How to Heal Yourself

by Kaleb Montgomery, Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine

There are 4 key ingredients that go into recovering from an illness. These ingredients are crucial for recovery from anything from cancer to the common cold. Using these 4 ingredients in your everyday life will get you feeling better.

The first one is hope. You have to believe that you can get better. This may seem obvious at first glance, however it is amazing how many people do not believe that can ever feel well again. Health returns much quicker if you feel and know that you will improve. People get better from "incurable" diseases all the time. Be one of those people.

The second is perceived control. You need to know that you can make a difference. It is critical to know that your actions can help you heal. You can do many things to speed recovery. Many studies have shown the crucial role that self empowerment plays in healing. These same studies explain how feeling like a victim has a detrimental effect on your chance for recovery. Feeling victimized robs you of your power to change the situation. It makes you at the effect of other people or things instead of being at the centre of your own circle of power. Essential to recovery is moving past what happened to you and into "what can I do to get better now". Doing "something" does not have to be complicated. It can be as simple as resting more. Again, entering into this active stage of healing will enhance your ability to recover from any illness.

The last 2 ingredients are linked, stress reduction and relaxation. The real reason stress is bad for us is that when we feel stress our body';s healing response is reduced. The neurochemicals that our body releases when we feel stress shuts or slows down our immune system, digestive system and our reproductive system. This "fight or flight"; stress response shunts blood from the above mentioned systems to the brain and muscles. This happens so we can quickly respond (think and act) to a dangerous situation, e.g. running from a bear. The problem happens because feeling stressed is designed to be a short term response, until we run away from or kill the bear. Today we feel stress much more often than our bodies meant the system to handle. Long term this means that our immune , digestive and reproductive systems all suffer because they have less blood, oxygen and nutrients going to them than they should. You can see how an impaired immune or digestive system would adversely affect us. Learning to relax by using better stress management techniques will not only help us recover from disease quicker, but it will help prevent us from getting sick in the first place. All we have to do is get ourselves out of the way and let mother nature do its thing. Our body knows how to heal itself, we just have to let it do it.

In ending, using not just stress reductionand relaxation, but all 4 of these ingredients in your life will not only help you get better, it will help keep healthy.