TruthBook Religious News Blog

By Kenesha Beheler

March 31, 2009

Meditation is a process of reflection, contemplation and devotional exercise that has been practiced around the world for centuries. Christians pray and Buddhists chant; even nonreligious practitioners use the techniques to improve mental and physical health.

“There have been studies done at major universities, so it’s not just a lot of anecdotal evidence. For people who are spiritually inclined or not spiritually inclined, there is a tremendous physical benefit and also a psychological benefit,” said Grace Fogle, a local resident who has practiced meditation for many years. “Some of us meditate purely for health reasons, and a lot us meditate for the combined physical and spiritual benefits that we feel we receive.

“[As for the health effect] my studies in the clinical area show that any form of meditation you might learn, and there is a wide range, [is beneficial],” she said. “But there are definitely clinical studies that show that your blood vessels relax, therefore your heart has to do less work and your blood is moved through the body in a more natural, less stressful way.

“Your pulse rate drops significantly and that has to do again with the slowing of the heart; the ease in which all your body can perform its functions comes through meditation. And there is just a healing process that seems to occur because the body has its own wisdom in terms of how to heal itself. What you are doing is really enabling yourself. So even if you are taking a medication or whatever you are doing for your health, you are enhancing that therapy.

Fogle has been practicing meditation off and on for over 40 years, but within the last five she has been steady in her practice and has seen significant improvements in her own health.

“I find in my older years that now I’m turning much more to it, and it helps me mature in age more gracefully,” she said. “I am more grateful for every day and every moment, and I know my health benefits from it. It is not that you don’t have health challenges, but you deal with them very differently. Hopefully you recover quickly and with less trauma from things that you might have to go through.”

There are many forms of meditation: mantra, yoga, Tai Chi, prayer and Chi Gong. They are usually classified into two kinds: mindfulness and concentrative.

“You can incorporate meditation into every part of your life. So you can do walking meditation, where you are grateful for every step that you take. People do this now in many ways, but they just don’t call it meditation,” said Fogle. “What do you think the monks are doing or the nuns in the convents are doing? This is all prayerful meditation. If you are following a rosary or chanting, music or prayers, you are meditating. It is all the same, except it is a different form.”

Guided meditation is another form that is used, explained Fogle, in which a leader will teach the participant to sit, close the eyes, relax and take slow breaths as the leader guides the listener through a story. This form of meditation is often practiced for healing purposes and as a way to overcome challenges.

For many years people have carried a misunderstanding of meditation, she said, thinking that one had to be of a particular faith, religion or nationality to practice the methods. However, she said, anyone with an open mind can do it.

For anyone not doing it for spiritual reasons, it helps to refocus and reorganize the mind.

Labels: health, Kenesha Beheler, meditation, spirituality, stress

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Friday, November 07, 2008

4 mood boosters for good health

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

It's no secret that a positive outlook supports good health. But how do we foster good mental and spiritual attitudes that will, hopefully, carry over into our physical bodies? Here are some suggestions, based on universal spiritual principles that can be used by anyone, whether or not they are religious.

----- Develop a passion ----

We all need a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and not everyone is lucky enough to have a job they feel passionately about. So why not develop a passion for nature, for example, that will get you off the couch and out walking every day? Others find passion in art and never miss an opportunity to check out the latest exhibition.

The particular passion is unimportant; just so you have something that sets your heart racing. My father, for example, has a passion for collecting vintage fishing lures that takes him to antique stores and flea markets far and wide. He is at his happiest when he is consumed by his passion.

--- Focus on others ----

We all have problems and many of them don't have an immediate solution. Instead of focusing obsessively on my problems, I find it a relief to think about others. Suddenly my headaches and upset stomach disappear when I am working as a volunteer or just simply helping out a friend. Anything that gets my mind off the ""me, me, me"" track can only improve my outlook on life.

---- Have faith -----

Faith is a difficult concept for many people, especially those who do not participate in organized religions. I am not a religious person but I find faith in many ways. I live in California and am surrounded by natural beauty that gives me faith that the world is generally a good place. I think sometimes about family members and loved ones who have passed on, knowing that they would want me to have a happy, healthy life. Those thoughts give me faith.

--- Take a break from the news ----

I try every year to spend a week where I do not read, watch, or listen to the news. This is not about sticking my head in the sand. Rather, I find that I develop information overload after a while and become cynical. Taking a break from being constantly informed helps me refresh my mind and develop some hope in what seems like a very dark time in world history.

All of us deal with the stress of life in different ways - some become workaholics, others curl up into depression. The only sure thing is that we need to take care of whole beings - mind, body, and soul - if we are to have the fullest lives possible.

(Source: health.yahoo.com)

Labels: faith, health, passion, service, spirituality, stress

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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

More students 'searching for a spiritual meaning'

by Allison Stice

Page one of two: Please click on "xternal link" at the bottom of this page for complete article

College students at this university and around the country are increasingly finding meditation a part of their overall health care, as health care providers learn more about the health and cognitive benefits of meditating.

Student groups like the Meditation Club and classes through the University Health Center and Campus Recreation Services are proliferating and promoting meditation as a means to combat anxiety, depression and even drug abuse, while meditation techniques are an integral part of other therapies like the smoking cessation and stress management programs.

At the Center for Health and Wellbeing, Coordinator of Wellness Programs Tracy Zeeger said last spring's decision to add free meditation classes - which became popular right away and continue to bring in about seven students per class - twice a week was encouraged by University Health Center Director Sacared Bodison as a means to bolster the alternative medicine programs at the health center. Zeeger said she has also seen an increase in her appointments for wellness counseling, where she incorporates meditation techniques like concentrated breathing and guided visual imagery into offerings such as relaxation training.

"Meditation falls very neatly into the category of wellness in that it not only promotes physical health but mental and spiritual health as well," Zeeger said. "It can help with students who suffer from depression or mild anxiety. … There are alternatives to prescription pills."

Attendance at the meditation class tallies about as many as the main lobby for the Center of Health and Wellbeing can comfortably hold.

At the Meditation Club meeting on McKeldin Mall Monday, about 30 students gathered in a circle, casting long shadows under the glare of the street lamp as they practiced meditation in silence. The club encourages students from all religious backgrounds to attend, junior history major Ryan Zembik said, and has helped him with stress and controlling his temper.
Continued...

Labels: Allison Stice, anxiety, college, meditation, stress, students

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

An ever-present help

The American Psychological Association does an annual survey of attitudes and perceptions of stress among the general public.

Last year's survey revealed that 77 percent of Americans experienced stress-related physical symptoms and 73 percent reported psychological symptoms. Issues related to work and money topped the list of major stressors.

Things have not improved since this last survey; in fact, the economy has significantly worsened, with daily headlines proclaiming housing foreclosures, increases in gas prices and failing banks.

According to an Associated Press poll released in June, debt stress is 14 percent higher this year than in 2004.

How, then, are we to cope with this enormous pressure? Some stress is manageable, even helpful in channeling our energy and resources, but multiple stressors can feel overwhelming, especially those over which we have little control.

Most of us already know something about stress management. We're told to identify the sources, understand how we are personally affected by stress, modify our behavior, exercise and spend more time in leisure activities or with family and friends. We know about healthy eating, sleep hygiene and work-life balance.

If all else fails, we may seek the services of a professional or ask our physicians for some medication, but only a small percentage of us actually do that. A billboard by a freeway proclaims that it is better to buy an expensive sports car than to seek therapy. We are a nation that is independent-minded, and we prefer to handle things on our own.

How well do these tools work for us in the midst of overwhelming circumstances? How much can we reasonably expect to handle?

There is another source of help during difficult times and that is what we believe exists outside of ourselves.

It is our spirituality, and it is an important source of strength, meaning, direction and hope. It is through the cultivation of spirituality that we feel connected to the larger universe. It fosters a perspective that takes us away from everyday difficulty and enables us to envision a better future.

Spirituality is complex and hard to define. It can take the form of religious observance, nature, music, art or some other personal experience. Alcoholics Anonymous practitioners subscribe to a "power greater than ourselves" and turn chaotic lives over to "God as we understand Him." However we define it, spirituality is a powerful force for good.

Psychologist Viktor Frankl, after surviving a concentration camp, noted that those who had found meaning in life were the ones most able to withstand the incredible hardships there.

Research continues to document greater health benefits, including decreased stress, for those who cultivate their spirituality. Prayer is cited as the most common spiritual practice, and some recent studies on intercessory prayer have provided provocative evidence that the benefits to those praying are even greater than to those prayed for.

Meditation is another form of spiritual practice that can be used to enhance spiritual communion. Reading and studying religious or spiritual writings and journaling about experiences can deepen faith journeys. However, attempting too much too soon is a common recipe for failure in the building up of spiritual habits.

Many choose to explore different faith traditions to see what fits. Sharing spiritual discovery and expression with others helps to build relationships and connects us to a larger world of believers. Having an "accountability partner" whom we trust and regularly meet with can enhance spiritual discovery and growth.

Mind, body and spirit are interconnected and important dimensions of optimal health and wellbeing. To neglect one part is to negatively affect the whole. Quality of life, especially in an era of higher and more chronic levels of stress, is hard to maintain without the benefits of spiritual belief and practice. Keep it in mind when all the other tools come up short, as they invariably will.

Deborah Barber, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in Westlake Village. Contact her at (818) 5127923. Send questions/comments to askDrDB@yahoo.com or visit www.DrDeborahBarber.

Labels: American Psychological Association, Deborah Barber, meditation, spirituality, stress

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Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Western medicine meets the meditative tradition

By Paul Scott
Wednesday, May 7, 2008

ROCHESTER, MINN. — The press that followed a recent visit by the Dalai Lama to the Mayo Clinic focused primarily on the spiritual leader's comments about the Chinese crackdown on protest in Tibet. It isn't hard to imagine why. The meeting's contentious international backdrop — a conflict underscored by the sidewalk appearance of a strangely polished crew of 50 or so pro-Chinese demonstrators mounting a lonely crusade to tarnish the cause of Tibetan autonomy — was an easier tale to tell than the less easily digested topic of the daylong event itself.

The oversight was unfortunate, because the case being made during the April 16 colloquium titled "Investigating the Mind-Body Connection: The Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation," seems far more destabilizing than the political movement in Tibet.

It's one thing to ponder the irony of a professional-seeming protest in defense of a government that does not allow protest. It's quite another thing to witness the brain trust behind the brand more associated with Western medicine than any other giving forum to the emerging science of mindfulness training, acceptance, positive thinking and compassion. The first cause is about political change. The second is cosmological.

The Buddhist meditative tradition

The Dalai Lama's prescription is that of the Buddhist meditative tradition: selecting and focusing on positive mental states such as compassion, gratitude and joy, while challenging negative mental states such as anger, jealousy, anxiety and a distracted state of being. In practice this means daily meditative practice intent on clearing mental clutter and developing more clarity of attention and moment-by-moment awareness.

The Dalai Lama has long believed that so-called mindfulness meditation has beneficial effects on human health and well-being, and thanks to research conducted by Davidson and others, we now know that the brain and body do indeed change for the better as a result of such practice, and through measurable physiological pathways more complex than had previously been imagined.

Researchers have known for years, for example, that a bilateral brain region known as the prefrontal cortex, or PFC, is involved in developing responses to emotionally laden thoughts, and that the way we respond to the events and thoughts in our lives is often determined by whether the brain draws on the rights side of our PFC or its left. Operating below the level of awareness, the right side of the prefrontal cortex responds to problems with an eye toward punishments and avenues of withdrawal, while the left side processes thoughts which are generally positive and tuned to rewards. Damage the left prefrontal cortex and depression increases; those who tend to preferentially use the left side of their prefrontal cortex tend to get over problems faster than do those who process emotion-laden thoughts from the right. Significant for the discussion of physical health, those who preferentially use the left prefrontal cortex show lower baseline levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

The dangers of chronic frustration

A separate area of research has linked chronic frustration with disruption of your heart-rate variability, which, sustained over time, the body begins to recognize as its baseline state, bringing about an inhibition of the vital bodily calming mechanism that is your parasympathetic nervous system. Feel frustrated long enough and your body ceases to calm itself.

By wiring EEG sensors to the heads of Buddhist monks and those attempting to meditate for the first time, then examining brain activity as expressed on functional MRI images, Davidson and Kabat-Zinn have learned that meditation employs the left prefrontal cortex — some monks he has studied have greater left prefrontal orientation than ever previously observed — and that over time, meditative practice can change the orientation from the right to the left of those who take up the activity. Brain circuitry is not fixed, in other words. To the contrary, said Davidson during a research-based session at Mayo, "the brain is the organ that is built to change in response to training. Happiness, compassion, and clarity of attention are the product of skills, and these skills can be enhanced through mental training."

After hearing the case that meditative mental training can help people stay healthier and recover more quickly from illness, the Mayo audience of 350 or so faculty and staff entered more culturally problematic territory — subject matter that seemed to be talked around as much as it was examined. In short, while medicine is beginning to take seriously the notion that the cultivation of compassion and mindfulness is beneficial for physical health, medicine as practiced today is often antithetical to the very mindfulness and spiritual "present-ness" sought after in meditative practice.

An East-West paradox?

The clinic may have established a "mind-body" Department of Integrative Medicine and gathered with earnest enthusiasm to hear from the top names in mind-body research, but Mayo is nothing if not the face of Western medicine in all its dichotomous cleaving of the spirit from the biology, both in culture and practice. The medical embrace of meditative compassion would seem to face a paradox: The grueling rise to the highest levels of medical specialization does not appear conducive to regular breaks for contemplative meditative practice, nor does the culture of omnipotence, authority and spirit of conquest within medical training seem a smooth fit for the sense of acceptance embodied in Buddhism.

The bad news came in large part from Roshi Joan Halifax, a Zen priest and medical anthropologist whose remarks suggested that embracing the Buddhist prescription will likely require more than stocking the patient information center with brochures on the value of meditation. For example, the Dalai Lama's thoughts on death are clear: "I think the most important thing," according to a Web collection of his sayings, "is to try and do our best to ensure that dying person may depart quietly, with serenity and in a peace." Caregivers of those at the end of life experience high rates of burnout, said Halifax, due to the "moral stress" brought on by the damage done to this peace by conflicting agendas of medicine in the face of death.

"A lot of clinicians feel reluctant to speak openly about the trajectory of an illness," she said, "with death being the end of the road." Halifax described the multipronged source of the physician's moral stress that leads him or her to avoid the dying: interventions which cause pain and suffering, lack of communication about the goals of care, and "the prolonging of dying through technology." While she acknowledged their role in transitory illness, flashing a picture of an iconic string of ICU life preserving tubes and machinery, she said simply, "This is our nightmare, to be put on a respirator."

Cultivating compassion, wisdom in the face of death

Halifax advocated helping physicians and caregivers in "cultivating compassion and wisdom in the presence of death." The ability to "presence pain and suffering without pitying, consoling or denying," said Halifax, requires "a quality of attention that is panoramic, perceptive and nonjudgmental." While meditative practice would seem to develop the skill in question, hanging over her argument was a question that went unasked: How likely are these skills to be developed in medical training, much less the culture and bureaucracy of large medical centers like Mayo? Research may support the benefits of meditative practice for patients, but if they are to care for the dying and gravely ill, physicians would appear to need an extra dose the same medicine. Is the Buddhist tradition even possible within the umbrella of Western medicine?

"Allow yourself to experience that futility," she said when a Mayo doctor from Brazil asked how he should handle his negative emotions that gave rise when watching patients in his homeland die unnecessarily due to a lack of resources. "To be with things as they are. There is still a resource that is there — your presence."

For the Mayo brothers, looking down from nearby oversize vintage photos upon the gathering, this could not have seemed a stranger request for the heirs to their legacy. Nor could the answer given to a similar question a few minutes later — and which had been put to Mattieu Ricard, a French-born monk from Katmandu and a subject of Davidson's EEG experiments on the brain activity of expert level meditation.

"Transform your attitude to the suffering person," said Ricard, who has spent more than 10,000 hours in contemplative meditation. "Let your heart become a mass of brilliant white light, and the suffering becomes dissolved in it."

The nature of compassion and suffering

After a lunch-hour break, the audience stood silently to greet the Dalai Lama, a sometimes impish figure who held forth bare-armed and robed from an armchair in the center of the stage. Answering questions put to him by Goleman and later the audience, the Dalai Lama alternated from English to long statements toward his interpreter, presumably in Tibetic, touching on the nature of compassion and suffering and its intersection with medical care. He rambled at times in a way that indicated no worries about social pressures like staying on message, making easily digestible bullet points, winning over his audience — and yet winning over his audience regardless.

He explained his position that the human dilemma is one whereby anger and attachment — while useful if a transitory emotion in species throughout the animal kingdom — are given undue extension by the human skill for imagination, with negative results.

"This is where the problems arise," he said. "Because of this, we need a special effort to increase our affection."

He called compassion "an immune system for the toxins of the mind." He also, early in his remarks, slipped in mention of the problem at hand, a statement that sparked no shortage of nervous laughter in the highly credentialed crowd.

"In Tibet we have a saying," he said. "The physician is a great scholar, but his medicine is not effective because his heart is not that good."

Paul Scott is a freelance writer based in Rochester.

Labels: Dalai Lama, Mayo Clinic, medicine, meditation, Mind and Life Institute, mind-body connection, Paul Scott, stress

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Friday, February 08, 2008

Gratitude improves health

Monday | February 4, 2008

Health and happiness are two of the universal goals of all people. Many philosophers, spiritual teachers, the world's major religions, including Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have prized gratitude as a spiritually beneficial emotional state. Now doctors and psychologists have joined in the chorus.

Medical research indicates that there is something you can do each day to be healthier and happier, and it will cost you nothing and take very little time. Be grateful. Dr Michael McCollough, of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and Dr Robert Emmons, of the University of California at Davis, say their scientific study indicates that gratitude plays a significant role in a person's sense of well-being.

A Healthier Lifestyle

Grateful people: Those who embrace gratitude as a permanent trait rather than an occasional state of mind have an edge on the not-so-grateful when it comes to health.

Stress Buster

"Gratitude research suggests that feelings of thankfulness have tremendous positive value in helping people cope with daily problems, especially stress," the researchers say.

Immune Booster

Grateful people tend to be more optimistic, a characteristic that the boosts the immune system. Dr Lisa Aspinwall, professor of psychology at the University of Utah, reported on some very interesting studies linking optimism to better immune function. In one, researchers compared the immune systems of healthy, first-year law students under stress. They found that students who were optimistic (based on survey responses) maintained higher numbers of healthy blood cells that protect the immune system, compared with their more pessimistic classmates.

Optimism also has a positive health impact on people with compromised health. In separate studies, patients diagnosed with AIDS, as well as those preparing to undergo surgery, had better health outcomes when they maintained attitudes of optimism.

Heart Health

Clinical psychologist Blair Justice, PhD, professor emeritus of psychology at the UT School of Public Health at Houston, states, "A growing body of research supports the notion that rediscovering a sense of abundance by thinking about those people and things we love lowers the risks of coronary events."

GRATITUDE STRATEGIES

Practise: Start each day by simply focusing on three to five things for which you can be grateful. This will increase your health and happiness. Everyone has something to be grateful for. Just being alive is a big one. Being able to breathe, or having enough money for lunch, or a roof over your head are all things we can be grateful that we have, but we often take these for granted.

Express your gratitude to someone else for an even stronger dose of health and happiness. Holding the thought of gratitude and expressing that gratitude to the friend will benefit both of you.

Record your gratitude. Some people have found even greater rewards from practising gratitude when they make a daily list of things they are grateful for in a 'gratitude journal'. This practice is made even more powerful when they find time to reread their gratitude lists.

Share your gratitude. Gratitude becomes infectious. Look for ways to share your blessings. It can express itself in simple ways like with a smile, a blessing, a prayer, a note or phone call. Just do it.

Thank you for reading this; I'm so grateful that you did.

Labels: gratitude, happiness, health, immunity, Michael McCollough, Robert Emmons, stress

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Monday, December 10, 2007

Boycotters ask, 'What Would Jesus Buy?'

Religion News Service

That's the mind-set of Americans who can't stomach exchanging holiday presents. They aren't grinches or scrooges. They just reject what they consider the wastefulness and stress of the season.

"Over the years, I have watched as the gift-exchanging part of the family Christmas slowly became more and more the reason to get together and how it eventually seemed to become the showcase event of the day," said Lora-Lee Blalock, 42, a homemaker and artist in Austin, Texas.

Blalock's childhood memories of the holiday radiate warmth: "We'd all travel from our homes and gather at my grandparents' house to spend the day eating, playing games, making music together, watching Christmas specials on the TV and just spending time talking and being a family." Gifts were secondary.

Blalock said that in recent years she pestered her family to drop the gifts. This year, they're trying it.

Pam Frese, an anthropologist at the College of Wooster in Ohio, said the practice seems to be a dismissal of commercial obsession. "The consumer culture doesn't mean anything to them," Frese said.

That's the Rev. Billy's message. No, beneath the blond pompadour and white suit, he's not a real pastor, but he does preach with a Jimmy Swaggart lilt about what he calls the "Shopocalypse." The New York-based performer-activist travels the country with his Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir — evangelizing uninvited at chain stores — and is the subject of the new film, What Would Jesus Buy?

Rev. Billy (aka Bill Talen) says corporate gluttony has whipped holiday sentiment into an obligation to spend on gifts recipients might not even want, generating "the opposite of excitement, which is dread."

"This year, we need to take Christmas back," the self-proclaimed minister said. "Let's have a creative Christmas."

The Parsons family has made that a goal.

Last year, Noah and Sabrina Parsons of Eugene, Ore., were disgusted by the mounds of wrapping paper and packaging encasing their two young sons' gifts, which required a trip to the dump. The Parsonses, who run a software company for small businesses, decided no presents this year.

"At the end of the day, you really don't feel you've gained anything with all this stuff," said Sabrina Parsons, 34.

This Christmas, the couple and their children, Timmy, 3, and Leo, 15 months, will funnel what they would have spent on gifts into a family trip to Mexico. It's the kickoff to what they hope becomes a holiday tradition.

The parents figure they'll start now, so when their sons are old enough to start asking questions, Mom and Dad can respond: "You're not going to get gifts, but you're getting to go to the beach or getting to go skiing or you're going to this really cool place you've never been to before," said Noah Parsons, 33.

Besides, the Parsons boys would be hard-pressed to recall what they got last year.

Gift amnesia strikes adults, too. Online polling may not be scientific, but consider this: 41% of Americans 18 and older polled via the Web said they couldn't remember their best holiday gift from last year. San Francisco-based Zoomerang conducted the survey in November for Excitations, a Sterling, Va., company specializing in experience-oriented gifts, including hang gliding.

From a religious standpoint, some are put off by how gift-heavy the holidays have become.

Sister Mary Louise Foley, campus minister at the University of Dayton, said worshippers should reflect: What is your perfect Christmas? Then try to come as close as possible. If that means no gifts, so be it.

If you wake up stressed about Christmas preparations, Foley said, think about "what does a woman in Iraq feel like as she gets up this morning? It makes some of our worrying so small in comparison."

With Hanukkah so close to Christmas, the Jewish holiday has become subject to the same purchasing pressures.

"Hanukkah was a very minor celebration in terms of gifts and hoopla," said Rabbi David Fass of Temple Beth Sholom in New City, N.Y.

It's OK for families to exchange gifts during Hanukkah, Fass said, as long as the children know the genesis of the holiday — it marks the victory of Jewish rebels over the Syrian-Greeks and the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem — and do not regard it as just a time for presents.

Professing appreciation for a sense of community during the holidays, some have shaped their aversion to frenzied gift-giving into a tongue-in-cheek crusade.

Nina Paley, 39, an animator in New York, said her no-gifts awakening happened about 15 years ago, when she produced a comic strip called "Nina's Adventures" for alternative weekly papers. One holiday season, she based one of her strips on a friend who plunged further into debt buying presents.

From this, Paley's Christmas Resistance Movement arose. Its website —www.xmasresistance.org— proclaims, "No Shopping — No Presents — No Guilt!" The campaign is equal opportunity, applying to Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or any holiday when people might feel compelled to give gifts.

Paley herself grew up in a secular Jewish home, though her family did exchange presents for Hanukkah. Whatever the occasion, mandatory offerings cheapen the moment, she said.

Obligatory "material gifts often function as a distraction from love — or lack thereof — rather than a conduit," Paley said. "By making material gifts representations of love, love itself becomes a commodity. How can that not make one feel empty and hollow?"

Labels: Americans, Christmas, commercialism, gift, Hanukkah, Jesus, presents, religion, stress