Not only does depression take away our spiritual and emotional health, it also undermines our physical health.

Research shows that sincere positive feelings--like love, care, gratitude, appreciation, compassion, or joy--smooth out our heart rhythm into a harmonious coherent pattern.

When our hearts are in a state of coherence, we more easily experience feelings such as love, care, appreciation, and kindness. On the other hand, feelings such as irritation, anger, hurt, and envy are more likely to occur when the head and heart are out of alignment.

Chronic pain shatters productive lives. Chronic pain almost always is accompanied by depression, anxiety, frustration, fatigue, isolation, and lowered self-esteem.

You have the power to treat your own pain, and you can do it without surgery, drugs, or other invasive interventions.

See yourself as a pioneer in a new world. We are not facing the end of the world, as some would have us believe, but the greatest adventure of our lives. We have the unique opportunity to write a new chapter in the history of humankind, to be active participants in shaping a new world.

As psychologist Herb Goldberg reminds us in his book The Hazards of Being Male, 'The male has paid a heavy price for his masculine "privilege" and power.... He is out of touch with his emotions and his body. He is playing by the rules of the male game plan and with lemming-like purpose he is destroying himself--emotionally, psychologically, and physically.

We are not designed to deal with the many stress-inducing situations of the twenty-first century. For most of human history, the stressors we faced were mainly physical, like running away from wild animals. Now they are almost entirely psychological. When was the last time you were frightened by a lion? The things that cause us stress in our modern world are the ones that go inside our heads.

Middle age is such a low point for well-being; it's at the bottom of a U-shaped curve that shows greater happiness among the younger and older people.