You Are Way More In Control Than What You Think
In 24 years ofpractice I have never seen the fear and overwhelm in my clients or in thecommunity…and that includes the aftermath of being in practice literally hoursafter the twin towers collapse of 9/11.
This too though seemssurreal.
We are continually beingbombarded with so much information about coronavirus (COVID-19) that it canbecome terrifying, and unfortunately only some of the information is true. There is so much conflicting information,hearsay and rumour that it becomes hard to wade through the quagmire of data.
There is a reallyimportant piece of information that I feel though isn’t being spoken about asmuch – for whatever reason I do not know – and that is what I would like to letyou know about.
Before I get to thatthough I would like to let you in on some research out of the esteemed medicaljournal, The New England Journal of Medicine, and this dates back to 1991. Yes, it is a few years old, however you willsee that this does not matter.
The research isentitled “Psychological Stress and Susceptibility to the Common Cold”
What the researcherswanted to find out was if there was a relationship between how stressed peoplewere, and the likelihood of them getting the cold or the flu.
There were 370volunteers and they had 1 of 5 viruses flushed directly up their nose. That is, a syringe carrying the disease wasplaced inside of their nose and the disease was squirted up their nose, notgetting the disease by rubbing their eyes or sitting next to someone who mighthave it.
All of these peopleprior to this injection if the disease were tested to see how much stress thatthey were under.
Now, this is where itgets really interesting…One of the actual viruses that was flushed uptheir nose was a corona virus – not the current one that we are facedwith now, but another one.
What were theresults:
#1 Not everyone got sick – only 60%of the corona cases got sick.
Therefore, if we can have a virus stuck up our nose, and if we haveenough vitality then we might also not get sick
#2 Therewas a direct relationship between how stressed someone was and the intensityof the symptoms and how long they lasted.
#3 Psychologicalstress was a better predictor than any other lifestyle stress.
The message in this:
We are constantly being told that we have no control over our health; weare being told to take this or to rub this in, instead of being told that wecontrol our own body and our own health. News out of china is that the people getting the sickest were the oneswho were stressed and with lousy lifestyle habits.
We are in the driver’s seat.
You are way more in control than what you think. Thereare strategies to decrease stress. Hereis a simple cheat sheet to start.
Stay tuned over the next few weeks as we share more on ways in which youcan decrease your stress load be it physical, chemical or emotional.
In Loving Service
Dr. Brett
Family Chiropractic Chatswood: your partner in achieving optimal spinal health and overall wellbeing.