{"id":12817,"date":"2024-12-18T14:25:52","date_gmt":"2024-12-18T20:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.und.edu\/for-your-health\/?p=12817"},"modified":"2024-12-18T14:25:52","modified_gmt":"2024-12-18T20:25:52","slug":"prescription-for-positivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.und.edu\/for-your-health\/2024\/12\/18\/prescription-for-positivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Prescription for positivity"},"content":{"rendered":"

UND grad Harris Jensen shares his advice for breaking the cycle of negative thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up in North Dakota, I was taught not to be selfish, not to promote yourself,\u201d smiled Harris Jensen from his office in Fort Collins, Colo. \u201cIt was just ingrained in me: Midwesterners don\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

This upbringing is why it was such a challenge for the 1992 graduate of the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS) M.D. program both to talk about the book he published in 2022 and to reach out to his alma mater about his recent history, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have some friends who are in marketing and they told me to put posts about my work on social media and talk about the book,\u201d he laughed. \u201cBut that feels like I\u2019m being selfish!\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not selfish, Jensen\u2019s non-Midwestern friends reassured him: if your book might help people experiencing depression, loneliness, or addiction, they will want to know about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy friends helped me though that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Promoting self-promotion<\/h3>\n

And good thing too. Because a world that feels increasingly negative needs more positivity, said the psychiatrist.<\/p>\n

This increase in negativity is the reason why Jensen wrote and published his first book, Prescription for Positivity: Life skills to live<\/em> your best life<\/em><\/a>, in 2022.<\/p>\n

Filled with suggestions and tips on how those suffering from anxiety, depression, and a lack of self-esteem can help themselves turn their lives around, Prescription <\/em>shows readers how they might break the cycle of negative thinking and embrace a \u201chealthy positivity,\u201d Jensen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in a country that\u2019s truly been polarized along all sorts of lines,\u201d he said, noting the rise in mental illnesses of all subtypes in the U.S. over the past two decades. \u201cThere\u2019s a war going on in our minds between the side of us that wants us to do well and believe good things are going to happen, and our pessimism that the future is doomed.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s no reason why pessimism is destined to win that war, Jensen said.<\/p>\n

Building on his own clinical emphasis on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), Jensen explains that as challenging as our environment gets \u2013 from economic hurdles to political conflicts that can divide communities \u2013 we can work to control our attitude and our reaction to the world around us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a rise in depression and a rise in suicide,\u201d he admitted. \u201cAnxiety is off the chart. People thought it was because of COVID, but even after COVID it persisted. But if we help people develop the skills to manage these things, we can control them. These are game-changing skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even more, we can change our habits to better control our lives in ways that help us avoid the chronic pessimism that contributes to some mental health disorders, Jensen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlow charts and to-do lists and meditation and exercise: all of these things can help us stay focused and organized, which helps us stay positive,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a way to open doors with people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I was crying and I couldn\u2019t stop\u2019<\/h3>\n

The North Dakota-born, Jensen said that he too struggled with mental health, particularly right out of college.<\/p>\n

After earning a degree in journalism in the 1980s, Jensen said that he took a position as a newspaper reporter in Southern California. Government beat. But something wasn\u2019t right, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was crying and I couldn\u2019t stop, and I was in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Interstate 5, one of the busiest highways in Southern California,\u201d he confessed on the first page of Prescription<\/em>. \u201cI\u2019d become a reporter to help people, but really I could do very little to help others. I just wrote stories about people\u2019s problems\u2026. I was stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Jensen quit his journalism job and went back to school \u2013 specifically medical school at UND. After graduating with his M.D. in 1992, Jensen completed a psychiatry residency in Minnesota and ended up in Fort Collins, Colo., where he practices to this day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my freshman year, we took lectures on psychiatry, and I just thought it was fascinating,\u201d Jensen continued. His professor \u201ctalked about the biopsychosocial model \u2013 how the brain doesn\u2019t just react to biological things, but reacts to psychological events \u2013 and that just fired up my intellectual curiosity. He talked about how the combination of counseling and medication got much better results than just prescribing medicine alone or CBT alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attitude determines altitude<\/h3>\n

So that\u2019s how Jensen has approached his practice for the past 25 years: counseling plus medication (when necessary).<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we have the attitude discussion, that really helps patients,\u201d he said. \u201cNot always, but the attitude question often helps people tap into the natural optimism they used to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

After patients understand this, they tend to open up about how they can reimagine their lives and the agency to affect their direction of their lives. Jensen\u2019s book is just another way of having that conversation with people, he said, a way of helping those suffering from chronic anxiety, depression, or low self-esteem understand that they can turn their lives around, and how they might envision doing so.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere can a person start if they feel overwhelmed by adversities?\u201d he concluded Prescription<\/em>. \u201cI suggest keep it simple. Just try to make a little progress every day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UND grad Harris Jensen shares his advice for breaking the cycle of negative thinking. \u201cGrowing up in North Dakota, I was taught not to be selfish, not to promote yourself,\u201d smiled Harris Jensen from his office in Fort Collins, Colo. \u201cIt was just ingrained in me: Midwesterners don\u2019t do that.\u201d This upbringing is why it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":12821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3367,2888,3368,284],"class_list":["post-12817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-harris-jensen","tag-mental-illness","tag-prescription-for-positivity","tag-psychiatry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPrescription for positivity - For Your Health<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.und.edu\/for-your-health\/2024\/12\/18\/prescription-for-positivity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Prescription for positivity - For Your Health\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"UND grad Harris Jensen shares his advice for breaking the cycle of negative thinking. \u201cGrowing up in North Dakota, I was taught not to be selfish, not to promote yourself,\u201d smiled Harris Jensen from his office in Fort Collins, Colo. \u201cIt was just ingrained in me: Midwesterners don\u2019t do that.\u201d This upbringing is why it […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.und.edu\/for-your-health\/2024\/12\/18\/prescription-for-positivity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"For Your Health\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-18T20:25:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.und.edu\/for-your-health\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2024\/12\/jensen-book-1024.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brian Schill\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Brian Schill\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.und.edu\\\/for-your-health\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/18\\\/prescription-for-positivity\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.und.edu\\\/for-your-health\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/18\\\/prescription-for-positivity\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Brian Schill\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.und.edu\\\/for-your-health\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/c902be5161f180ccfbae046119a5d3b7\"},\"headline\":\"Prescription for positivity\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-18T20:25:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.und.edu\\\/for-your-health\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/18\\\/prescription-for-positivity\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":890,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.und.edu\\\/for-your-health\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/18\\\/prescription-for-positivity\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.und.edu\\\/for-your-health\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/10\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/jensen-book-1024.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"harris jensen\",\"mental illness\",\"prescription for positivity\",\"psychiatry\"],\"articleSection\":[\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.und.edu\\\/for-your-health\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/18\\\/prescription-for-positivity\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.und.edu\\\/for-your-health\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/18\\\/prescription-for-positivity\\\/\",\"name\":\"Prescription for positivity - 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