Monday, January 19, 2009

Healing Emotions

Reading Healing Emotions: Conservations with the Dalai Lama on Mindfulness, Emotions, and Health (ed. Daniel Goleman 1997). In reading today, Goleman summarizes a large body of evidence that positive emotions promote health and that negative emotions harm health. Commentators Brown (Daniel) and Varela caution that many of the measurements are rough (such as measurements of T-cells), and much more research is needed to refine an understanding of any possible benefits or detriments. As this book is now about 12 years old, one assumes that Goleman should have a great deal to report now if asked to do so. I suspect that further research will largely verify these findings.