments, symptoms and uncertainty. Conversations increasingly revolve around the illness. People who once introduced themselves through their passions, families, careers and adventures gradually begin thinking of themselves as the cancer patient, the heart patient, or the person with chronic illness.

The disease may occupy the body.

But we don’t have to give it every room in the house.

Joy Is Biology

Joy isn’t frivolous.

When we experience genuine positive emotion, something happens throughout us. The brain’s reward and emotional-regulation systems respond. Our autonomic nervous system changes. Neurochemicals associated with pleasure, motivation, bonding and pain modulation participate in the experience. Laughter changes breathing and muscular tension. Music can alter mood almost instantaneously. Loving relationships influence our sense of safety.

In other words, joy is something the body experiences—not merely something the mind thinks.

This doesn’t mean joy cures disease, nor should anyone facing serious illness be told simply to “think positively.”

It means something much more useful:

Joy can change the experience of being alive while healing is taking place.

The Heart Knows Joy

Chinese medicine has understood this relationship differently for thousands of years.

The Heart is associated with Shen—our consciousness, presence and spirit—and the emotion traditionally associated with the Heart is joy.

I find that relationship beautiful.

Perhaps healthy joy is one of the ways our Heart reminds the rest of us:

I am still here. I am still alive.

And once awakened, joy doesn’t have to remain confined to one moment. It can influence how we breathe, move, communicate, eat, sleep, relate to others and experience the world around us.

Healing Is More Than Fighting Disease

I have increasingly come to believe that healing shouldn’t only be measured by what we eliminate.

Sometimes healing is also about what we restore.

Curiosity.

Wonder.

Movement.

Purpose.

Relationship.

Laughter.

Nature.

Love.

And joy.

So sometime today, ask yourself a question that probably isn’t on any medical intake form:

What makes me feel genuinely alive?

Then do something—even something very small—that allows you to experience it.

Listen to music. Walk among trees. Sit beside water. Call someone who makes you laugh. Cook something wonderful. Play with an animal. Watch the sunset. Create something. Learn something. Love someone.

Your life cannot ultimately be measured only by the number of years you accumulate.

A joyful life is measured by the quality and depth with which those years are experienced.

Perhaps healing isn’t simply adding more years to life.

Perhaps it is putting more Life back into our years.

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