Stress is a catch all term for anything that makes us uncomfortable. We say things are stressful when we don't want do do it, like taxes. But stress is a whole lot more, and expanding our use of it to include mental-emotional stress, as well as biological stress. If we include both of these stress categories into our analysis of stress, managing stress becomes not only an act of relaxation, but an effective resistance to many types of bacterial, viral, and fungal attack.
This idea of natural immune enhancement for fighting of disease is becoming more common due to discussions around the Covid-19 pandemic. As doctors and scientists race to find a cure, others are looking to enhance what is most accessible to each individual, and that is there own innate immune system. Because many of the interventions possible, including vaccines, require a deepening understanding of the immune system to provide effective results, research into every possible avenue for improved resistance is being done.
One of the most interesting ideas being shown to play a role in viral immunity is that whenever your body programs antibodies to specific pathogens, it decreases the availability of your adaptive immune system to fight off a new pathogen. This seems simple at first, but becomes less so if your programmed immune system is dealing with many pathogens at once. If this happens and you are exposed to an extremely harmful pathogen, like a "pandemic" of some kind, the probability that you will have a quick and effective immune response may be the difference between an extremely deadly response to the virus or not.
In any case the threat of viral, fungal, and microbial invasion and the response of our lymphatic systems has always persisted with us. Our genetics are well suited for adaptation, the questions is whether with a mastery of our microbial, viral, and fungal micro/macro biomes will we be better fit to fight of diseases of the future.
When we consider stress, we think about mental health stress mostly. The kind of stress we put off dealing with because of our responsibilities. It catches up to us in how we show up for relationships with those we care about. Eventually we feel run down because we have too much going on. But rarely do we consider that might not be true, and the stress that we feel actually begins in a much deeper place.
Our digestive immune system where the front lines of pathological immunity are being fought over by good and bad bacteria. As you move through your day, when stressful moments happen, consider how well you are taking care of your body. How confident are you that the stress that you feel is not mental but physical?
No matter where you are, it is important to take time to relax and decompress. Mental stress can be just as disruptive to our gut as a parasitic invasion. Take care of your gut. Eat good food, check out the Abdominal Massage video's on the home page. Listen to the hypnotherapy services, they're free if you can't pay! Invest in Intestinal Permeability and Gut Zoomer Testing to understand if you gut is stressed by imbalances. Keeping your gut health under control is the best thing you can do for yourself to stay healthy!
Keep the gut line forces strong everyone!