Are You More Powerful
Than a Pandemic?
Science has shown that the body has the ability to heal itself. We’ve seen, in decades of research, that the quality of the water we drink, the food we eat, and the air we breathe, are the strongest determinants of disease, and that even our own thoughts and emotions directly affect our health. So when it comes to a “virus” that is spanning the globe, are we really strong enough to prevail? The answer is: Yes!!... but we can create the circumstances to experience things as if we are not.
It’s up to us whether we experience strength and resilience in our bodies to stay healthy despite exposure to pathogens, or we succumb and become ill. The biggest difference? Our own beliefs. Of all the factors shown to affect our health, the #1 factor that affects what’s going on inside our bodies is our own thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. Every thought you have sends a chemical signal throughout your body that affects every single cell. Thoughts of love, joy, and freedom have been shown to support health, strengthen the immune system, and reverse the aging process. Thoughts of anger, fear, or shame do the opposite. In fact, the emotions that go along with these thoughts have been shown to increase inflammation, suppress digestive function and impair immunity. Emotions have such a powerful effect on our bodies that they even govern our DNA expression and can turn on the genes for disease and turn off the genes for healing.
Of all the thoughts we have, our beliefs, the thoughts we have most frequently, will most powerfully determine whether our body is strong and resilient, or whether we experience illness, fatigue, and pain. One of the mechanisms for this is the way our beliefs can trigger our fight-or-flight system into over-activity. Fight-or-flight, or sympathetic nervous system activity, is meant to be short-lived. Our body goes into a hyper-alert state in order to overcome a threat and ensure our survival. If we’re running from a tiger or putting out a fire, we need our blood and oxygen to go toward the working muscles, and not toward basic housekeeping activities such as digesting our last meal or detoxifying our body. Our brain function also changes. During fight-or-flight, the brain becomes