The core principles across multiple printable pages.
Quick-Start Cheat Sheets
How to Stay Well
Apply the Teaching
Quick-Start Cheat Sheets for How to Stay Well
How to Stay Well - Quick-Start Cheat Sheets
Larson's wellness principles distilled with a mind-body science perspective.
Inside the Cheat Sheets
One page per core principle
Health as Harmony
True health is not the absence of disease but a dynamic, self-regulating expression of harmony across the physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions of human existence..
Illness as Downstream Symptom
Physical illness is often a downstream somatic symptom of mental disharmony.
Emotional Cleansing as Prerequisite
Anger, fear, and worry are not just unpleasant states but active physiological interferences.
Joy as Medicine
Cultivating a persistent state of joy, enthusiasm, and contentment serves as a powerful protective and restorative treatment.
Rest as Recovery
True rest requires soothing the nervous system, not merely stopping physical movement.
Holistic Laws
Physical laws (diet, hygiene, exercise) and mental laws (emotional order, constructive thought) are both necessary.
The Method
CBT, NLP and somatic principles built into every line
Every line on the cheat sheets is written in NLP presupposition structure - language that treats the principle as already true rather than something to aspire toward. This is not a stylistic choice; it is a functional one. The subconscious mind processes language that presupposes reality more readily than language that frames it as a goal. “Your attention filter is already working for you” lands differently than “try to change your attention filter.”
The layout applies CBT chunking principles: each principle sits in its own distinct block so the brain processes it as a discrete unit rather than as part of an undifferentiated wall of text. Cluttered reference material is processed as noise. Clean, spaced, visually distinct content is processed as signal. The design decisions are functional, not decorative.
Printed and placed visibly, the cheat sheets work as environmental priming - a principle from somatic psychology. What you see repeatedly, without actively reading, shapes your default perceptual set. A cheat sheet pinned above your desk works not only when you read it deliberately but when your peripheral vision catches it during ordinary work. The subconscious is always receiving.
Why we built it this way
How to Stay Well is the most directly relevant of Larson's books to the DAR Align phase - specifically the nervous system regulation and emotional hygiene work. In DAR terms, Larson's framework maps onto the understanding that chronic stress (sympathetic nervous system activation) creates the biological conditions for physical illness, and that building emotional poise and joy is not spiritual luxury but physiological maintenance. The DAR Core 4 daily practice includes emotional regulation tools that serve exactly this function: not because positive thinking cures disease but because chronic emotional dysregulation measurably compromises physical resilience.
Larson's chapter on 'letting go of your ailments' maps onto the DAR Notice-Decode-Challenge-Choose process as applied to health anxiety. The psychological habit of obsessively focusing on physical symptoms reinforces them neurologically - threat-scanning increases perceived symptom intensity and sustains the autonomic arousal that delays recovery. The DAR approach adds the somatic layer Larson did not have: working with the body's signals directly rather than only directing the mind away from them.
How to Use It
Three uses that actually work
- 1
Print and pin visibly
Pin the pages where you will see them without actively looking - above your desk, on the kitchen wall, beside the mirror. Peripheral exposure is the mechanism. You do not need to read it every day; you need it in your visual field.
- 2
Scan before a decision or challenge
Before a difficult conversation, a business decision, or a moment when the old pattern is likely to activate - read one principle deliberately. A 90-second scan primes the attentional filter before it is tested.
- 3
Use as a nightly anchor
The pre-sleep window is the subconscious's most receptive state. Reading one principle immediately before sleep is the highest-leverage moment in the day for impressing a new pattern. Two minutes - one principle, read slowly, felt rather than just processed.
Worth knowing
This is a reference tool, not a practice system
The cheat sheets give you the principles in a scannable, always-available format. They will not give you thirty days of structured daily practice - that is what the workbook is built for. If you want the 30-day practice system, it is here.
Who This Is For
You'll get the most from this if…
- ✓You sense that your physical health is connected to your mental and emotional state but want a framework for understanding how
- ✓You are dealing with stress-related physical symptoms and want tools beyond medication or willpower
- ✓You want to understand the early intellectual history of holistic and integrative medicine
- ✓You have felt trapped in a cycle where anxiety about your health makes the health problem worse
- ✓You are interested in the relationship between emotional states, nervous system regulation, and physical wellbeing
- ✓You want a pre-scientific but intuitively sound framework for the mind-body connection that you can read alongside modern health research
Complete the Practice
Complete the How to Stay Well practice
30-Day Challenge Workbook
Build the teaching into 30 days of structured daily practice.
Habit Tracker & Goal Planner
Track the micro-habits that compound into lasting change.
52-Week Daily Affirmation Calendar
52 weeks of daily affirmations - one for every day from May 2026 to April 2027.
Affirmation Card Deck
52 cards to carry the teaching into every part of your day.
The Toolkit
All five products for this work in one discounted bundle. Save 30%.
Annotated Edition
Christie L. Russell's annotated edition with neuroscience and NLP commentary.
About the Work
How to Stay Well - New Thought, 1866-1954
Larson applies his optimism and mental development principles to physical health, arguing that consistent right thought creates the internal conditions for sustained wellbeing.
The Science Behind It
Larson's prolific optimism-based approach is the closest New Thought comes to positive psychology as a formal discipline. His emphasis on the 'promise yourself' principle maps to self-compassion research - treating yourself as you would a good friend is one of the most evidence-backed interventions for sustained positive change. His insistence on consistency over intensity anticipates what we now know about neuroplasticity: small repeated actions create stronger and more durable neural pathways than occasional dramatic ones.
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