In previous articles I have mentioned many ways to improve your immune system and thus maximize your health. Why is this so important? Well, do you know of anything that is more important than your health?
We can strengthen our immune system and overall health by eating whole foods, minimizing added sugars and processed foods, exercising regularly, and taking vitamins as needed to support our nutrition. That’s pretty simple, yes? Actually not really, especially when we are surrounded with delicious food and convenience foods, and lots of distractions. We all know how to be healthy, but most of the time we don’t apply what we know. We apply it for a few days at most, then we forget and go back to our old habits.
But what if you have an option to learn how to eat consciously, and by doing so you improve your immune strength and overall health. How? Yes, through meditation.
Meditation means listening to your own body and staying as quiet as possible, without any force.
Real meditation is a practice to become completely aware of all of your five senses. This doesn’t mean forcing yourself to be quiet. When you start to practice by just sitting, without trying to do anything, over time you can really start hearing yourself.
When you are grateful, peaceful, happy and have a quiet mind, can you think about any negatives in your life? Many studies support that mindfulness meditation improves our health and wellbeing while increasing our immune biomarkers and reducing the inflammation markers in the body. Your thoughts and feelings can definitely make you ill, but why not do the opposite and use positive thoughts and happy feelings to make you feel well and prevent dis-eases.
Scientists have been looking for a long time to correlate the relationship between thought and feeling, and how this can affect our overall health. Now, we can actually begin to understand how the brain and immune system can interact, and how in doing so we can strengthen the immune system.
When you are in a meditative or relaxing state you will most likely feel grateful and happy too. During this time the body’s internal defense system is working to turn on healthy genes and to make healthy anti-bodies and helpful chemicals, to balance and regulate the body, thus helping homeostasis.
This process can reduce inflammation, turn off the “bad” genes that can make you sick, and improve the body’s protection and defenses. We can not separate our body and treat it as a lot of little pieces — when you really heal, everything heals as a whole.
I am not saying when you meditate you will never get sick, of course not. However, you will be able to heal yourself a lot faster. The body doesn’t want to be ill. In addition, when you aware with your body you will start to live more consciously too.
Try it — just sit completely still, even just one minute every day…
“Meditation consist of two processes; One is insight, paying attention to what is arising. The other is surrender, letting go of attachment to arising thoughts”
— Dan Millman
Resources:
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4940234/
• https://health.clevelandclinic.org/q-amazing-immune-system-protects-health/
• https://davidvago.bwh.harvard.edu/why-mindfulness-can-help-the-immune-system/
• https://www.semel.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Mindfulness%20meditation%20and%20the%20immune%20system.pdf
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Ayda Ersoy, Nutritionist (Dip.C.N., Dip.S.N.), Master Trainer (CPT ACE, NCSF, CanfitPro), Registered Yoga Teacher, Founder, Health Angel Nutrition, Fitness and Wellness, Founder, SMS (Stability, Mobility Strength) Intuitive Training System.
