God never tells us to give up things just for the sake of giving them up, but God tells us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having, namely, life with God. It is a matter of loosening the bands that hold back our lives. Those bands are loosened immediately by identification with the death of Jesus. It is of no value to God to give Him your life for death. God wants you to be a living sacrifice.

Poison wrapped up in sugared pills is but half a poison: the fear of death’s looks are more terrible than his stroke. Whom we fear more than love, we are not far from hating. Religion is not about forcing our wills on others, it is about spreading kindness. Just because we have the right to do something, does not mean it is the right thing. Freedom is speech is not about putting someone’s life in danger, it is about having the freedom to peacefully express yourself.

If you know a person well, you may be able to detect deception from expressive changes. However, do not count on it. Most people learn to maintain careful control over their facial expressions. A good example is smiling, so you will not hurt someone’s feelings when you receive a disappointing gift. Because of such control, deception is often best revealed by body language. Even a good con artist may be too busy attending to his or her words and face to control certain bodily clues.

The reporter swears he is doing the community justice by sharing messages about cartoons. If you cannot touch his tongue to a hot knife, how else can you tell if he is lying? Most people assume that shifty eyes and squirming are clear signs of lying. However, neither of these clues increases when a person is fibbing. Also contrary to what you might expect, nervous movements such as hand rubbing, grooming, scratching, hair twisting, lip biting, chin stroking, and so on, are not consistently related to lying.

On the other hand, illustrators (the gestures people use to illustrate what they are saying) may reveal lying. These gestures tend to decrease when a person is telling a lie. In other words, persons who usually talk with their hands may be much less animated when they are lying.

Among the best clues to lying are the signs of strong emotion produced by the ANS. These include blinking, blushing, blanching, pupil dilation, rapid or irregular breathing, perspiration, frequent swallowing, speech errors, and a louder, higher pitched voice. All of these clues are hard for the liar to censor. However, such clues are like the polygraph: They reveal emotions; they do not always mean a person is lying. Remember, good liars can fool most people most of the time—and that is no lie.

Most people agree that health is important—especially their own. Yet, almost one half of all deaths, in North America, are primarily due to unhealthy behavior. Health psychology aims to do something about deaths. Health psychologist use behavioral principles to promote health and prevent illness.

Psychologists working in the allied field of behavioral medicine apply psychology to manage medical problems, such as diabetes or asthma. Their interest include pain control, helping people cope with chronic illness, stress-related diseases, self-screening for diseases (such as breast cancer), and similar topics.

Behavioral risk factors—around the turn of the twentieth century, people primarily died from infectious diseases and accidents. Today, people generally die from lifestyle diseases, which are related to health-damaging personal habits.

Examples include heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer. Clearly, some lifestyles promote health, whereas others lead to illness and death. As the cartoon character Pogo out it, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

What kinds of behavior are you referring to as unhealthy? Behavioral risk factors are behaviors that increase the chances of disease, injury, or early death. Each of the following is a major behavioral risk factor: high levels of stress, untreated high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, and abuse of alcohol or other drugs, overeating, inadequate exercise, unsafe sexual behavior, exposure to toxic substances, violence, driving at excessive speeds, and disregarding personal safety.

Protect your virginity. When many risk factors are present, a person is more likely to have medical problems. Many high school students in the United States of America engage in risky behaviors. As you can see, health-damaging behaviors are usually well established before adulthood.

In addition to specific risk factors, a disease-prone personality type also exists. Such people tend to be chronically depressed, anxious, hostile, and…frequently ill. In contrast, people who are intellectually resourceful, compassionate, optimistic, and non-hostile tend to enjoy good health.

Lifestyles—in your mind’s eye, fast-forward an imaginary film of your life all the way to old age. Do it twice—once with a lifestyle including a large number of behavioral risk factors, and again without them. It should be obvious that countless small risks can add up to dramatically raise the chance of illness.

If stress is a frequent part of your life, visualize your body seething with emotion, day after day. If you smoke, picture a lifetime’s worth of cigarette smoke blown through your lungs in a week. If you drink, take a lifetime of alcohol’s assaults on the brain, stomach, and liver and squeeze them into a month: Your body would be poisoned, ravaged, and soon dead. If you eat a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet, fast-forward a lifetime of heart-killing plaque clogging your arteries.

Although it may sound like it, discussion is not meant to be a sermon. It is merely a reminder that risk factors do make a difference. To make matters worse, unhealthy lifestyles almost always create multiple risks. That is, people who smoke are also likely to drink excessively. Those who overeat usually do not get enough exercise. And so on.

Health-promoting behaviors—to prevent disease and promote well-being, health psychologists first try to remove behavioral risk factors. All the medicine in the World may not be enough to restore health without changes in behavior. We all know someone who has had a heart attack or lung disease who cannot or will not change the habits that led to their illness.

Beyond this, psychologists are also interested in getting people to increase behaviors that promote health. Health-promoting behaviors include such obvious practices as getting regular exercise, controlling smoking and alcohol use, maintaining a balanced diet, getting good medical care, and managing stress. Even something as simple as using seat belts in a car greatly ups life expectancy.

Basic health practices should extend a person’s life. However, do they? A major study done in California provides an answer. People who get 7 to 8 hours of sleep at night, have a balanced diet, do not smoke, use alcohol moderately or not at all and get physical exercise had death rates 4 times lower than people who do not live a healthy lifestyle.  Happy are they who are blessed with the power of making happy.