Thoughts as medicine

I was puddle-jumping, fairly unsuccessfully I might add, around my mile-and-a-bit course at 5.30 this morning in the dark with the rain lashing down, and I was enjoying myself.

At one point I was thinking about the new Channel 4 series, The Food Hospital, where they are exploring using food as medicine.

The idea that's it's really important what we put into our bodies is not a new one to me, and it's always quite surprising on these sorts of TV shows how it seems to be a revelation to so many.

But the idea of being able to use food as medicine, I really love.

I would far rather be keeping myself healthy through the food I eat and my regular running than rely on pharmaceutical alternatives, which quite often come with their own unpredictable side effects.

The other thing that I think you can use as medicine is the thoughts and ideas that you allow to settle and take control of your mind.

Have you ever heard the expression "attitude is everything"?

I believe that to be true.

If your attitude is negative you tend to turn in on yourself, feeling sorry for yourself, wondering what the point is, expecting things to turn out badly, and then wondering "what's the point" when they do.

You're not someone others are drawn to when you're in "this space".

When your attitude is positive, you look outwards wondering what the day will hold, you feel joyful, expect things to turn out well, and even when they don't, you find the positive in the experience and look for the next step forward again.

You become someone that others like to be around because they feel the effect of your positive energy.

I met a lady on Monday, when I was coaching a group of 31 teaching assistants, who told me how she had healed herself of cancer by creating what she called an "alpha state" in her mind every morning.

She refused the chemotherapy she was recommended and managed to rid her body of the cancer that had started in one of her internal organs and spread to her lymphatic system in a period of six weeks.

She is now teaching her process to cancer sufferers and others who are trying to stay healthy.

To quote Mahatma Gandhi:

"A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes."