?Don?t worry, be happy? is more than a song, it is a way to stay healthy according to an inspirational author and medical doctor who will be giving workshops in Bermuda starting on Friday.

Joan Borysenko is a woman of many hats. She has been a cell biologist, psychologist, yoga instructor and author of 12 books including ?Minding the Body, Mending the Mind?, ?Pocketful of Miracles? and ?Guilt is the Teacher, Love is the Lesson?.

Dr. Borysenko (pictured) will be in Bermuda, thanks to Spirit Quest, to give a workshop called ?Universal Love: Accessing the Power of the Mind to Heal?.

?We will be focusing on the interface between psychology and spirituality and what healing is all about,? Dr. Borysenko told in a telephone interview from her home in Colorado. ?We will be focusing on how to develop happiness. We will be looking at how we can learn to live in the present moment.

?We need to let go of all the stressful stories we tell ourselves. What is the nature of love and happiness??

She said the workshops on Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be of a practical nature. She hopes that people will go away inspired.

?It is also important for people to keep the inspiration alive and turn it into a tool in their life,? she said. ?The workshops will be focusing on learning tools. Part of the focus will be on scientific investigation in the mind body connection.?

Dr. Borysenko?s interest in the connection between mind and health actually started when she was just ten years old.

?At that age I had a serious mental illness,? said Dr. Borysenko. ?At that time there were no treatments for it.

?I was terrified; I was hallucinating and really mentally ill. I sat down and prayed. In that state I felt all the fear dissipate. It was replaced with a tremendous sense of peace and connection to a larger intelligence that was completely loving. I knew at that moment that I could recover from mental illness and three or four days later I recovered completely.?

She said many other people who experience spontaneous remissions (sudden return to health) like hers also report some kind of healing story with spiritual components.

?I wondered what could happen in the brain to change someone?s complete sense of reality,? she said.

Her interest in this question stayed with her into adulthood. She eventually became a cell biologist and then a psychologist. She is a former director of the Mind & Body Clinical programmes at the former Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Centre in Boston, Massachusetts and a former instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is also a pioneer in a new medical field called psychoneuroimmunology.

?Psychoneuroimmunology is the effect of our emotions and stress on the body?s resistance to illness,? said Dr. Borysenko. ?About 70 to 90 per cent of doctor?s visits are due to stress-related illnesses. What we are getting in our society is so much more stress and information overload and time shortage and distressing global events such as global warming and Hurricane Katrina. A lot of us have been brought up without understanding how we cope with stress.?

She said people who don?t handle stress well are more at risk for various types of illnesses including gastro-intestinal problems.

?Stress can create or make worse physical illness,? she said. ?For example, illnesses like the one I had are often made worse by stress. Psychoneuroimmunology is a field that investigates how we can use our minds and emotions to cope in a way that improves our health.?

Dr. Borysenko said that because her ideas are based in science, they have been greeted mostly with respect and interest from the rest of the medical community.

?What is upsetting for physicians in the mind body area is over-simplification, the idea that all of your illnesses are caused by wrong thinking and that if you think right you will be able to cure them. I disagree with that myself. That does nothing but engender guilt. There are other things besides stress that cause illness including genetics and environment.?

Two of the areas that her workshops will focus on will be gratitude and forgiveness.

?We will look at how to manage the mind so it becomes your servant and doesn?t turn around and eat you up,? she said. ?It is a very practical workshop and it will be a lot of fun. There will be a lot of laughter and a lot of tears.?

Although the workshops will look at spirituality, they will not be religious.

?It is not religious at all,? she said. ?Religion and spirituality are two different things. Spirituality is a gradual outgrowth of narcissism into a much greater sense of connection to people and the world around you, and to a higher intelligence that fits into your belief system.

?Spirituality has to do with feeling free of your old patterns and bringing forth good things on this world to make it a better place. It doesn?t matter if someone is religious or not.?

For more information about the workshops sponsored by Spirit Quest see the Bermuda Calendar.