Your Body Heals Itself, So Let It.
It’s time for Balance.
Each second of every day your body is fighting off cancer cells, repairing muscles, defeating infections, controlling blood pressure and heart rate, all with no assistance from pills, shots, casts, or doctor bills. The body’s miraculous capabilities in healing rely on the nervous system’s two major operating systems, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The former is the body’s stress response (fight or flight) and the latter is our homeostatic state, rest and digest.
Our body’s healing mechanisms work best when the nervous system is in relaxation response. The stress response, has a sole purpose, to save our lives. It was created to run from tigers and save babies floating down roaring rivers. When initiated, it fires bursts of chemicals (cortisol and epinephrine) to increase your blood pressure and heart rate as well as activate large muscle groups. This response refocuses your bodies attention from relaxation and healing to fight or flight. By doing so your body loses focus on restorative powers and balancing internal systems. Unfortunately, in today’s bustling society with stressful jobs, family life, and financial worries, we are constantly activating our stress response, diminishing our body’s abilities to continuously repair and restore. The average human initiates this harmful response on average of 50 times a day.
People wonder how so many “healthy” people who eat right, exercise, and stay productive are constantly sick or tired. This is caused by the body over using the stress response. Since the stress response only comes with one speed, to save your life, when overused, your body misses out on time to heal, grow, and balance itself. In today’s world you can initiate your stress response through social and emotional circumstances such as being lonely, having a job you dislike, being in a bad relationship, or having money concerns. The pessimistic or negative attitude you carry with you restricts your body’s ability to repair and furthermore diminishes you from personal or spiritual growth, a state your body loves and performs best in.
Since you brain can’t distinguish the difference between run from the Tsunami and no one loves me, it constantly feels it is in imminent danger, consuming tremendous amounts of energy for simple social and emotional turmoil. This causes you to become unhealthy and unable to get well.
This past century we have lost sight on our real medicine, the relaxation response, and have become reliant on prescription drugs, unnecessary surgeries, and advice from physicians rather than our body’s own expertise in healing.
It isn’t a coincidence that lonely, pessimistic or unhappy people have much higher rates of heart disease and live shorter lives. The laws of attraction also come into play. If you surround yourself and think about things you love and want to be a part of your body responds accordingly, seeking these things out, and ultimately obtaining them. Unfortunately, the opposite holds true as well. When you soak in negative energy by being worried about being sick or abused in your relationship, you attract more of these feelings and thoughts, increasing the negative energy and space around you and your body. You ultimately make yourself sick.
To get well and stay well, you need love, positive people, relaxation, truth, laughter, and creativity in your life and a lot of it. If you are sick, look for the negative things in your life first, get rid of them, and re-check your temperature. Many times, it is all you need to start feeling better.
In essence, you are turning off your stress and turning on your relaxation response. Once you do this, the body does what it does best, heals itself. So many of us turn ourselves over to the doctor when they get sick like you would your car to the mechanic when the brakes start squeaking. Most of the time the doctor doesn’t have the remedy you need, you do. Obviously, medicine has its place and time and without things like penicillin and vaccinations, we as a population wouldn’t’ be as healthy, but for everyday wellness, look inward first.
Balance believes in the benefits of exercise and nutrition to support your healthy lifestyle, but we also believe in the relaxation response. Give yourself the time it needs to relax, free from stress and negative energy, it could be the recipe you’ve been looking for.
Oh, great news, exercise stifles the buildup of stress!!! Come in for a workout and bring a stressed out buddy!
- Balance at Glover Park: (202) 965-2121
- Balance at Thomas Circle: (202) 216-9000
- Balance at Foggy Bottom: (202) 457-5070
- Balance at Capitol Hill: (202) 450-5448