For many years, I struggled with my own faith. I controlled my life to get the outcome that I desired... no faith or trust. Clearly, it didn’t work well for me. Today, I have faith in myself and the universe... for some, it's God and other higher power. The name is irrelevant. It's the act of believing and trusting that all will be good that impacts your health. The studies are clear about the power of meditation and or contemplation. What is faith? Faith is the complete trust or confidence in someone or something... Faith, according to the bible, is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. It's trusting in something that you can't explicitly prove. Going even beyond that, it takes intellect and trust - believing in something and trusting that it's actually true. In the same way that we trust that the sun will rise in the morning and it's gonna go down at night. It's knowing and trusting that it's going to happen. Is there really a connection between faith and health? Faith and health While researching on this topic, I found a study that talked about the surprising link between faith and health, where faith being either religious or spiritual, and the numbers really blew me away! According to the study, faith can help us cope with adversity, reduce stress, increase hope for a better outcome - optimism. It was also found that 61% of the respondents had greater sense of personal control in challenging life circumstances. 73% of them reported better diet management when they practiced more faith - religious or non-religious. 61%  found greater self-esteem when they practiced more faith in their lives. And we know, ladies, that self-esteem is at the root of our craving, overeating and binging. Could the solution to that be in increasing faith in our lives?   Last week’s episode,  I talked about the 5 common behaviors that lead straight to self-sabotage which we all have at some point in our lives, but we aren't aware of their direct effect on us when trying to achieve our goals. I suggest you check it out! You can listen to the episode here.  Next episode, we'll have powerful discussion on gratefulness and its benefit on your  health. Stay tuned for this insightful episode! Be sure to check back every Sunday and Thursday for a new episode, and head over to iTunes   to subscribe so we can freshly deliver new episode directly to your device every time we release a new episode.   If you enjoy the show and would love to encourage and support my work leave me an honest review using this link, click here . For a podcaster like me, reviews are like fuel… I would appreciate hearing from you more than I could possibly say! Here’s a quick tutorial on “How to leave a review “!    Links mentioned in this episode:   Free Checklist from Christina:  http://pxlme.me/lV0iIKvz  Grenga website: www.grengahealth.com  Daily devotional book: Jesus Calling: http://amzn.to/2iMSkEk     Blue Zones book: http://pxlme.me/l00N8LD2     Studies demonstrating positive health effect of faith: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3671693/   Beyond The Food Community: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/community The Crave Cure: https://stephaniedodier.com/cravecure     How you can reach Stephanie:  Website: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/   FB: https://www.facebook.com/StephanieDodiernutrition   Instagram: https://instagram.com/stephdodier/   Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/stephaniedodier   Email: info@stephaniedodier.com     Got a question for Stephanie you’d like her to answer, or just want to join our community of women? Our free and private community:  https://www.stephaniedodier.com/community   Sponsor Going Beyond the Food Academy End Food Obsession    ***For your information – some links above may be my affiliate links, which means I get a small commission if you click on it and make a purchase. Doing so will NOT entail any additional cost to you, but will help me tremendously. Your support is SO greatly appreciated,