What would you do if I told you that if by this time next week I was going to check in on your health, and if you weren't sick, I was going to kill you? Call me a health terrorist. Either you find a way to guarantee you'll be sick, or you'll be dead. What would you do? How could you not just increase your risk, but actually guarantee that you will be ill?
This is a question I always ask my students when we talk about common colds, flues, and other contagious illnesses. Instead of having them think about staying well, I turn their thought process around and make them come up with ways to get sick. Most classes give me the same responses to start. Things like don't wash your hands; hang around others who are sick; spend time in a school or day care; or touch others who are sick, and then touch your nose or eyes. When I get those responses, I then come back with a question: will that guarantee you will get sick? Remember your life is on the line. At this point I get usually get blank stares, since we've been taught by society to focus so much on minimizing germ transmission that they rarely have any concept of what it takes for our bodies to really get sick.
If you want to guarantee illness, you must first look at what it takes to keep yourself healthy. Will washing your hands guarantee health? How about being around only healthy people? If you never go to a school or day care, will you never get sick? Look at all those who are always around sick people, and rarely get sick themselves. How does that work? Being and staying healthy has very little to do with germ exposure. Your risk of getting sick is much more determined by how you take care of yourself, than how often or what type of critters to which you expose yourself.
As we move into the cold and flu season, this is an especially important concept to discuss. How can you reduce your risk of getting sick? It all comes down to looking at the host, and not spending so much time on the bugs.
1. Make sure you are getting adequate high quality rest. Not only is it important to sleep for an adequate amount, but it is also important to make sure that it is good quality. That means without the TV or radio and the room as dark as you can get it. This is true for not only adults, but also kids. Nightlights disturb our sleep.
2. Eat a diet that consists of adequate protein, has lots of veggies, and is as unrefined as possible. Sugar is an immune suppressant, and directly competes with vitamin C to get into your cells. The more processed your food, the more your body has to process it to get rid of its waste. If you can't tell what type of plant or animal it came from, think twice (or thrice) about putting it in your system.
3. Drink plenty of water. Dehydration is a common occurrence in our population. We tend to "hydrate" with soda, fruit juice, milk, energy drinks, and coffee, all of which dehydrate instead of hydrate. If you don't have enough water in your system, it's like having the toilet full of waste without water to flush it down. Things get plugged up and start to smell.
4. Keep your vitamin D levels up. I discussed this in a previous blog, but one of the issues with cold and flu season is dropping vitamin D levels. Have your level checked, and make sure you're in the 65-80 ng/ml range.
5. Learn to handle stress better. Your immune system is suppressed by stress, and that stress can be mechanical from your spine as much as emotional or chemical. If you are not handling stress well, you will not be able to fight off those bugs, and getting a regular chiropractic adjustment has been shown to stimulate the immune system.
6. Protect yourself from temperature swings. We've been enjoying some great weather for the past few weeks, but we all know winter is on its way, and it will soon be freezing cold outside. Does being cold cause us to get sick? Yes and no. When our body temp drops, we become more susceptible to infection, and when we put ourselves in a position to not stay warm when we're outside, that's exactly what happens. Bundle up, keeping the head and ears warm and protecting the neck from wind. It seems these are the areas that are most important to keeping ourselves in the best shape.
So, if you were the health terrorist, and I was the victim, what would I do? I'd stay inside all day long; eat crappy food and drink lots of processed fluids; stress myself out; don't sleep; and go outside in the cold and wind in shorts and a t-shirt for as long as I could stand it. Would this guarantee my illness? Maybe not guarantee, but it's as close as I can get. Focus on yourself instead of the bugs, and chances are, you won't have to worry about the bugs.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
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