Seminar Synopsis

Imagine a medical treatment that lowers blood pressure, decreases heart disease and cancer risk, boosts immune function, and blocks pain -- a treatment that's safe, inexpensive, readily available, and whose main side effect is that it makes you feel good. It's not a new miracle drug. These and other benefits appear to come from pleasure itself. And this pleasure prescription is filled in the internal pharmacy of the brain.

Many people think that to promote health they have to undertake strict weight loss diets, adopt punishing exercise programs, avoid salt, shun cholesterol, and follow all sorts of arduous, pleasure-denying regimens. Fortunately, scientific evidence now suggests that for most people doing what is pleasurable actually pays off in both immediate enjoyment and better health. The healthiest, most robust people seem to indulge in many small daily pleasures and cultivate a positive, optimistic view of their lives. So taking a siesta, playing with a pet, talking to a friend, looking at nature, smelling a sweet scent, laughing at a funny movie, going shopping, soaking up the heat of a sauna, taking a vacation, passionately pursuing a hobby, sipping a glass of wine, listening to your favorite music, helping someone in need, thinking optimistically, and scores of other healthy pleasures may measurably improve your health.

Happiness and life satisfaction is also associated with better health. Yet, many people look for happiness in all the wrong places. The emerging science of happiness, can help people markedly improve their happiness with proven and often simple psychological practices.

Health promotion efforts have often emphasized changing unhealthy behaviors. Yet following all the latest behavioral health prescriptions doesn't necessarily explain or insure health and vitality. Considering the powerful health effects of pleasure might meaningfully enrich our efforts. From sensual delights to selfless pleasures, from optimism to laughter, scientific studies suggest that doing what feels good pays off twice: immediate enjoyment and better health.

Here is a brief bio:

David S. Sobel, M.D., M.P.H. is Director of Patient Education and Health Promotion for Kaiser Permanente Northern California which serves over 3 million members. He practices adult primary care medicine at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Offices in San Jose. He is also served as physician lead for the national initiative in Self-Care and Shared Decision-Making for Kaiser Permanente.

Dr. Sobel completed a Bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Michigan. He then received his medical training at the University of California San Francisco with a medical internship at Presbyterian Hospital-Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. He also completed a Masters degree in Public Health and a residency program in General Preventive Medicine at the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley.

His research and teaching interests include medical self-care, patient education, preventive medicine, behavioral medicine and psychosocial factors in health. He is co-author of seven books including: Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditions, The Healing Brain, Healthy Pleasures and Mind&Body Health Handbook.

Dr. Sobel’s more than 200 television appearances to educate the public about health issues include the Today Show, CNN, Hour Magazine, and a regular television news segment on KNTV, the ABC affiliate station in San Jose. His health education work in television and video has earned him awards from the American Heart Association and the American Film Festival. He also served as an invited delegate to the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Congress that generated the Ottawa Charter on Health Promotion. He is the 2001 recipient of the national Healthtrac Foundation Health Education Award given to a health educator who has made a substantial contribution to advancing the field of health education or health promotion through research, program development, or program delivery. He is project director for two programs that won the Kaiser Permanente James A Vohs Award for Quality: Chronic Disease Self-Management Program Multi-Region winner in 2002 and The Self-Care/Healthwise Handbook Program runner-up in 1997.