If you wish to keep as well as possible....

If you wish to keep as well as possible, the less you think about your health the better.  ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Over the Teacups, 1891


Howard Brody, M.D., Ph.D  has written the book, The Placebo Response.  Dr. Brody  has gathered research (academic and private) that reflects interesting connections between the way we think and process information and how we physically respond.   For example in  studies using  placebo capsules; blue, green and purple pills seemed to work especially well as sedatives and sleeping pills, while red, yellow and orange pills, seem to work better as stimulants.  (p.65) Now mind you, none of the capsules contained medication yet the patients got results!!
This is the expectancy theory.  Your perception and expectation in a situation can affect your response physically, emotionally  and chemically.  Positive expectations lead to positive results.  In an other study done at John Hopkins University of Psychiatry,  the placebo produced the same results as the medication,  when the physician dispensing the pill, had no preconceived view on the effectiveness of either pill, while the patients who received their pills from a physician with very strong feeling about a particular medication, reacted better with that pill.  So even the way other people around you think, can effect you.  


So positive expectations should be reinforced daily,  whether through affirmations, positive self talk, and/or setting reasonable goals and  accomplishing them.  Think positive and spend your time with positive people.