return to heal thy ways
WINKSLINKS 
...nothing new here in this part of the Universe since
5:39 P.M. P.S.T., Tuesday, December 16, 1997
last updated on Monday, July 19, 2010 at 9:03 P.M. P.S.T.
Take minutes out FOR
YOUR HEALTH...
The following interview from an on-air cable broadcast by Bay TV,
channel 35, San Francisco, between anchorperson Susan Blake and Dr. Paul Pearsall,
was transcribed by scott richie for winky.
Susan Blake: If asked what your
prescription for pleasure
was, you'd probably answer, "a trip to the islands". Well, while you might
not be able to jump on the next plane to Hawaii, you might be able to use Polynesian
wisdom to improve your life today. Author Dr. Paul Pearsall joins me with
his new book, Write Your Own Pleasure
Prescription. Good morning.
Dr. Paul Pearsall: Good morning...Aloha
from Hawaii.
Susan Blake:
Thank you very much. What is a Pleasure
Prescription?
Dr. Paul Pearsall: Well, for years we've
been studying this health terrorism, don't eat this, don't eat
that, you better jog.We asked our patients
to name their longest living relative, and your viewers can do that, "what's
my longest living relative?" Ask yourself this, "Did
that person eat a high fat, low fiber diet?" Most likely not. "Did
they exercise? Did they do these things?" What we found is that
only 46% of the reason people get sick do we understand in medicine. The
rest of it was the answer to this key question: "Is
the world more pleasurable because you are alive?"
This is not about just self
pleasure. This means that if you have dinners four times a week with your
whole family and enjoy them, you tend to have less cancer and less heart disease,
in your children, than any other factor playing a role. Isn't that headline
news? What are we doing? We're
jogging!? You're better to sit with your family on the
curb and watch the joggers go by, and laugh at them, together, than you are
to be out there jogging alone while your families alone. So the Pleasure
Prescription is, is all of this pleasurable, not just you.
Susan Blake: And that's what studies have shown, as well...
Dr. Paul Pearsall: That's right. I was very cautious
because these how-to-do-it books are always in the market and you see piles of diet books and piles
of psychology-- I always define psychology as "the study of the id
by the odd." Sort of weird theories. So
I wanted to really do the research and show how Western medicine is now proving
this oceanic triangle, from New Zealand, up to Hawaii, over to Easter Island;
all this wisdom in there-- everybody forgot it.
I'm sure you've done shows on Eastern medicine,
and Western medicine; but the idea of this: do you have less?; do less?; say no?;
that is good for your health.
Susan Blake: OK, share with us why you have included in your
prescription, then, the Polynesian culture in all of this?
Dr. Paul Pearsall: These people understand, and I was
raised in this culture, what pleasure means. They say: "Aloha ke Akua",
which is love god, "Aloha 'Ohana", love the family, and "Aloha 'aina", love
the land. They say, that's how
you're healthy; and when you don't do that, that's when you get sick. We have
a saying, "no ke luna, ke luna; no ke lalo,
ke lalo" [showing 'hang loose' wave]. "What is up, is up. What is
down, is down." Balance. Even
if you do win the rat race, you're still a rat.
So Hawaiians do this [showing 'hang loose' wave]
and if you get cut out in traffic, we go, "hey, Koena" ~ balance.
I've noticed in San Francisco that if
you get cut out in traffic, they give you a different sign.
Susan Blake: (laughter) Yes, it probably happens in a lot of places.
As you were telling me, you actually went to school to study, was it,
psychology?
Dr. Paul Pearsall: Yes, I am a neuropsychologist,
so I went to Western training at the University of Michigan and graduate studies
at Harvard and Albert Einstein. But I was trained in this Ancient Hawaiian
medicine.
Susan Blake: But when you said
you got to medical school and you discovered that what they were saying was
what you had grown up with.
Dr. Paul Pearsall: Absolutely. They said
how important the heart is, and the stress on the heart and
we were always taught
the pu'uwai, the heart, is crucial; that the heart
literally thinks. And we knew that balance was more important
than just jogging. I'm going to tell you now that there is
NO evidence to show
that a good diet or intensive exercise is going to protect you when you ignore
your children and you ignore your family. These issues have now emerged
as key to health.
Susan Blake:
You have a warning in the book that says this book should be used under
the guidance of a licensed therapist or health care practitioner.
Why?
Dr. Paul Pearsall: The reason is
that, I'm sure when you do interviews on other books, everybody's got
their idea. I want to get the best of Western medicine.
I had a bone marrow transplant. I was clinically dead three
times. So I know this as a doctor and a patient. Don't turn
away from good Western medicine. That helps a great deal. Don't turn
away from other medicine. I want them to use everything--
not just this sort of guru-- I'm no guru. I'm a doctor who's saying,
"Look.
Is your life a pleasure? Would you want
to be married to you?"
Susan Blake: One of the other things you talk about that we hear so much about and you mentioned the self-help books, but you also talk about anger, and what role it plays in our lives.
Dr. Paul Pearsall: Perfect
example of what self-help has done. Have you ever heard this: "Get your
Anger Out".
"How to Get Your Anger Out". What
does the research say? Never express your anger.
Ever! EVER express it! And here's
the data for this:
If you express your anger your goes
up. You are only given so many
at
birth. That is medical
fact. We don't know how many.
It's like a pre-rated pump. It's a
pump!! So when I lectured on this at
John Hopkins University a doctor said well, then, we shouldn't exercise,
should we, because our goes
up?
Well, what happens with good exercise?
Your goes down. So if you're going
to get angry you want to say: "this is worth dying for? Do
you want to waste on this
fool?"
Susan Blake: Wouldn't it not depend, though, how you
express that anger. I
mean, it could do the same thing as exercise: you express it and then
your heartbeat goes down.
Dr. Paul Pearsall: But it doesn't because those cortisol and those stress hormones go in there; the platelets shake like this, they scar the little vessels around your heart, they nick, plaque forms, and we get hardening of the heart. That's why we have heart by-pass. The Pleasure Prescription says maybe we ought to have heart connection.
Susan Blake: OK, you also talk about faith and a lot of other things in your book and once again it is titled Write Your Own Pleasure Prescription, which is a followup to your first book, (The) Pleasure Prescription.
Dr. Paul Pearsall: Absolutely.
Susan Blake: Dr. Paul Pearsall, thank you.
Dr. Paul Pearsall: Mahalo.
Susan Blake: Thank you.
[End of transcript]
Doctor Pearsall's books,
Write Your Own Pleasure
Prescription
and
The Pleasure
Prescription
are available from Amazon.com
ISBN # 0897932293
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