Flu - Cold Season And Rest

This is the third part in this series about the cold and flu season.  Please visit the first series, Flu - Cold Season And Mind Body Healing and part 2, Flu And Cold Season And Nutrition.   Reading these first two parts in this series will help you to understand today's blog post much better.

Stress and trauma and nutrition are not the only things that impacts the health of our body.  Getting adequate rest and sleep are essential for our body to function at maximum efficiency.  All too often in our life, we view rest as something we may or may not do on a yearly vacation and we see sleep as something we have to fit into our day.

In many ways we have the emphasis on rest and sleep backwards in our life.  Instead of making it a priority, we try to fit it into our busy schedules, if we happen to get the chance.  We don't see it as a necessity, rather we see it as something that you could do every now and then.  Our bodies require sleep and rest to function.  It is a time when our cells rejuvenate themselves and our mind defrag the stressful and busy moments of our day.

Flu And Cold Season And Nutrition

While stress, trauma, and past experiences in life have a large effect on the health of our body, there are other factors that play into the health of our body.  If you have not already read yesterday's post about "Flu - Cold Season And Mind Body Healing, I would urge you to do that.  Of course, getting proper nutrition into your body each day helps during cold and flu season.

Eating processed, fried and mutilated foods will not give your body the proper nutrition it needs.  You need whole foods, including vegetables and fruits.  Less sugar, high fructose corn syrup and fatty foods are essential for optimal health.  These foods do nothing but add further stress to your body.  Our diets are lacking in proper nutrition in this country and we consume way too much of what we should not and not enough of what we should.

There is one thing we do in our house each day and that is every morning we have our whole food smoothies.  They are based upon the Food Based Healing principles by Jeff Primack of Qigong.com. We have the Blendtec blender and we take whole vegetables and fruits (skins, seeds and all) and make them into a blended smoothie we drink every morning.  It helps give us all of what we need as well as fiber and it sets up our day with a boost of healthy nutrition.  Since we have been doing this routine, we do not get colds or flu.  Yes, this is in addition to the other healing work I mentioned in the previous blog post, and it is a major part of our day.

Flu - Cold Season And Mind Body Healing

I read a recent article in our local newspaper that caught my attention.  It stated that the flu and cold season was starting early according to local health clinics.  While I'm sure that is the case, I find it sad that we function as if flu and colds are a normal part of the human existence.

It is easy to get in the mindset that getting sick or getting colds or other health conditions are just part of every day life for humans.  However, this need not be the case.  Now, before you think I'm all whacky and some part of the new age hype, I am speaking from experience here.

A long time ago it seems now, I didn't get sick often, but I would get colds.  I had headaches, including migraines.  I had stomach ulcers, allergies, neck stiffness, back aches, depression, anxiety, conversion disorder, and paralysis, among other things that I can barely remember now.  In fact, I was on medication at one time or another for each of these things and never thought I would be able to function without medications.  I never thought I could be healthy enough to function without all of these conditions.

Then, it happened!   I started to get a tremendous amount of work done on me to help heal my life.  After a life changing event where I lost my mom in a car accident, my entire world turned upside down.  Yes, I had a lot of trauma and if you read my book, Hope And Possibility Through Trauma, you will see some of the situations I had to deal with in my life.  While it would be easy for anyone to recognize that the trauma I had been through was somehow exceptional and the sole reason my body experienced these health conditions, that would not be entirely true.