Listen To Your Body- Don't Shout At It!

As a sometime Masters Athlete, I even have learned that my body lets me know when it's slight 'down'- a touch of tinea; the tickle of a possible cold sore; the sensation of being 'run down.' These are signs that my system is depressed, which fixing a tough session today will cause a chilly or pharyngitis tomorrow. The body's talking, and I have learned to concentrate. If I'm sensible, I'll also go for an early night, eat some good food, and take some extra vitamins- especially C.

As I've learned about health and nutrition, I've not only got to concentrate on my body, but I've come more and more to respect traditional remedies and wisdom. Many traditional sayings are proving to possess a scientific basis. Take these few examples;

- "Eat up your carrots" -it DOES assist you to see within the dark.

- "Fish is brain food" -takes on new credibility as we study Essential Fatty Acids.

- "Drink tea with lemon for a cold"- works, although it's probably the bioflavonoids within the tea, not the vitamin C within the lemon!

Not only do many old sayings have validity, but so do many aged remedies. Numerous traditional herbs have 'given birth' to modern drugs. To call just a few ...

- Valerian led to Valium

- Willow Bark led to Asprin

Naturopath Chris Wainwright tells me that about half the pharmaceutical drugs around are derived from natural sources. So we invented drugs thousands of years before we invented pharmaceutical companies! Grandma and natives within the Amazon DID have some idea of what they were saying and doing!

As well as a bent to disregard 'old-fashioned' knowledge, we have an unfortunate tendency to react to symptoms instead of trying to know why we are feeling the way we do. Today, happily, modern science is catching up with the very fact that we shouldn't always resort to modern science when the body does something different!

Coughing, Pain, fever, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, anxiety, fatigue, sneezing and inflammation are standard defenses employed by the body. We ask them at our peril. Here are a couple of examples.

- Coughing clears the airways.

- Fever raises the body's temperature to assist destroy pathogens.

- Pain is there permanently reason. As someone acknowledged, "Pain

isn't nature's way of telling us that we have an aspirin deficiency"!

While I'm not suggesting that each occurrence of those symptoms should be ignored and assumed to be no risk to our health, we have an unfortunate tendency to leap out for the newest product advertised on TV to cure the symptom. Or to ask the Doctor to prescribe antibiotics!

A new field of study in life science has developed in recent years. This field, of understanding how the body evolved the way during which it operates, is named Darwinian Medicine.

Having respect for a few thousand years of accumulated wisdom can help us enhance our body's ability to take care of healthiness.

A greater understanding of why our body is acting the way it's will help all folks to reply more appropriately to the symptoms our body develops from time to time.

To repeat the title of this article- hear YOUR body.