- Mental fitness improves overall wellbeing through a calm and focused mind as well as feelings of connectivity. Activities like meditation, prayer, yoga, and breathing exercises provide benefits. - Research shows meditation reduces stress indicators like heart rate and negative moods. Prayer is also associated with improved health outcomes, especially contemplative and gratitude prayers. - Yoga poses can benefit the mind and body when done at an individual's limit. Breathing exercises like diaphragmatic breathing increase energy and awareness. Overall, these activities center the mind and provide mental and spiritual benefits to healing.

1. Unit 5 Project
Teresa Amsbury
Kaplan University
Creating Wellness:
Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Healing
HW420-01
Mark Maule
October 20, 2011

2.  Improved sense of wellbeing
 Enhanced positive emotions
 Improved memory
 Better attention
 A witnessing mind
– the ability to impartially observe
and witness the natural rise
and fall of thoughts, feelings,
and images (Dacher, 2006, p.73)
 A calm-abiding mind
– focused and undisturbed
 Unity Consciousness –
clarity and wisdom,
a complete connectedness to all things

3. Eighty-two (82) undergraduate students (34 males, 48 females), with no prior
meditation experience, participated in three sessions of 20 minutes each that
involved training in either mindfulness meditation, sham (mock) mindfulness
meditation, or a control group. Heart rate, blood pressure, and psychological
variables (Profile of Mood States, State Anxiety Inventory) were assessed
before and after the intervention.
(Zeidan, Johnson, Gordon, & Goolkasian, 2010)
The focused meditation intervention was more effective at reducing negative
mood, depression, fatigue, confusion, and heart rate, when compared to the
sham and control groups.
(Zeidan, et al., 2010)

4. Byrd's (1988) classic study on a coronary care unit (CQJ) in a large hospital in San
Francisco showed that intercessory prayer is very effective in the healing process.
393 patients divided into 2 groups. Prayer group (n = 192 patients) had born again
Christians pray for them by name. Non-prayer group (n = 201 patients) was the control
group.
The prayer group showed significantly less congestive heart failure, used fewer
diuretics, had fewer cardiopulmonary arrests and less pneumonia, used fewer
antibiotics, and were less intubated than those who did not receive intercessory
praying from the born-again Christians. (Maier-Lorentz, 2004)

5. 5 Christian female volunteers (average age 42), prayed for 5 to 15 recorded minutes for each of the following types
of prayer: supplication, devotion, intercession, gratefulness, and contemplative prayer (pure prayer or prayer of
silence depending on Eastern or Western Christian tradition).
“Research suggests that positive correlations between prayer and health outcomes are more clearly associated with
meditative forms of prayer than with petition or repetition prayers, correlating positive outcomes to positive
deepening relational components of prayer experience” (Stanley, 2009, p. 826-827).
“Prayers of devotion, supplication, and intercession would increase relational awareness, serving to relax and calm
the one praying and shift attention away from stressful, recurring, or destructive thought patterns and feelings
leading to illness” (Stanley, 2009, p.826).
“Higher or deeper forms of relational prayer such as prayers of gratitude and contemplative prayer were thought to
hold the greatest healing power because of their more integrated and intimate relational component to the Divine,
reflecting a more personal and humble awareness of the presence and love of God” (Stanley, 2009, p. 827).
All prayer (especially contemplative prayer and prayers of gratefulness) held a deep trust in the work of the Holy
Spirit to heal both the inner and outer dimensions of the individual. “The Divine image was believed to reside in the
heart of each person, and health was directly related to an inner awareness and security of this connectedness to
self, others, and God” (Stanley, 2009, p. 827)

6.  Example exercises, activities
or practices that improve
mental fitness
 Exercises, activities, or
practices overview and
benefits
 Step by step instructions of
example exercises, activities,
or practices

7.  One of the oldest and most  When abused, prayer can
commonly used coping promote dependency, escape,
mechanisms and even doubt
 Found in any denomination of  Must be phrased in a positive
faith context and not a negative one
 Desire of the heart  Strengthens faith and provides
 Often a plea for divine hope
intervention  Intercessory Prayer seeks divine
 Increases concentration and guidance or intervention
connectivity  2 Types of most common
 Centers the mind Intercessory prayer A.) when you
 May be vocalized or thought need help yourself. B.) when you
 Countless styles or forms of offer a prayer for the assistance
prayer of others.
 Scientifically proven to heal
 May be used anytime, anywhere

8. Steps to Initiating
Personal Intercessory
Prayer (Christianity)
1. Find a quiet, private place
to avoid interruption
2. May be done kneeling,
standing, or sitting
3. Pray in faith, with a sincere
heart, with real intent
4. Begin prayer by addressing
God, or Father in Heaven
“Tell Him what you really
feel in your heart, confide
in Him, ask Him for
forgiveness, plead with
Him, thank Him, express
your love for Him” (Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints, 2009)
5. Avoid repetitions,
meaningless words, and
phrases “Always ask that
His will be done,
remembering that what
you desire may not be best
for you “ (Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints,
2009)
6. Close the prayer “in the
name of Jesus Christ”

9.  Poses are comfortable  Do not push to the point
and steady of pain
 Some poses are easy  Move to the limit of your
 Some poses are very own physical ability
challenging  Breathing
 Increase mental  Conscious stretching
calmness  Remember counter
 Increase physical positions
stability  Many poses to achieve
 Improve balance
 Certain poses affect the
body in physical and/or
mental ways

10. Steps to initiate
Hatha Yoga
1. Wear loose
clothing
2. Breathe slow,
deep, steady, and
conscious breaths
3. Go into each pose
only to the
comfortable limit
of your body
4. Maintaining the
pose, focus on
breath and
balance
5. Come out of the
pose gracefully
and steadily with
exhalation

11.  Often used in Yoga and  Decreases sympathetic
T’ai chi ch’uan response
 Often used in Child birth  Increases one’s vital life
 Involves the movement force of energy.
of the lower abdomen  Increases effectiveness
 Creates a calming effect when inhalation and
 Normal breathing is exhalation occur through
fourteen to sixteen times the nasal passages
per minute.  Enhances brain
 Diaphragmatic lateralization and
breathing is comfortably respective modes of
reduced breaths to thinking
between four and six per  Relieves chronic and
minute. acute pain

12. Steps to Initiate
Diaphragmatic
Breathing
1. Wear loose clothing
2. Find a quiet place to avoid
distraction
3. Assume a comfortable
position either sitting or,
preferably, lying down on
your back with your eyes
closed
4. Concentrate on breath
(beginners may place hands
on stomach and feel the
rise and fall of the
abdomen with each breath)
5. Breathe in taking the air
into your lungs through the
nose or mouth
6. Hold breath in for a
moment before exhalation
7. Exhale releasing the air
from your lungs through
the passage it entered
8. Hold breath in for a
moment before next
inhalation
9. Mentally follow the flow of
air as it enters the body and
travels to its destination in
the lower lobes of the lungs
and back out again.

13. •Mental Fitness improves overall sense of wellbeing of the mind, body, and spirit
•Mental Fitness creates a witnessing mind , a calm-abiding mind , and unity consciousness
•Mental Fitness is improved by mindful and focused meditation
•Meditation improves heart health, and reduces negative mood, depression, fatigue, confusion
•Byrd's (1988) study proved intercessory prayer is very effective in the healing process
•Research suggests that positive correlations between prayer and health outcomes are more clearly
associated with meditative forms of prayer than with petition or repetition prayers
•Prayers of gratitude and contemplative prayer were thought to hold the greatest healing power
•Prayer is one of the oldest and most commonly used coping mechanisms
•Prayer increases concentration, connectivity, and centers the mind
•There are many poses in yoga from beginner to expert levels
•Yoga positively benefits the mind and body
•In yoga, move to the limit of your own physical ability
•Breathe
•Diaphragmatic breathing is used in several other mental fitness activities
•Diaphragmatic breathing is focused breath using the diaphragm and abdomen
•Diaphragmatic breathing increases mental activity, awareness, and life force energy

14. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (2009). Gospel Principles. Salt Lake City, UT: Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints.
Maier-Lorentz, M. M. (2004, Jul-Sep 2004). The importance of prayer for mind/body healing.. Nursing Forum, 39, 23-
32. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.lib.kaplan.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b132ce96-33f5-4427-acfb-
6adfa06df732%40sessionmgr12&vid=6&hid=8&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=14744
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Seaward, B. L. (2009). Managing stress: Principles and strategies for health and wellbeing (6th ed.). Sudbury,
Massachusetts: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Stanley, R. (2009). TYPES OF PRAYER, HEART RATE VARIABILITY, AND INNATE HEALING. Zygon: Journal of
Religion & Science, 44(4), 825-846. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.2009.01036.x
Zeidan, F., Johnson, S. K., Gordon, N. S., & Goolkasian, P. (2010, August 2010). Effects of brief and sham
mindfulness meditation on mood and cardiovascular variables.. Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine,
16, 867-873. doi: 10.1089/acm.2009.0321