Last week, we looked at improving our finances. This week, we take on another common New Year’s resolution: getting healthy (or healthier).

Two books by Santa Cruz author Diane See appealed to me because of her holistic approach to health. Just reading the books had a calming effect. After all, one of them is titled Relax, Breathe, Smile. What great advice to set you on the path to a healthier lifestyle!

See has an extensive background in a variety of fields that have culminated in her teachings centered on mind-body health. Before making Santa Cruz her home, she led quite an eventful life, not only teaching others  but enriching her own life with travels and education.

See spent 13 years teaching Mind-Body Health and Tai Chi Chih at City College San Francisco (CCSF). Adults of all ages enrolled in her Tai Chi Chih classes, including some with disabilities. When she retired from CCSF, she traveled to Bali and India, practicing yoga and meditation, learning South Indian dance and staying in ashrams, spiritual retreat centers.

Living in Santa Cruz since 2006, she now teaches yoga at Santa Cruz Yoga and has published Relax, Breathe, Smile; The Book Your Body Wants You to Read and her latest, The Healer Is You: And You Are More Than A Body, both available at Capitola Book Café and the latest at Capitola Library through inter-library transfer.

Relax, Breathe, Smile begins with three methods to show you how to “sit quietly, let go, relax.” She teaches you to clear your mind, and says it’s important not to force it or expect something to happen. Breathing is an important part of relaxing, See says, and you should try to inhale through your nose whenever possible because of it's ability to act as a filter.

Once you learn how to relax and to separate yourself from thoughts that are adding stress to your body, See says you can “use your quiet mind as a tool” to focus on pains in your body or simply to let yourself go. She also believes you should “hang loose and move.”

“The best breathing exercise of all is the one that happens naturally when you sing, dance or laugh,” she writes.

This really brings home the concept of the mind-body relationship to me. I know how much lighter I feel, “looser” physically and, of course, happier mentally when I do any of those three things.

The Healer is You has similar concepts, emphasizing the mind-body connection to our health.

This book is divided into five chapters: Body, Mind, Feelings, Spirit and A Positive View. See again discusses the importance of breathing, relaxing, dancing and eating properly. But as important as it is to eat healthy foods, she writes, it’s not enough. You must have a “harmonious, healthy way of being” by being aware of your body and your mind.

“Essentially we are self-healing,” See writes. “Take care of your body, but also keep your mind free of stress and keep positive attitudes.”

It all makes sense to me. When I’m stressed or upset or worried, I can feel it in my stomach, my muscles and my heart. The book sites a study at the Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek that found that disturbing thoughts caused subjects’ heart waves on a cardiograph to appear more erratic, indicating the potential for heart damage.

Remember the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”?

Not a bad song to get stuck in your mind, and See’s books can help you “make it a way of life.”

Capitola-Soquel Patch caught up with Diane See and asked her some questions to shed more light on her teachings:

Capitola-Soquel Patch: What inspired you to focus your work on the relationship between the mind and body and our health?

Diane See: It started with the birth of my first child and grew stronger through the next four. Wanting the best for them, I began studying what it means to be healthy. Inadvertently I discovered the connection between the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of health and well-being.

Patch: You’re an accredited Tai Chi Chih instructor and you have extensive training in different forms of dance. In your books, you encourage the reader to “move with ease.” How have dance and martial arts influenced your work?

See: I studied modern dance throughout my teens, before I understood the significance it would have for my future career in healing. In my 40s, intensive training in several ethnic dance forms expanded my knowledge of relaxation in movement and the therapeutic effects of releasing tension. In my 60s, I began studying qi gong, t'ai chi chuan and T'ai Chi Chih, all of which are about developing life force energy, the basis of traditional Chinese medicine.

In teaching T'ai Chi Chih now at Santa Cruz Yoga, my focus is on the healing benefits of proper alignment and effortlessness in movement.

Patch: Besides dance and Tai Chi Chih, you’ve pursued many areas of study, including child development, psychology, nutrition and aging. Did you study these topics because of your interest in mind-body medicine, or did they lead you to and culminate in that interest?

See: Mind-body medicine was not a recognized field of study when I began my interest in all of those seemingly unconnected topics. As I said, they led me to see the connection.

Patch: In both your books, Relax, Breathe, Smile, and your newest one, The Healer is You, you say the reader will learn how to “eat to nourish your soul.” Can you explain what you mean by that?

See: The body needs vitamins, but the soul needs ambiance. Since digestion works best in a calm state, anything that contributes to that increases the benefits we obtain from the food we eat. Sitting down to eat, a pleasing place setting, soothing music, etc., nourish the soul as well as the body.

Patch: More and more research is showing a relationship between our attitudes, emotions, stress levels and physical well-being, and this is an important part of your work. Do you see the conventional medical community coming around to that way of thinking and practicing?

See: The medical community is certainly much more accepting of the mind-body connection than it used to be, as research is showing the advantages of using those
alternative methods. Many hospitals are incorporating them along with conventional treatments and giving patients options that include them.

Diane See is available for talks and book signings. She can be reached at dianesee@gmail.com, or visit her website, thehealerisyou.com.