I have been thinking for some time about what article I wanted to write. I have much of life to share with people. I reflected and then the words started to flow through me.
A few hours later, a magical unfolding of creative expression about chronic inflammation, unhealthy life choices and the brilliance of your power to overcome life challenges with a greater sense of empowerment. Inflammation is a healthy response to stress providing it is not too prolonged. I would like to share with you some simple concepts with very effective tools to support and achieve your healing goals .
Chronic stress causes pain
I have been blessed to work with a lot of different types of patients with a variety of interconnected, multifaceted, unhealthy conditions including:
- body mechanical dysfunctions (i.e. chronic low back pain, headaches, knee pain, and more)
- vertebral column misfiring (i.e. pins and needles down your leg, numbness in your hands, digestive problems, etc.)
- bodily systems discordance (i.e. sleep problems, tiredness, weight challenges and more)
- hormonal imbalances (i.e. infertility, thyroid issues, hair loss and more)
- emotional frustrations (i.e. anxiety, anger, fear, and more)
With blessed experiences, personal wisdom and with great certainty, I can say that the number one cause behind the problems of about 90% of the people that come through my practice is chronic inflammation.
We, as a whole, are in a state of chronic stress and such an unhealthy way of living brings forth an inflammatory response in the body that is unbalanced and destructive in so many ways. More importantly, once an individual learns of the brilliance of their body, hope is found again. You have the power to achieve a healthy and liberated way of living, which we all can do!
As most of us have already heard or read about, chronic inflammation in your body will only lead to many diseased situations in your life. I will share with you my personal and professional understanding of how such a biochemical state like chronic stress can create a variety of unhealthy interconnected conditions in many parts of your life, actually, in all of it. My own personal experiences taught me that everything in my life can be greatly affected by chronic stress.
You need inflammation to heal
Inflammation is the term given to describe the biological response that occurs as a result of tissue injury. Microbial infections, physical agents such as trauma, chemicals, necrotic tissue, all types of immunologic reactions and emotional stress can initiate the inflammatory process.
We should not limit our understanding of inflammation to the point where we characterize it merely as the body’s response to injury. The inflammatory response is actually a healing process. Your body’s inflammatory system is a very intelligent innate bodily equation that can help you heal and evolve in so many ways. However, your respect and honoring of such a gift to heal is needed.
The challenge in today’s world is the chronicity of stress and how such an unhealthy mental state will bring with it systematic chronic inflammation in your body. Chronic inflammation destroys the body in all ways!
However, since we are all creatures of learning and have the abilities to achieve incredible things, personal healing and responsibility is something we all need to hold close to our hearts. I have learned some very hard life lessons with not respecting my personal healing equation, now I just want to share with everyone my wisdom of how to understand and respect the power of our minds and the incredible blessing of healing our bodies too.
Chronic inflammation is unhealthy
When your tissues, key word ‘tissues’ meaning everything in your body, are being continually bombarded with cytoxic (cell killing) chemicals, harsh cellular poisoning follows and then tissues die. Again, key word, ‘die’.
Tissues are a class of a bodily system that are the foundation for all systems in your body. Think of it as the cement that holds and supports everything within you. Now, start taking a pick and begin chipping away at your cemented wall for a very long period of time. The wall will eventually collapse, along with all its associated structures and systems.
The 4 most important ways to become healthier
As I have also shared at the beginning, most of us are very aware and knowledgeable about what I will write about in the next few paragraphs, but it is nice to be reminded, even for me at times. We are very fortunate to be continually reminded and motivated to understand what is important for our awareness and have respect for our own self-worthiness and self-love.
I have recognized what I believe to be the four most common lifestyle choices we can become aware of and make desired decisions to achieve a greater and healthier state of living on so many levels. Simple things to help reduce our stress and inflammation in our lives.
1. Postural Intelligence
In my last article, I took you on a journey on how most of us create these unhealthy postural, structural, and biomechanical shifts. A common scenario is when you slouch forward on your desk all day long and your head is hanging over your shoulders. This poor postural state creates a lot of stressful strains everywhere, yes, everywhere.
Tissues that are involved in such a physical equation are chronically exposed to harsh biochemicals because of chronic inflammation. As an example, there is only so much your neck and its associated structures (i.e. ligaments, blood vessels, muscles, and more) can deal with such stressful postural imbalances.
I found from my experience that most patients suffer from chronic headaches because of such unhealthy biomechanics. Chronic headaches can prevent someone from having proper healthy sleep, a functional digestive system, or a state of emotional wellness.
I honor my health with daily movement exercises including functional exercise training, yoga, breathe work and qigong. My physical body would not be able to maintain a healthy state of existence without respecting how the body is meant to be in motion. If I do not move with regular consistency, I seize up and I do not feel well. My wisdom shared from my heart.
2. Food is medicine
We should not need to be reminded of such a powerful and simple approach to achieving optimal health and with it a balanced brilliant inflammatory system. However, we all need a reminder at times about what we seem to need for our highest potential in our lives. That said, each one of us will find her or his unique healthy connection with food.
I do believe certain important understandings are needed to become aware once again. These include a variety of different and yet important potential choices. These include themes such as wholistic, natural, mother nature-created, respectful agricultural practices, and humanely honoured food choices.
Such choices are very empowering and attainable opportunities to help support an important source of medicine. Individual-theme nutritional determined assessments can be achieved with a highly experienced health professional. More importantly, through your own personal experiences too. A reminder once again that you are a special person with your own special needs to thrive and evolve. I do much better with my beautiful connection with food being medicine by knowing that I require a lot of healthier forms of carbohydrates in my ratios of macronutrients need.
Here is another motivation to honor food as medicine. There is continuous research emerging showing the relationship between healthy food choices and its impact on your digestive system and its natural flora. A brilliant evolutionary equation has created a powerful symbiotic relationship among millions of microorganisms living in our bodies that are here to help us live a healthy and freeing way of existence. However, unhealthy food consumptions will cause a disturbance in this highly diverse living bodily terrain and with such discordance, diseases on so many levels. For example, if you are tired all the time; you cannot focus; you have disruptive sleep patterns; and low motivation, think unbalanced and unhealthy bugs in your gut. Bad bugs in your digestive system can be one of the many reasons why such an unhealthy state exists for you. Ready for this one, food is medicine.
3. Restorative sleep
Restorative sleep is all about living or dying. It is simple and most of us know this statement well. I can confidently express such words, living or dying.
We all heal when we sleep well and with a feeling of achieving rejuvenated waking. When one is not able to fully embrace all supportive healing aspects of sleep, our cortisol, stress hormone, levels are chronically elevated. I have learned that such a chronically unhealthy hormonal condition only creates chronic inflammation and its related disease states. I have learned too many hard life lessons not to ensure that I get the best sleeping conditions implemented in honoring my life.
These habits are helpful for better sleep
- darkening your room using black curtains
- having cooler temperatures
- shutting off all electronics
- deep meditative breathing practices
These nightly practices continue to help me achieve a strong, supportive sleep equation in my life. If you do not have restorative sleep for the majority of your life, your health will suffer.
4. A blissful focused mind
A blissful focused mind is something I believe that anyone can achieve. It is not easy at times, but the empowerment of a focused mind always comes with truthful and learned experiences. I have learned so many hard life lessons with a discord mind but with such opportunities I have also learned to understand and appreciate the power of our minds. Nonetheless, with such power great chaos can be experienced because of our lack of truly embracing such a privileged state of existence, blissfulness is a beautiful state.
Our minds are very powerful state of existences and yet they can also bring so much damage and pain in so many ways. I am blessed to have found my personal and empowering daily practices that honor the brilliance of my mind. They include deep breathing practices, meditative rituals, subtle energy cultivation techniques and positive daily affirmational self-programming .
My mind is what sets things in motion in every part of my life, including my physical body and its systems. Therefore, a chaotic, stressed out, emotionally upset and tired mind will not serve anyone well. But a mind existing in a state of bliss and focus is an extremely well empowered gift. An unhealthy mind can create an environment that is overwhelmed with stress in a multitude of ways. The clear message is that chronic stress will lead to inflammation, systematic dysfunction, and tissue death, not an empowering and happy way of living.
As I have shared earlier, a healthy and balanced inflammatory system is needed for our evolution to attain our highest potential.
About my practice
I have created and continue to develop a style of medicine that honors wholistic , functional, natural, and energetic themes within my wellness chiropractic work. I have learned to respect and understand the multitude of imbalances within the body and its interconnectedness with how it influences endless systems within us.
My intention with this writing assignment was to help as many people, including myself ,with the most beautiful gift anyone can have for themselves: self-love through a healthy and empowering way of living. Find your supportive healing team of practitioners and teachers, find ways to support a strong and growing daily practice for your self-growth, and remember this well, health is really number one.
To Stress or not to stress ……