SKIP OREM:        From the Nashville Studios of the Xb h s Radio Network. I’m Skip Oram and this is the Anchor Point podcast.

    Hey, everybody, from my home studio here in the beautiful little Nashville suburban town of Nolansville, Tennessee. Welcome to a special lance and ranch episode of the Anchor Point Podcast. And this is the March 10th, 2023 episode of Anchor Point. And this opening segment is being recorded on March 6th, and that’s a special date today for me. Three years ago, I was in the operating room at Vanderbilt Hospital, having robotic prostate surgery. The surgery was a success and as of today, I’m celebrating three years cancer free. So I’m in a big celebratory mood today as I record this opening segment of the Anchor Point podcast.

       This is, uh, slants and rants episode of The Anchor Point Today, just me talking with you, sharing some thoughts, uh, about what’s been on my mind for the past few weeks and the baseline for most of my thoughts that I’m gonna share with you today. The baseline is, is sort of all about staying positive and staying positive. That kind of goes along with the positive attitude element of the anchor point, disease, fighting and fitness model, that disease, fighting and fitness model. I designed it to help us older folks, baby boomers in our fifties and sixties, seventies and beyond, to help us live a long, healthy, active and happy life. Those seven elements, by the way, of our anchor point, disease, fighting and fitness model, faith, diet, exercise, attitude, positive imagery, music and research. Before we get started today, a regular feature of every Anchor point Podcast episode up now your anchor point, medical news for seniors.

   Research published in Psychology and Aging has found that older folks who focus on positive information were more likely to have stronger immune systems. A positive outlook life can improve your immune system and help you live longer. Research from this study has found that focusing on the positive helps older folks to have a much stronger immune system, which helps to protect their health. An older person who focuses on positive information over negative information is better able to cope with stressful situations, may take a a more positive long-term outlook on life and maintain a much more positive and active social life, which only enhances their health and fitness. We already know that happiness provides a range of health benefits, and this latest research shows that focusing on the positive does in fact help us older folks to live longer and stay healthier. Part of this study was, was doing blood tests on these individuals that participated in the study and the results of these blood tests. Participants in the study who focused on the positive had antibodies in their blood suggesting stronger immune systems. The Anchor Point Medical News headline for today, staying positive is critical to living a long, happy and healthy life.

      Everybody, let’s talk for just a second about your immune system. And Wyatt’s, it’s so important to keep it working for you. The immune system is where those healthy cells are that help you fight off disease and illness. Those awesome warrior cells in your immune system, they’re fighters that destroy those disease carrying cells, which try to enter your body and cause disease and illness and those disease fighting cells in your immune system. Those warrior cells, they need your positive attitude for motivation to keep them fighting for you. You are the general of their army, their leader. They are your troops. Those warrior cells, they feed off of your positive attitude, negative thoughts, press them, and then hinders their disease fighting ability. We all need to stay positive in every thought and in everything we do. Always expect a good outcome. Keep love at the forefront of your heart.

      I just, everybody feel so strongly a negative attitude. When bad things happen, your negative attitude empowers bad cells, empowers disease, cancer thrives and grows on a negative attitude. If you keep worrying and predicting a bad outcome, you’re gonna actually cause the bad outcome. At our, we absolutely need those warrior cells working hard for us in our immune system. We need them inspired, strong and ready to fight off disease. You need to feed those cells, feed them with your positive energy, with your positive attitude, and keep love in your heart. As it says in Proverbs, a joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. That’s the Bible everybody. A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones, the Bible, the best self-help book ever written.

        I find it’s often a challenge to stay positive as we get older, us older folks, baby boomers, we, we tend to get left out of the loop as far as being able to correct things that are going on in our world, our, our country, our neighborhood, even our family sometimes. And then this feeling of being left out overlooked, not consulted, becomes somewhat a challenge for us older folks to stay positive. Here are a couple of things that help me to stay positive at our age. We’ve absolutely figured out that every day is a gift from God.

       I always try to to be outside at some point every morning. It’s easy for me because, well, that’s typically when I do my exercise, my running and rainy day, sunny day, cloudy day. I try to enjoy how different things look based on the weather, the color of a flower, the color of the grass changes, the smell in the air changes based on what kind of day it is. And I so enjoy the, the feeling of warm wind on my face on a windy day, and I guess equally, at least at first, the wind on a, on a cold winter’s day has a, well, a special feel to it. I enjoy the miracle of how trees change the green leaves on a tree in summer, that bright green color and then the autumn color show the beauty and the, the structure of a tree when it has no leaves in the wintertime or the snow or the ice clinging to the branches of a tree.

     It’s all beautiful. It’s all created by God. If you really appreciate it, it’s hard not to be positive. And if I’m feeling down, nothing pumps me up more than counting my blessings and thanking God for those blessings. It makes me feel so special when I realize that those blessings we have that are given to us, that they’re a gift from God. And so thinking about my blessings, it helps me feel God’s love during the day. If, if a negative thought pops in my mind, I ask God for help in dealing with that negative thought and then I send it away.

       Negative thoughts do not deserve our time, our energy. They’re only gonna bring us down. I’ve actually shouted away negative thoughts before, and you know what? It works. And one thing everybody we have that younger folks don’t have, we can put everything that happens in a day and every day in perspective. We have enough minutes and days and years behind us. Now we know a negative thing that happened one day seems like a big deal, but then from the perspective of time, we can look back and know it wasn’t a big deal after all. We’ve probably forgotten that at least half, maybe three quarters of the, the negative things, the the negative thoughts we’ve had during our life over time, all that stuff just seems to take care of itself. And another thing we’ve learned because of how old we are, we know you cannot predict the future yet, even now, it seems like we spend so much time worrying about the future. God has your life planned. He knew your story before he even placed you in your mother’s womb. God has a plan for you. God is going to take care of you. So stay positive everybody. Look at the good in everyone, the beauty in every day, and keep love in your heart.

    Don’t let negativity destroy you because there is proof that it can affect your mind, your health, your life. Stay positive. Keep God in your life, love in your heart, and spread kindness to everyone. And yes, I know this is just me ranting, but I don’t want anybody to get sick because of negativity in their lives. There’s so many reasons to be positive. Well, sometimes we might have to search for them positivity and love. They’re all around you. Reach for it and grab it every day. Hold onto it and thank God for it. We really do need to thank God every day for the new day that he’s given to us. And when you really think about not wasting something that God has given to you, it really highlights how important it is to enjoy every day. Remember the the proverb that I quoted earlier in this episode today, Proverbs 1722. A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. And when you think about your health, everybody think of that verse. Remember what God’s word is telling you there. We need to find ways to control stress. Stress can make us sick and it helps diseases to grow after they invade our body. And like a positive attitude is good for our immune system.

    Stress causes harm to our immune system. I talked earlier about those fighter cells standing ready in your body to fight off the bad cells of disease will those fighter cells, they get tired. When you’re stressed, you don’t want that. Philippians four, six says, don’t be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication and with thanksgiving lets your request be known to God. God is there for you. You can ask him to help you deal with the things that are stressing you. He can and he will help you lower stress. Don’t waste any of the time that God has given to you by succumbing to a negative attitude. Don’t spend any time worrying and playing the what if game to try to figure out the future. God has your back. He has a plan for you. Hebrews 13, six. So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? Things in life that stress us out. Keep us from being positive. Ask God for help. Don’t hide from those stressors. Confront them with God’s help. Try to understand them with God’s help. Figure them out with God’s help. Do what you can to eliminate them and then let ’em go.

      Make it your mission to enjoy every minute of every hour of every day. Spend time with your friends. Listen to music, exercise, laugh a lot. Maybe get a pet cry when you feel like it, but don’t get lost in sorrow. A good cry sometimes can actually release you. And then at night, turn off the tv, turn off the electronics well before bedtime. And at bedtime, close your eyes, counts your blessings, and spend some quality time with God. Drift off to sleep. Stay positive. Everybody. Lower your stress level. Don’t play the what if game and feel those good vibrations coming from God. Some personal news, I I stopped drinking at the beginning of the year. I was never a big drinker i’d, I’d sip a bourbon at night and I’d enjoyed drinking bourbon when my wife and I were out to dinner or, or on a trip somewhere. I love the entire bourbon culture.

     One of my favorite things when we’d go on trips is sitting at the hotel bar and, and talking with the bartender about the different bourbon brands. I never really started drinking anything other than an occasional beer un until I got into my sixties. That’s my sixties, not the sixties. In my sixties. That’s when I discovered bourbon and all the ceremony and culture around it. Mad men was popular on TV then. Well now studies not funded by the wine and liquor companies. New studies, they make it pretty clear no amount of alcohol is good for you. Studies have shown that to be true. We all kind of knew that. But what harm can a drink in the evening cause, right? It’s an individual choice for everyone. It’s, it’s just for me right now. I’ve decided to stop drinking. I haven’t really been a non-drinker long enough to notice any significant changes in how I feel.

      I do seem to sleep better. I tend to feel better in the mornings. Perhaps I’m more alert. I’ve always had a lot of energy. So I can’t really tell you that my energy level has increased. I am though comfortable and okay with my decision to quit. I don’t really miss the alcohol, but everybody, I do miss the culture and the ceremony. Looking forward to happy hour, my bourbon collection, my decanters, my special collection of high end double old fashioned glasses. Now everything just sits there all alone in the cabinets. I even have special round ice cubes for my bourbon. I’ll probably keep the glassware, but most of my bourbon collection is gonna be hauled up north. Given to my brother-in-law, brother-in-law. And I, we became closer. We became much closer friends. We bonded over our mutual love of the bourbon culture. Now his bourbon collection is gonna grow.

     Thanks to me through all of this, I can honestly say I, I don’t mind being around people when they’re drinking. I still enjoy, I don’t miss the alcohol in those situations. I do miss having a drink in my hand when everyone else does. And I worry. People will feel they are offending me by drinking. And that’s not true at all. I’ve just made this decision to stop drinking and I know I’ll never drink again. That part’s so easy. Getting over the culture, the ceremony, the hunt for rare bourbon, the ice cubes and the glassware. My prize bourbon collection, that’s gonna take some time. Little personal rant for me today. I’m not advocating no alcohol as part of our plan to get fit, fight disease, and stay healthy. I think for some people, uh, a drink in the evening or with friends may, may really help to lower stress and controlling stress as we know is, is good for our health. This is just me ranting about a change I’ve made in my life. And then here’s the thing, and then thinking how really hard it is to change old habits, to do new things we’ve never done before.

        Many of our listeners are making changes to their lives right now so that they can get fed and stay healthy. Some of you’ve never exercised before, never really cared about your diets, and now you’re starting to exercise daily and pay attention to what you’re eating. My guess is that me giving up alcohol was a small challenge. Small compared to some of you stepping outside and starting to exercise for the very first time. We’re all in this together, everybody making positive changes in our lives so that we can live long, healthy, active, and happy lives. If I was still a drinker, I’d offer up a toast, A toast to all of you out there. And thank you so much for joining me on this anchor point Health and fitness quest. We’re all on most of these changes we need to make. They’re not easy, but new challenges at our age, I think they’re kind of fun. Something new to do and think about every day. Here’s to us everybody,

        Thank you so much everybody for letting me rant through this podcast episode today. Next week’s episode will be released on Friday, February 17th at St. Patrick’s Day, and we will continue to focus on the importance of our immune system without me taking off with slants and rantz. I hope everybody that you’ll tell your friends about the Anchor Point podcast. We’re on all of the major podcast platforms. Just search on the anchor point. Remember, we spell Anchor Point with an E, so it’s T H E A N C H O R P O I N T E. And if you subscribe to the Anchor point wherever you get your podcast, that’ll make sure that each due episode will drop into your podcast feed every Friday as it’s released. Lots of good stuff@theanchorpoint.com website. All the anchor point episodes are located there, as well as AudioBurst, which are short segments from our Anchor Point podcast episodes. And then the transcripts of each episode are also@theanchorpoint.com. So for the XB HS Radio network. And by the way, I’ll be back down at the XB HS Radio printers, alley Studios in Nashville to record next week’s podcast. But for today, from the picturesque little Nashville suburban town of Nolansville, Tennessee, I’m Skip Oram. Bye everybody.

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