This is the second week in a row that I am touting a book on the Change Well blog and podcast. I have heard good things about Bill Bryson’s The Body for several years, and now that I have read it, I can see why! The body has amazing ways to heal itself.
The human body’s mysteries are as riveting as any thriller by Baldacci or Patterson. Even though the human body is the most studied topic in science, we are just beginning to understand its astonishing features. The quote below is just one incredible fact about the body from a book chock full of them.
“Unpacked, you are positively enormous. Your lungs smoothed out, would cover a tennis court, and the airways within them would stretch nearly from coast to coast. The length of all your blood vessels would take you two and a half times around Earth. The most remarkable part of all is your DNA (or deoxyribonucleic acid). You have a meter of it packed into every cell, and so many cells that if you formed all the DNA in your body into a single strand, it would stretch ten billion miles, to beyond Pluto. Think of it: there is enough of you to leave the solar system. You are in the most literal sense cosmic.”
Bryson, Bill. The Body (p. 17). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
After reading about the fantastic gift of the body, I was grateful. But I was also upset when I reflected on the many years that I had not taken care of my body. Indeed, I had made a mess of the miracle of me. I had to take action both spiritually and physically, or I would succumb to one of my self-induced ailments.
Before I decided to change well, my inflammation markers were off the charts. Also, my blood sugar was in the pre-diabetic stage, and the power of my heart contraction was half what it should be. I was in a bad state, and my health showed it. I had severe bronchitis three times a year with at least one bout of walking pneumonia. I would almost fall asleep while driving home from work and suffered from sleep apnea. I threw out my back multiple times, which was impacting me at work.
Why am I telling you all this? I don’t want to make you feel sorry for me or yourself if you are in a similar situation. Instead, I want to go over what I did to get well with the help of the fantastic gift of the body.
As impressive as the fact that our DNA, if laid out end to end, would reach past Pluto is the fantastic self-healing property of the body and its inhabitants. We have beneficial microbes inside our body that protect us and can heal our inflammation if we provide them with hospitable environments. Likewise, digesting magnesium through leafy vegetables and nuts can help with heart health by providing nutrients that support the heart to beat more efficiently. One last example is the regenerative nature of sleep. As stated in a recent blog, lack of sleep can cause weight gain, stress, and inflammation through excessive cortisol. But getting enough sleep (at least 7 hours) provides many benefits as we shall see.
These are just three of the body’s astonishing self-correcting mechanisms. Let’s examine the abovementioned problems (inflammation, Type 2 diabetes, and lack of immunity) to see how the body’s self-healing processes can correct them.
Reducing Inflammation in the Body
Increased inflammation markers, such as C-reactive protein (CRP) measurements, are one of the surest signs that your body is not healthy. When I was at my most unhealthy, my only out-of-range tests were C-reactive protein and slightly heightened glucose levels. The problem is that the CRP test, although inexpensive, is not always part of a standard platform. It was only when I ordered a more extensive physical that I found that my CRP was so out of range that it was literally off the paper!
In my case, the CRP indicated a heart problem, which was confirmed by further tests. Besides my prescribed medication, I decided to use my body’s healing properties to control the inflammation.
Here are five things that I did to get the inflammation under control.
Improved Hydration. I was chronically dehydrated due to my habit of 5-6 diet Cokes a day and lack of drinking water. Staying properly hydrated helps to flush out the toxins in your body that cause inflammation. The water in Diet Coke is more than offset by the caffeine in the soda. Additionally, artificial sweeteners and coloring in Diet Coke and other processed products can cause inflammation. I changed to naturally carbonated water with lemon to get my eight glasses daily for the day.
Improved Diet. I changed my diet to include more vegetables such as Brussels sprouts and broccoli and added more Omega-3 fats with some fish (I still do not love fish) and walnuts (which I do). I also switched from my nightly snack of ice cream to yogurt flavored with berries and a bit of sugar-free vanilla mix. This change had two benefits. It removes the harmful sugar and fat in ice cream while adding the probiotics inside the yogurt. More on the wonder of probiotics and gut health will be discussed in the next section.
Increased Vitamin D. One of the most beneficial elements in reducing inflammation is Vitamin D. The CDC reports that up to 90% of people in Northern regions do not get enough Vitamin D. This was the case with me, confirmed by my extended blood panel.
The best way to get Vitamin D is through sunlight, but there is often not enough sunlight during the winter months to get enough. In one of the most interesting anecdotes in The Body, Bryson explains the importance of Vitamin D and how evolution and modern life have made it impossible to consume enough of it.
“Vitamin D is vital to health. It helps to build strong bones and teeth, boosts the immune system, fights cancers, and nourishes the heart. It is thoroughly good stuff. We can get it in two ways—from the foods we eat or through sunlight… (however) the slow evolution of different skin tones worked fine when people stayed in one place or migrated slowly, but nowadays increased mobility means that lots of people end up in places where sun levels and skin tones don’t get along at all. In regions like northern Europe and Canada, it isn’t possible in the winter months to extract enough vitamin D from weakened sunlight to maintain health no matter how pale one’s skin, so vitamin D must be consumed as food, and hardly anyone gets enough… To meet dietary requirements from food alone, you would have to eat fifteen eggs or six pounds of Swiss cheese every day…”
Bryson, Bill. The Body (pp. 29-30). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I will not eat six pounds of Swiss cheese or return to my previous weight, so I take a supplement.
Exercised Moderately. One of the best ways to reduce inflammation is to get off the couch. Exercise increases circulation and helps you to sweat out toxins. You do not have to do a lot to get the positive benefits of exercise in reducing inflammation. Walking 30 minutes or doing moderate weight lifting or stretching reduces inflammation while avoiding the risk of injury.
Supported the body’s detoxification systems. The liver and the lymphatic system are two of the human body’s most amazing components. The liver is so vital that if it shuts down, you will die in a few hours. It cleanses out toxins that cause inflammation and other harmful effects. The best way to aid this vital organ is to cut down on alcohol and not become obese or overweight. When I began to reduce my weight and alcohol consumption, my liver improved and aided in further reducing inflammation. We will cover the lymphatic system more in discussing how to improve immunity.
These five steps helped me get my inflammation makers in the low range of standard and immensely improved my heart health and immunity, as further discussed below.
Reducing the Risk of Type II Diabetes
Type II diabetes is at epidemic levels in the US, with one in ten Americans having this chronic condition. It has many harmful effects, including loss of limbs, heart problems, loss of eyesight, and reduced liver function. I was in a prediabetic state when I decided to take action using the five steps above and these two additional steps.
Reduced Sugar and Artificial Sweeter Intake. I had a giant sweet tooth before making changes to reduce the chance of diabetes. I stopped my ice cream and Peanut M&M habit and switched to fruit if I needed something sweet. Eating fruit whole provides fiber, another critical element in tackling inflammation and helping to keep your metabolism regulated. I have also cut down on artificial sweeteners since they can somewhat mimic sugars in the body. I have also substituted refined sugar with honey for those sweets I occasionally eat.
Improved gut health through probiotics. I have also increased my probiotic intake by eating Kimchi, non-fat plain yogurt, and other probiotic-rich foods. My favorite chapter in Bryson’s book is on the microbes that live in our gut and are essential to the efficient breakdown of food. One interesting fact in the chapter is that roughly half of the cells in the body are microbes, and half are human cells. Additionally, studies have shown that thinner people have more varied microbes in their digestive tract.
These two positive steps and the five in the previous section have helped reduce my glucose to normal levels. In the last nine years, my yearly tests have all remained in the normal range.
Improve Immunity
The improvement in my immunity from these actions and those about to be mentioned have been nearly miraculous. I no longer spend two months a year with either bronchitis or pneumonia. I have had neither since reducing my inflammation and glucose to normal levels. In addition, there have been two other keys.
Improved sleep. In previous blogs, I have discussed the steps (CPAP, sleep hygiene, mindfulness, and others). Here is the most recent one. Besides helping you control your weight and work more efficiently, sleep is your body’s way to restore and reset your immune system for another day. It is often the case that we become sick because we are rundown from a lack of sleep. I know this to be a fact in my case. Bryson explains the therapeutic properties of sleep in his chapter on sleep.
“Sleep has been tied to many biological processes—consolidating memories, restoring hormonal balance, emptying the brain of accumulated neurotoxins, resetting the immune system. People with early signs of hypertension who slept for one hour more per night than previously showed a significant improvement in their blood pressure readings. It would seem to be, in short, a kind of nightly tune-up for the body.”
Bryson, Bill. The Body (p. 310). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Taking Care of the Lymphatic System. The lymphatic system is critical to our immunity. It produces lymphocytes and other immune cells that fight off infection. Keeping it working correctly is vital to improved immune response. How can you help keep your lymphatic system strong? Exercise is crucial since it moves the lymph fluid around. Unlike blood, it is not pumped by the heart. Instead, you exercise your lymphatic system and keep it in proper order by exercising yourself!
These are just some ways to help your body help itself! Look for ways to heal yourself naturally. You may not always find the solution, so work with your doctor. However, as I found in my extreme case, the body is a miraculous gift! Often, the way to change well is to support your body’s natural healing properties. I highly recommend Bryson’s book The Body to learn more about the miraculous gift of the body. And until next time, honor your body by changing well!
