Change - The Chopra Foundation

Finding Your Inner Strength: A Free Global Mental Health Summit

By Deepak Chopra™, Cassandra Vieten, Poonacha Machaiah, and Gabriella Wright

In the face of the pandemic crisis, there is a great opportunity. It is open to everyone, and it is free. We invite you, your family, and friends to this healing experience. If you want to find your inner strength, peace, and the end of anxiety, please sign up here Never Alone Summit, a global mental health event.

In the 3-day summit you will discover the inner breakthroughs that we all need to get past the mental pain and suffering that the pandemic brings in its wake.

At this moment some people have already found a creative way to move forward. They do not feel trapped, because they welcome the chance to put their everyday life on pause. Small opportunities are all around us, to bake bread from sourdough starter, finally build that raised garden bed, meditate, walk and do yoga, and work in pajamas.

For so many others, however, it is a time of depression, uncertainty, and anxiety. Some are lonely in isolation; some feel pressure from being crowded with others for extended periods.

Between the good and bad, for most of us it’s a little bit of both, depending on the day.

There is no need to wait for symptoms of anxiety and depression. There is no reason to live with the mental discomforts of the crisis when we can share in a healing experience together. That is the purpose of the 3-Day Never Alone Summit.

Here are some key points about meeting any psychological challenge:

You have a source of inner strength that you can directly contact.
You can build your mental health resilience – in other words, how you withstand and adapt to the challenges that arise.
You can find support from others who want to be part of the global healing.
You can be of service to anyone who is isolated and needs human contact.
You can change the tone from panic to hope, from helplessness to reassurance.

To use a metaphor, you may not be able to determine what inner obstacle course you will face, but you can become more mentally and emotionally strong, nimble, and agile.

Attending to your mental health is just as important as your physical health. In truth, the two can’t be separated. Your stress level influences everything: your immunity, inflammation, your sleep and health behaviors – all of which have a pervasive effect on your mind, body, and spirit. Taking care of your mental, emotional and spiritual health cannot be separated from protecting your physical health. They are one and the same.

If you are starting to get a little anxious, you are not alone. It is projected that overall, mental health symptoms will substantially intensify during the pandemic. Many will lose hope, lose faith, or lose someone they love. Mental health is being called the “parallel pandemic,” expected to impact more people and for a longer period of time than the COVID crisis, especially for those without a history of depression and anxiety. Check out this chart from our friends at One Mind:

This makes it crucial that we all focus just as much on building our mental, emotional, and spiritual strength as we have focused on protecting ourselves from the virus.

Building mental health resilience – whether in yourself, or in someone you love or people you work with – relies on ALL aspects of our lives. Mental health has to do with how we think and feel and how our brain works, but also with how we move our bodies, what and how we eat, the microbiome in our gut, how we sleep, how we connect with community, nature, and spirit, where we place our attention, and even how we breathe.

It may seem overwhelming, but the good news is there are hundreds of evidence-based, simple (though not always easy) and free practices in each of these areas that can be gently included over time into our lives to boost mental health resilience in a short period of time. Not to be naive, even very small lifestyle changes can be surprisingly difficult – for everyone, especially when feeling down. But behavioral science also has proven methods for gradually anchoring new practices into your life – such as linking a new behavior to one you already do (doing five minutes of stretching whenever you brush your teeth, or meditating in your car for ten minutes when you park your car for work or come home).

You can build an ecosystem that supports your mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. What’s more, most of these practices are enjoyable, rewarding, and connect you with others – helping you to remember that you are not alone. At times, they even bring joy, wonder, and magic into your life – which are not the opposite of stress, but can be antidotes to stress.

This is why we have been pouring our hearts into creating Never Alone: A Global Mental Health Summit on May 22-24, 2020. A collaboration between our respective organizations – The Chopra Foundation’s #NeverAlone initiative and the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation – this 3-day livestream focuses on whole-person approaches to mental health. Attending this summit can help you build your own ecosystem for mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

Featuring people like Deepak Chopra™, Arianna Huffington, Mariel Hemingway, Don Miguel Ruiz, Zak Williams, Wim Hof, Rick Hanson, Shauna Shapiro, Luisah Teish, Dan Siegel, Rhonda Magee and dozens more, the over 70 talks running about 12-minutes each are designed to share ideas, inspiration, and practices you can use right away from experts, celebrities and athletes, and ordinary people with extraordinary stories. It is completely free, and will offer follow-up resources people can access post-summit. You can drop in and out whenever you like, and it will be viewable live or on-demand.

I hope you can join us there, and in the meantime, stay well.

DEEPAK CHOPRA™ MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential, unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”

Cassandra Vieten, PhD is Executive Director of the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation, Scholar-in-Residence at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at the University of California, San Diego, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, where she served as President from 2013-2019. She is a clinical psychologist, mind-body medicine researcher, author of three books, and an international public speaker and workshop leader. www.cassandravieten.com

Poonacha Machaiah has over 20 years of global experience as a successful serial entrepreneur and business leader in Fortune 100 companies. Poonacha is among the new breed of emerging social entrepreneurs who are using approaches from the commercial world and employing technology to tackle social and environmental problems. He is Co-Founder along with Deepak Chopra and Gabriella Wright of the #NeverAlone initiative of the Chopra Foundation, dedicated to suicide prevention and mental wellness. www.thewarriormonk.com

Gabriella Wright is an English-French actress and model, best known for playing Queen Claude of France in the series The Tudors and Viola in the film The Perfect Husband. She recently played a significant role as Gina in the action thriller The Transporter Refueled. She is cofounder with Deepak Chopra™ and Poonacha Machaiah of the #NeverAlone initiative of the Chopra Foundation. She produced and starred in the 2020 film “I Am Never Alone”.

The “Never Alone” movement aims to build communities to encourage and empower young adults to reach out to a friend who may be struggling with their mental health. The goal of the movement is to reduce the stigma and allowing people to know they are not alone, build communities of wellbeing where people can speak about it and enable them with the tools to work through it. The campaign aims to bring together a coalition of mental health charities and initiatives in order to provide support for people affected by mental illness, along with raising awareness and tackling stigma.

The mission of the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation is to fund, conduct and promote evidence-based research on how different forms of holistic treatments – such as exercise, nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices – benefit mental health. Because the Brick Family funds all administrative expenses, all funds go directly to conducting and promoting science and programs to incorporate evidence-based holistic treatments into mental health care. The Brick Foundation has donated over $1.3M to scientific research and programs that incorporate exercise, fitness, nutrition, and mind-body practices into mental health promotion.

How to Settle the Mind During a Crisis

By Deepak Chopra™, MD

At first only a few voices spoke of positive change after the COVID crisis ends, or at least becomes livable once again. Now one hears a chorus calling for change, much of it from younger people. The main message is about global cooperation and preparing better for the next pandemic. But I think people are pondering personal change, too. In the midst of widespread trepidation, what are the new goals that each of us might start pursuing right now?

The first goal should be a settled mind. Fear is persuasive and panic easily goes viral. At the best of times most people turn their backs on worrisome problems rather than dealing with them directly. But unless you have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, you can settle your mind and go beyond fear. The first steps to gaining mastery over fear are open to everyone, as follows.

Sit down and candidly talk about your level of anxiety. Assemble the adults in your family, and perhaps older teenagers.
Discuss your feelings in the context of getting past them.
Don’t dwell on anxious thoughts. When one arises, say to yourself, “This isn’t helping. Go away, I don’t need you.” Talking back to the voice in your head is actually effective.
Plan rationally for the situation you find yourself in. Problems can be divided into three categories: things you can fix, things you have to put up with, and things you should walk away from. Take each individual issue that faces you, and write down which category it falls into. Most people aggravate their worries through indecision. They vacillate between trying to fix something, putting up with it, and fantasizing about running away from it. Be clear in your reasoning, pick one strategy from the three, then stick to it.
Empathize with other people’s anxiety, but don’t make it a daily habit. Be helpful and reassuring. If this doesn’t work, you should tune out the most anxious complaints and focus on anything positive that emerges.
Be creative with your free time. Idle minds are fear’s playground.
Don’t obsess over the news. Limit your viewing time to short periods two or three times a day. This is a crisis unfolding in slow motion. You don’t have to keep up with it minute by minute.
Seek consoling and uplifting things to read and listen to.
Devote some time several times a day to sit quietly, close your eyes, and use deep, regular breathing to reach a settled state inside. If you are patient enough to practice regular meditation, do that.
Write down a vision of your future as you would like to live it after the crisis passes. Detail all the things you want to achieve and experience.
Foster hope in your immediate circle, but don’t make it up if you don’t actually feel hopeful.
Take time every day to do something that makes you smile and laugh.

As you can see, none of these things are mysterious. They are available to everyone, and if you seriously undertake it, the project of defeating fear is more than doable.

At a more inward level, you can also confront the misleading ideas that anxiety fosters, replacing them with positive ideas any time they recur. First, the false ideas that are typically born of fear:

If I worry, it shows I care.I have to worry because others around me don’t seem to.
By worrying I am fending off the worst things that might happen.
Sometimes the things I worry about come true, which justifies all the times they do not come true.
Worrying doesn’t hurt anybody, so why not worry?
The world is hard and life is difficult. It is only healthy to worry.
I know my worries make me feel bad, but that’s the price I am willing to pay.
A lot of people worry, so I am not alone. At the very least I get a lot of reinforcement on the news and in social media.
If I worry now, it’s a kind of insurance that will help me not be hurt in the future when bad stuff happens.
Worry shows my family that I love them.
If my anxiety touches others, they will want to help and take care of me without me having to ask.

Habitual worriers will recognize these familiar thoughts, and all of us entertain some of them in anxious times. But each thought is the product of fear. Clear, positive thoughts should be put in place of them, as follows:

Despite my worries, I am safe and cared for.
Any problem is best dealt with when it actually occurs.
Planning for a bad eventuality should be done once, take very little time, and then left alone.
If you have coped in the past, you can trust yourself to cope now and tomorrow.
Worrying is pointless as a way to solve anything. It blocks the part of the mind that actually solves problems.
If you feel bad from anxiety, your hurt is self-inflicted, and getting out of the hurt involves taking responsibility for your own reactions.
The people around you do not like you better because you worry about them. They find it a nuisance but do not want to oppose you, so they adapt and put up with it.
Worrying drives others away.
Worrying blocks a healthy sense of self because it is basically an expression of insecurity.
Anxiety doesn’t protect you from future hurt. It actually brings hurt into the here and now.
You are not your fears, but if you accept that you are, personal growth is blocked.

You might even find it helpful to take these two lists and discuss each item with people close to you. The project of overcoming fear knows no specific time and place. In normal times we should be gaining control over fear to the extent we can. Now, however, the need to settle the mind is more urgent than ever.

DEEPAK CHOPRA™ MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential, unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”

Shakespeare, COVID, and the Plague

By Deepak Chopra, MD
Social isolation gives us time to examine our lives in a new light, suddenly faced with economic collapse, empty streets, current panic and future uncertainty, and death appearing out of nowhere—in other words, the conditions that confronted every person on a daily basis during the lifetime of Shakespeare. What feels horribly abnormal to us was routinely normal for him and every member of the human race in the 16th century.

In statistical terms, Shakespeare is just another survivor. Unlike his son, Hamnet, who died at 11, Shakespeare didn’t die as a child, nor did his mother die giving birth to him. He also escaped the plague. Ever since the Black Death swept across the globe in the 14th century, bubonic plague remained a threat, killing on average one to three people in every house where it struck. In Shakespeare’s lifetime, there were four plague years, 1582, 1592, 1603, and 1607, when London, including its theaters, shut down because of the disease.

Syphilis had arrived in Europe from the New World in 1495, first appearing in a French garrison outside Naples, and it quickly infected every level of society. But Shakespeare didn’t die of it, either, or of smallpox. He wasn’t murdered in the street even though there was no London police force. He couldn’t have been executed as a witch, not being a woman, although the practice was not only current but growing. Finally, unlike his father, John Shakespeare, Will’s life and reputation weren’t ruined overnight due to charges brought against him by Queen Elizabeth’s huge network of internal spies.

As a survivor, Shakespeare stands out because of his genius, but the horrible conditions surrounding him persisted more or less unchanged until the middle of the 19th century. The causes of plague syphilis, and deaths in childbirth started to emerge, and more mundane but equally life-saving advances occurred in public health, like the first sewer system in America, which was built in Chicago in the late 1850s.

If humans were simply higher primates with very big brains, survival would be the beginning and end of our story. The Darwinian model for survival requires only getting enough food and finding a willing mate so that you didn’t starve before you were able to pass on your genes to the next generation. Nothing much mattered after that momentous event.

Evolutionists persist in seeing Homo sapiens through the lens of basic survival, but we do all kinds of things to deliberately imperil our survival, from taking care of our weak and sick instead of abandoning them, to stockpiling nuclear warheads, just to make sure that total war can erupt if we feel like it. War, crime, and violence do nothing to improve human genes and in fact work against simple survival.

But if you put Shakespeare and the plague together, something mysterious emerges. Despite every threat of disease and death, crime, poverty, political oppression, and religious fanaticism (the Puritans in Shakespeare’s day railed against the London theaters as ungodly, but luckily they didn’t shut them down until 1642, 26 years after his death), not to mention widespread illiteracy, no public sanitation, and no police force, these horrendous circumstances didn’t wipe out creativity, discovery, love, compassion, and a vision of a higher ideals.

Homo sapiens is the only species that liberated itself from natural evolution, and this unprecedented achievement involved one thing only: going beyond. Not our higher brain but human nature envisioned life independent of physical circumstances. Miraculously, if you peer at the oldest cave paintings in Europe, such as those in Chauvet-Pont d’Arc, France, you don’t see primitive scratching from 30,000 years ago.

You see art. The animals depicted are done with confident, artistic lines that are also scientifically accurate, depicting a wide range of Paleolithic creatures precisely enough that they can be identified by species. No one knows why sophisticated cave paintings suddenly appeared. The Chauvet depictions lie deep in the darkest heart of the caves. No sunlight penetrated, so the painters worked by the quavering light of torches. In addition, since the animals were not right before them, they worked from memory of how each one looked.

This act of going beyond exemplifies a trait that belongs to the human condition, the trait of creativity for its own sake. In fact, even though the modern world owes everything to discoveries that improved life, the rise of technology and all the practical benefits it has brought, going beyond has always happened “in here” before anything could happen “out there.” Before the first primitive flint blades could be hacked out, the concept of “tool” and “weapon” had to come first. And before a concept can be born, there has to be a mind capable of concepts.

My point is that you and I, like our ancestors, are the product not of genetic evolution but the evolution of consciousness. We were liberated from the Darwinian scheme by self-awareness. In other words, we said to ourselves, “I just thought of what I’d like to do,” and with the combination of awareness, vision, and desire, we evolved into the human condition. The Greek word for beyond is meta, and we should apply it to ourselves more often. To be human is an expression of the metahuman. Shakespeare was a meta-genius, but everyday people are just as meta in their own way. Parents sacrifice for their children, even die for them, because they go beyond their own selfish needs. Any creative hobby is meta, because it has nothing to do with surviving.
The higher your vision, the more meta you are. Buddha was extraordinarily meta, but his followers, seeing the worth of his vision, had to be meta or Buddha would have preached in the wilderness. Likewise, without metahumans among Jesus’s disciples, Christianity would have perished on the cross.

The COVID virus has put everyday life in peril for countless people, but it has actually risen the level of self-sacrifice, service, sharing, cooperating for the common good, laying down political antagonisms, seeking a global solution, and reflecting upon what really matters. Those are all meta qualities; they are perfect examples of going beyond. The fact that we can see a future past the devastation of the pandemic is a meta trait of huge importance. We aren’t human without being metahuman. For me, this is the lasting lesson and the deeper meaning to be taken away form a terrible time.

DEEPAK CHOPRA™ MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential, unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”

What Is the Best Self-Care during the COVID-19 Crisis?

By Deepak Chopra™, MD and Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D.

Self-care should be uppermost in our minds during the COVID-19 crisis, for several urgent reasons. Self-care returns a sense of control over your own life. It gives you an integrative approach to mind and body. It aligns you with the best knowledge currently available about who is more at risk for developing acute symptoms after being infected.

Your immune status is complex, and in mainstream medicine the chief determining factor is traditionally considered to be genetic. However, there are strong links to underlying low-level chronic inflammation connected to lifestyle that is found in most if not all common disorders including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, some cancers, and even obesity. COVID-19 has a mortality rate that increases with age and pre-existing conditions, as we all know by now.

What is less publicized is that the hospitalization rate, which is very high at over 15%, also affects younger age groups even though their death rates are lower. In those who are most susceptible, the virus creates an acute and severe form of inflammation referred to as a “cytokine storm”, which then leads to severe symptoms and respiratory damage, even death. Cytokines are the chief protein mediators of inflammation in the body.

We can use this information about the dangers of having an elevated pre-existing state of low-level chronic inflammation to perhaps offset the possibility of the kind of acute inflammation that puts a person at risk for severe infection and hospitalization. Let me emphasize the “perhaps” caution. The research on low-level chronic inflammation grows by the year and is very significant. You can go to many websites or our recent book “The Healing Self” to discover the kinds of foods and lifestyles that are either inflammatory or anti-inflammatory.

But it is only in the field of integrative medicine that there is a cumulative understanding that anti-inflammation practices need to embrace mind and body. The general public, including mainstream doctors, are more often than not ill-informed of the research that connects meditation and yoga to the benefits of anti-stress, anti-inflammation, and anti-infection. Without a doubt, meditation and yoga have no side effects and are backed by decades of research over their benefits. To this has been added so-called “vagal breathing”, related to the ability of the vagus nerve to induce a relaxed state simply by doing regular deep breathing that equalizes breathing in and breathing out (there are numerous websites providing instructions on this simple but effective technique, which is now a standard recommendation for countering stress).

Biophysical anthropologist William C. Bushell points to the damage created by the body’s own immune defenses. To quote a recent article at Medium.com by Maureen Seaberg, “Bushell says that inflammation is the primary way COVID-19 kills. ‘Spread of the virus through the body leads to widespread and intensive activation of the inflammatory defenses throughout the body, though originally intended to combat the pathogen, but at this point instead resulting in widespread tissue damage, and fatally, to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), in which the lungs become flooded and respiratory failure ensues; the viral toxins themselves play a much lesser role in the tissue damage that ultimately can produce extreme critical disease states (pulmonary aspiration, septic shock), and potentially death.”

The uncharted frontier is whether chronic inflammation, which is thought to be widely prevalent in our stress-filled, junk food eating, sleep-deprived society, increases the odds that the body might erupt into acute inflammation, e.g. a cytokine storm, when infected with viruses like COVID-19. One can think of this storm as a kind of over-reaction by our immune system. The big question is whether low-grade chronic inflammation may set the stage for this over-reaction and increase the odds of a “cytokine storm” in the presence of a nasty virus like COVID-19. Meanwhile, meditation, yoga, vagal breathing, and other relaxation techniques might provide an edge in the current crisis by reducing the chronic inflammatory state of the body. We’ve joined Bushell and other concerned figures, including Michelle Williams, S.D., Dean of Harvard’s School of Public Health, in advising that meditation and yoga (in addition to a healthy diet and ample sleep) be included in front-line efforts against COVID-19.

The public is woefully uninformed about the mind-body benefits of these simple, effective measures, and every model of the pandemic foresees a huge overload on this country’s hospitals. The virus is more contagious and infectious than the flu, and it hospitalizes and kills a much higher percentage of cases. The message about COVID-19 and inflammation is very important. It needs to be received by all of us for our common well-being at any time, but most urgently, now, we all must strive to reduce our base level of chronic inflammation.

DEEPAK CHOPRA MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. He is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego. Chopra is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book and national bestseller, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential (Harmony Books), unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”

Dr. Rudolph E. Tanzi is the Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Co-Director of the McCance Center for Brain Health at MGH. Dr. Tanzi has discovered numerous Alzheimer’s disease genes, including the first one, and is developing new Alzheimer’s therapies using human mini-brains pioneered in his laboratory. Dr. Tanzi has published 600 research papers, received numerous awards and was on the 2015 TIME100 Most Influential People in the World list. He has also co-authored several books, including “Decoding Darkness” and three bestsellers with Deepak Chopra: “Super Brain”, “Super Genes”, and “The Healing Self”. In his spare time, he plays keyboards with guitarist, Joe Perry of Aerosmith and other musicians.

The Virus Can Give Your Life More Meaning

By Deepak Chopra, MD and Rudolph E. Tanzi, PhD

One way to respond in a crisis is to reduce its threat. The other way is to add to the threat. The coronavirus COVID-19 might be the first collective crisis that many people have faced, and it poses an uncertain future in every country that confronts it. But this doesn’t change the two choices just mentioned. Know that your individual actions will have an impact on countless other people.

No matter how the COVID-19 pandemic resolves itself—something no one can predict—you can personally choose right now to reduce its threat. If you consciously make that choice, three positive things will happen. You will feel more in control; you will be on the side of healing; and you will add to the meaning of your life.

How to be more in control:

This begins by acting responsibly, following what the experts in disease control advise. By now everyone is aware of the need to stay at home, self-quarantine if you show any symptoms, keep 6 to 10 ft. away from other people in public, don’t take long plane flights, and wash your hands frequently (the medical school routine for scrubbing up applies here: Wash your hands vigorously while singing “Happy birthday to you” twice—and don’t forget your thumbs and between your fingers). The active ingredient in effective hand sanitizers is isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, which you can also use by itself in at least a 60% solution with water.

This is all useful advice, but it doesn’t address where being in control comes from, which is mental. Positive thinking isn’t enough. Feeling safe and secure is a state of awareness. It exists in us when we reach deeper than the everyday self. The everyday self cannot feel permanently safe. Outside forces loom too large and threatening. This is the time to take up meditation or return to it if you have lapsed. Your goal is to connect with your deeper awareness, the place where self-control and security comes from.

The superficial part of everyone gets involved in a crisis by staying glued to the news, attaching itself to worst case scenarios, and dwelling on the terrible things other people are going through. None of this behavior puts you in control. It does just the opposite by fueling fear, uncertainty, and insecurity. Looking at updates once a day is more than enough. The rest of the time, remain centered in yourself and keep doing the sensible thing.

How to be on the side of healing:

Bad things happen to everyone. It is how you react that determines whether you come out healed or wounded. In all of us, the healing response is natural, innate, and powerful. More than the immune system is involved. Healing is a mind-body process. If you are sad, stressed, depressed, anxious, helpless, hopeless, panicky, or feel out of control, every cell in your body gets that message.

Therefore, do everything you can to send the opposite message. We’ve already mentioned meditation, which has a strong effect in restoring mind-body balance. But you also need to be vigilant on two other fronts: sleep and stress. Good, sound sleep maintains homeostasis and prevents a cascade of imbalances that can occur in hormones, for example. Stress is a powerful trigger for hormone imbalance, among other things. It has been linked to chronic inflammation, for example, which seems to be present in acute and chronic disease.

Besides doing all you can to sleep well and reduce immediate stresses, there is vagal breathing, which has become widely publicized in recent years. Centered on stimulating the vagus nerve, which runs from the brain to heart, lungs, intestinal tract, and elsewhere. By breathing in to a count of four, holding your breath for a short pause, and breathing out to a count of four, you tell the vagus nerve that you are in a calm, balanced state. In response, it helps maintain mindbody balance.

You can do more to be on the side of healing by following the positive lifestyle choices you already know are good for you in terms of a healthy diet and avoiding or greatly minimizing alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. The good things you are doing contribute to boosting your immune response, or at the very least doing your best to keep it from being compromised. So far as anyone knows, the victims of COVID-19 are most likely to be immune-compromised. If you aren’t, your risks seems to be drastically lowered.

How to give your life more meaning:

This is the most positive thing you can get out of the COVID-19 crisis and yet the least discussed. Life becomes more meaningful when you feel you have purpose, when you give of yourself in service, when you find resources of strength and resilience inside yourself, and when you discover who you really are.

No virus can deprive your life of meaning unless you allow it to. Conversely, a virus won’t add to the meaning of your life. Viruses have no motive except self-preservation and replication. All of us have the same instincts; they are built into our evolutionary past. But where human evolution excels is at the level of consciousness that goes beyond instinct, into the realms of empathy and self-awareness.

The expert medical advice that now surrounds us should be heeded, of course, but it falls short when it comes to meaningful change. Will you come out of this crisis feeling stronger, more resilient, and with more purpose? We’re not talking about putting yourself more at risk of getting sick, which is foolhardy. Instead, you can be strong for others. You can be the source of nurturing and optimism when others feel afraid and insecure. You can empathize with how someone else feels and lend your support. Where there are personal barriers of class, age, race, and income, you can be the one who lowers the barrier to reach out.

Yet ultimately the greatest meaning will not arrive until the world feels safer. Then the temptation will be to go back to the status quo, to return to normal by putting COVID-19 out of our minds. That would be a tragic loss of opportunity. During times of crisis, we naturally take time to appreciate what we have and place a greater priority on what is most important to us. The question is how to carry this on after the crisis of COVID-19 passes. The global mind must solve many problems, from climate change to over-population, refugees, and hostile nationalism. How the world deals with the COVID-19 pandemic offers a clue to how every other problem will be confronted. Your life will be more meaningful if you contribute to meaningful solutions that reach far, far beyond the rampage of this virus. Everything, including being in control and being a healer, is wrapped up in that.

DEEPAK CHOPRA MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. He is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego. Chopra is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book and national bestseller, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential (Harmony Books), unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”

Dr. Rudolph E. Tanzi is the Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Co-Director of the McCance Center for Brain Health at MGH. Dr. Tanzi has discovered numerous Alzheimer’s disease genes, including the first one, and is developing new Alzheimer’s therapies using human mini-brains pioneered in his laboratory. Dr. Tanzi has published 600 research papers, received numerous awards and was on the 2015 TIME100 Most Influential People in the World list. He has also co-authored several books, including “Decoding Darkness” and three bestsellers with Deepak Chopra: “Super Brain”, “Super Genes”, and “The Healing Self”. In his spare time, he plays keyboards with guitarist, Joe Perry of Aerosmith and other musicians.