Recently, I met up with friends that I haven’t seen in a while. One of them asked, almost skeptically, if emotions could affect health. I was a little taken aback by this. I thought it was common knowledge that yes, emotions can absolutely affect your health.

It has become more and more apparent to me after seeing thousands of different patients, that patients who actively surround themselves with constructive, positive things appeared to improve at a faster rate. They read books, go hiking, are spiritual. They are interested in all sorts of positive things and rarely talk about the negative aspects of life.

Alternatively, the patients that focuses on negative influences has the experience that things are not going to get better.

Ironically the rate of their healing typically mirrored this emotion. While there are some exceptions to this rule, this seemed to be the case generally. Think of one of two groups of individuals being surrounded by “Emotional Junk Food”—gossip magazines, internet click bait, passive aggressive friends and family, etc.

As with edible junk food like cake, candy and cookies, this Emotional Junk Food while initially satisfying, has underlying negative effects. Emotional Junk Food contains gossip, pessimism, fear mongering, etc. which ultimately compromises the person’s health. Just like junk food, it can become addicting. Similar to a food diet or cleanse, removing the Emotional Junk Food will make a person feel better.

My office focuses on combating negativity by publishing a weekly e-mail called Good News Friday that tells stories of good will. We send it out weekly every Friday. Many people who are not even patients of mine have requested to receive these emails and our office is glad to spread the cheer.

If you would like to receive our weekly Good News Friday emails just shoot us a note to reception@drbenhorning.com and we will send you them.

(This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition.)