Published on my old website in March 2020, at the very beginning of the pandemic, I wrote this blog to inform people about inflammation and proactive health.
It was also published by me on the Bold and Beautiful Swim Squad blog. I’m quietly proud that, despite chaotic confusion and mis-reporting from official sources, this blog went straight to the foundation of the problem and has since stood the test of time…
We’ve had a lot of information about how to react to this pandemic. Official reactions including social distancing, closing community gathering spaces and increasing hygiene practices.
These can be fantastic short term measures to “flatten the curve”. The idea of flattening the curve is to make sure the hospitals can prepare in case they are overwhelmed with serious cases as the new virus moves through the population.
However, when it comes to reducing serious cases, you can also do your bit by going above and beyond the reactions suggested by officials.
You see, you can also be PRO-active…
Many of the more serious symptoms of a viral infection, the ones that often lead to hospitalisation, are due to our body’s own dysregulated and exaggerated immune response.
To fight a pathogen like a virus, your immune response creates inflammation. The respiratory difficulty and lung damage seen in people who have contracted this current C19 virus are largely a result of an exaggerated inflammatory response in that person’s lung tissues.
Inflammation can be broken into 5 components: pain, heat, redness, swelling, and loss (or change) of function. These can all be a necessary, and helpful, part of the healing process. That is, when your inflammatory response functions in a healthy manner.
In a perfect world, your body targets a pathogen very precisely with exactly the correct type of inflammation, at the correct intensity, for the correct amount of time, and at the correct body location. Once the pathogen is dealt with, the inflammation (and the “symptoms” caused by the inflammation) can reduce, and you return to “normal life”.
For some people, this is exactly how it happens with this virus. Their immune response does its job well, and their inflammatory symptoms can be so slight that they don’t even know they had the infection. We’ve already seen many reports of this.
Other people may have such an exaggerated inflammatory response that it requires extended care in a hospital bed.
Same virus, but different outcome… How so?
There are many factors involved. One major factor determining whether you hardly notice having a virus, or experience a long stay in hospital, is your body’s ability to regulate its inflammation response in a healthy manner. The good news is you can be proactive and take steps to help your inflammatory response do this.
This all comes back to a topic I have been talking about for more than a decade. It’s an understanding that led me to dedicate my life to helping others improve theirs, at a foundational level.
That topic is Physically Retained Stress. In this particular case, how a stressed physiology tends to have a chronically high level of systemic inflammation. and an inability to regulate that inflammation in a healthy manner when required.
There’s already a large amount of evidence showing that when the body is stressed it activates the inflammatory response. Inflammation can be a normal and healthy part of the stress response – over a short term.
However, when you’re nervous system is dealing with a stress response that hasn’t properly switched off for a long time (AKA Physically Retained Stress), your body’s ability to accurately modulate the inflammation on and off is compromised. Our ambient level of inflammation is usually on the high side.
Take the specific example of the life threatening respiratory disorders and lung damage that some people are sufferring from with this pandemic. These problems are being blamed on what has been dramatically labelled a “cytokine storm”. A cytokine storm is simply an over-release of inflammatory chemicals, called cytokines, in the lungs.
During short term stress, certain hormones reduce your inflammatory cytokines. But when your body is dealing with stress responses that are hanging around past their use-by date, those same hormones can actually begin to increase the cytokines. In the case of the lungs, this can occur to the point where it restricts our ability to breath and can lead to permanent lung damage.
The good news, that isn’t being widely communicated in the media, is that can take fairly simple measures and be proactive with reducing your ambient level of inflammation. This doesn’t just help with virus situations, it better prepares you from many future health storms that may appear on your horizon.
How to be proactive?
Simply put, improve your baseline of health by reducing your overall stress load…
Ok, but what does that look like?
Just remember that old saying, “My body is my temple.” Then consider yourself; your whole self, as a temple.
A temple with 4 pillars:
1) The way you Eat and drink. Your Nutrition. The Chemical environment you live in
2) The way you Move. Your activity levels. Your Physical environment
3) The way you Think. Your thoughts and self talk. Your Mental-Emotional environment
4) The way you Recover and reset. Your sleep cycles and practices to relax and switch off.
In each of these 4 pillars of life ensure you reduce the lifestyle factors that stress your system, while having a sufficiency of what is helpful.
For example:
Eat more natural whole foods that are rich in micro nutrients but free from artificial additives and over-processing.
Maintain appropriate physical activity levels, and avoid prolonged desk work and sedentation.
Be disciplined with your ‘self talk’, the ideas you entertain and where you let your attention focus.
Find a reason to fall in love with every moment of life and eliminate negativity.
And kick start it all by getting a good night sleep, no screens or devices after sundown.
Your temple also has a roof to protect you from the fickle world around you. The roof represents the principles you live by, and the meaning you assign to life. Attend to this part of your temple on a regular basis by digesting archetypal ideas, timeless ideals and considering something beyond the self.
Finally we come to the most important aspect of your temple. The part that supports the 4 pillars, provides a stable base for the roof and everything you are. It also keeps you firmly grounded and connected in the present…
The Foundation.
Without a strong foundation your whole temple will crumble. Regardless of the way you move, eat, think and rest…
Your nervous system is your Foundation.
A nervous system that is free from Physically Retained Stress, is stable and resilient. Able to adapt to the stressors in our modern world as is necessary, so we are to build the life we really want to be living. Having a souns Foundation is not-negotiable.
This Temple of Life Model is a helpful metaphor for your body and your health. Becasue what’s occurring in your body is a metaphor for what’s occurring in your life. Building a strong “Temple” not only helps your body better modulate its inflammatory response when you catch a flu, it will also protect you from any future storms while providing a longer, healthier, happier life.
“Preparing Your Temple” is a simple formula:
– In each of the 4 pillars, reduce ongoing daily stressors.
– Increase healthy habits that assist your body in creating health.
– Develop the meaning and purpose that guides and inspires your life.
– Address the Physically Retained Stress that is weakening your foundation.
if you are interested in learning more about how we can help you build a strong foundation for life, book your complimentary introductory consult…
With Love,
Andrew Maher.
Neurostructural Chiropractor (and Temple Janitor).
Refs:
Yun-Zi Liu , Yun-Xia Wang. Chun-Lei Jiang. Inflammation: The Common Pathway of Stress-Related Diseases. June 2017. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2017.00316.
Geng Li et al. Coronavirus Infections and Immune Responses. Jan 2020.
Journal of Medical Virology, Vol 94, Issue 4.