Author: Don Grier

An Election Day Weave of Life Lessons from Big D

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Today, I have a lot on my mind. It is the 22nd anniversary of my Dad, Big D, passing, and it is election day.  So, in honor of my Dad, to celebrate our democracy and organize the many thoughts in my head, I will attempt what former President Trump calls the weave.   

My definition of the weave is connecting several lines of disparate thought to develop a consistent theme.   Today’s weave will hopefully create a tapestry of life lessons that lead to wellness.  The thread that ties this weave together is the many lessons I learned from my father and how they have helped me become a better person.  So, let’s start weaving.

Big Russ and Me

I find myself missing Tim Russert this election day. Tim Russert was and still is my favorite journalist. He was the epitome of authenticity and enthusiasm for our democracy. The longtime host of Meet the Press, he was thorough, insightful, and always civil but challenging in his questioning.  I used to watch Meet the Press every Sunday but now seldom watch Sunday news programs.

Another reason I miss Tim Russert is his dedication to family. He wrote one of my favorite memoirs, Big Russ &  Me, about his relationship with his father, Big Russ, and the lessons he learned from him. 

Big Russ and Tim’s relationship reminded me of my one with my Dad, Big D.   The similarities are uncanny. Both raised four children with their wives, did not finish high school, had blue-collar jobs, and served in the military.   Believe it or not, both worked on a Garbage truck.  But most importantly, they both taught life lessons that made their sons better people.

I will not write a book like Tim for this election day weave of lessons (although I could and will someday).  Instead, I will provide the top five lessons I learned from my Dad, resonating even more loudly 22 years after his passing.

Get the Iron Out of the Door.   

What is the iron? Where’s the door?  Iron refers to large turbines that generate electricity in dams.   Big D was a steelworker/machinist, and it was his job to repair the turbines and get them out the door as quickly as possible to their destinations worldwide.  Equally important was ensuring the turbines did not have to come back through the door: this required diligence, consistency, and hard work.    

The lesson is to learn your craft, roll up your sleeves, and work daily at your vocation and for your family.  Worry more about your friends and family than the election, For more on this lesson and how I applied it to my career in information technology, please read my blog, Getting the Iron Out the Door.

There is Always Room for Improvement. 

My dad was good at getting the iron out the door, but he always looked for ways to make his team get it done faster, cheaper, and with higher quality. Likewise, he taught us that no matter how well you do, there is always room for improvement. 

He applied this lesson to his personal life.  As mentioned earlier, Big D and Big Russ had not graduated high school.  My dad left school to help his mom and family and entered the Air Force. He got his GED, machinist journeyman certification, and further education in a community college. 

I remember him returning after overtime at DeLaval and practicing the words fuma and puma in Spanish very intently.  Over 50 years later, I can still hear him practicing to better communicate with his fellow union workers. 

One more story about improvement from this lesson.  Improvement does not come quickly.  You must make slow, steady practice.  Big D  demonstrated this aspect by building a lake on his retirement property. 

I remember the first time my Dad started building the lake.  He had just got the backhoe and had begun scraping out a ditch.  He took my brother and me out there.  Then, pointing to a muddy gouge with a few puddles, he said proudly, “Look at my lake!”. 

My brother and I started laughing.  Dad said, “Why are you laughing?”.  My bother pointed out, “Dad, when you say lake, it connotates images of water!  This is not a lake. It is a puddle.”  Dad just shook his head, climbed in his backhoe, and said, “You will see smart alecks.” 

And we saw.  A year or two later, there was a full-fledged lake.  The following year, fish were in the lake and on a dock.  But Dad kept tweaking the lake up to the day he died. 

We wondered why he did this since he proved his point and gave us our initial lesson.   Having returned to the land recently with the direct coordinates in hand,  I found an aerial picture revealing he built the lake in the shape of Texas!  If you want to see the before and after pictures, read our blog, The Return: Have A Vision as Big as Texas.  And always look for ways to improve!

Be Tough, But Have A Heart.   

One area in which my Dad did not need much improvement was toughness. My brother tells a great story about my Dad at one of the campouts that Dad hosted for my brother’s fraternity.  Big D had fallen asleep too close to the fire, and one of his cowboy boots started burning!  The fraternity brothers shook my Dad awake, yelling Big D! Big D! Your boot is on fire.  Big D, not batting an eye, took off the boot, smashed it in the dirt, extinguished the fire, and said, “I am the toughest SOB that ever walked the face of the earth.” 

Big D was tough due to his childhood, but he still had a big heart. He taught us that you must be firm but fair and have a heart for others. I best learned this lesson when I ran away from home. 

When I was 16, I made the rash decision to run away. I was distressed that I was moving away from my home in New Jersey and losing my friends. I thought the world was ending, but really, it was only beginning.

I do not know how he knew where I was going, but my Dad found me. He told me that he was sorry and that I was tough. He then explained that we needed to move to Texas to make a better life. He then hugged me, and I got in the car. There was no yelling. There was only love. 

You can read more about this story and other lessons in the blog: The Lesson Learned When Running Away.

Be Part of the Community.

Another thing that my dad instilled in me was the power of community.  My dad was our Cub Master,  our baseball and basketball coach,  a Union Vice President, a softball player, and a member of several men’s clubs.    He also had diverse friends and included some of our friends in our family. 

I carry with me the importance of community. I am a leader or participant in several civic organizations. The lesson I learned from Big D about community was threefold.

First, he led or was present in our activities to be part of his children’s lives. Second, when you meet people face to face, it is hard to stay in an argument.  You can cast aspersions on someone on Facebook without truly facing them.  It is tough to hold a grudge or an argument when you have to see the person the following week.  Last, when we act in the community, we build others up instead of tearing them down.  We become stronger when we act as a team.

The First and Last Lesson – Be Thankful. 

Big D was always thankful for his community and friends and was unafraid to show it. I will miss the heartfelt prayers of thanks my dad used to say before Thanksgiving dinner. They were simple but profound and gave thanks for all that was given to our family. 

But I will never forget the first Thanksgiving without him and the miracle provided us in his remembrance. I recommend you read the full Thanksgiving Cows blog here, but here is a synopsis and the lesson. 

Two weeks after Big D died, we went to my dad and mom’s ranch one last time for Thanksgiving. The ten cows he was raising were all expecting.

As we rounded the bend, my family saw two new baby calves. During the rest of Thanksgiving, a new calf was born about every hour, so there were nine near dinner time. However, one cow, Rosie, had a problem birthing her calf.  

After much chasing and antics, we finally got Rosie in the truck and took her to the veterinarian.  We did not have Thanksgiving dinner, but I would not have missed the event for the best food in the world.

I had never seen a calf being born; it was a tremendous sight. The vet wrapped a rope around the half-born calf and pulled it. The calf was born after a few moments that seemed like an eternity. After lying on the ground for a few moments, the calf made its first few steps and was alive.

At that moment, despite missing Thanksgiving Dinner, I was never more thankful. I was grateful for my dad’s gift of the cows, and I was thankful for the timing and happiness that the calves’ birth gave me and my family.

Whenever I feel let down or frustrated, I think back to the story of the Thanksgiving calves. And that is a Game Changer. Counting your blessings can change your attitude to one of positivity. It can lift you out of the despair of failure and toward the hope of tomorrow. 

The End of the Weave, Hope for Tomorrow. We close our weave by coming full circle to tomorrow’s election. Whether your candidate wins or not, let’s remember the lessons of Big D.  Wake up tomorrow to get the iron out the door and food on your family’s plate.  Look for ways to improve yourself and those around you.  Be passionate about your beliefs, but have a heart for those who may differ.  And most of all,  Join in the community and be thankful for this great country.  We owe it to the legacy of Big D and Big Russ.

5 Practical Ways to Foster Hope in Your Life and Workplace

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Hope is a force multiplier. It drives us to greater heights and impels us to persevere despite the obstacles in our way.  It is the ability to see the light through darkness and drive on through pain to the promise of a brighter future.

Academic studies demonstrate the positive impact of hope.  Carlos Laranjeira and Ana Querido, in an article published in the National Library of Medicine, quoted a large study that found that  “a greater sense of hope was associated with better physical health and health behavior outcomes (e.g., reduced risk of all-cause mortality, fewer chronic conditions, and fewer sleep problems), higher psychological wellbeing (e.g., increased positive affect, life satisfaction, and purpose in life), lower psychological distress, and better social wellbeing.”

Many fictional and real-life stories also show the incredible power of hope. Think of Nelson Mandela, Rocky Balboa,  Pope John Paul II, and JK Rowling, to name just four.  To a lesser extent, I have seen the power of hope in my own life.  Morbidly obese and pressing toward a work deadline that I thought might be out of reach, I was able to get back to my target weight and meet my project deadlines with the help of my friends and hope.

But hope is not easy, nor is it Pollyannish. Bishop Desmond Tutu got it right when he said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”  It is not perpetual optimism, as some have said, but informed optimism that allows us to reflect on our mistakes and know that better days are coming, either in this life or the next.

How do you cultivate an environment of hope within yourself and the workplace?  Here are five ways to be optimistic in the face of adversity.

Learn from Your Mistakes Without Dwelling on them.

One of my favorite TV shows is Ted Lasso (yeah, Season 4 is coming!) due to its underlying message of hope. For those who have not seen it yet, Ted Lasso is a D2 American football coach who takes over an English soccer team and leads them to victory. No one gives him a chance, but his optimism and belief in his team and himself bring him a championship despite many obstacles.

One of my favorite episodes in the show is when the newest soccer player from Nigeria, Sam, gets burned by the team star, Jamie.  Ted tells Sam, after the play, that ‘he should be like a Goldfish, the happiest animal on earth because it has a ten-second memory.’  I cannot do the quote true justice, so here is a link to the top ten quotes from Ted Lasso.  The Goldfish is No. 1 on the video, so you can skip to the 15-minute mark (or listen to the other nine).

Hopeful people do need to be like goldfish when it comes to the pain of mistakes. You should not get overwhelmed by mistakes and hardship. However, I would dare to do Ted Lasso one better with the quote. I advise, “Be a Goldfish with the pain, be an Elephant with the Gain.” 

In every setback, there is a nugget of gold, a lesson that can propel you to your final goal.  Therefore, when you get knocked down, pick yourself up and forget the mistake, but like an elephant who never forgets, remember the lesson.  See the lesson as an opportunity to grow into the person you were meant to be.

Hope is about taking chances, learning from your mistakes, and not dwelling on them. NF rapped about Hope with one of the best definitions of the word. Here is a link to the song Hope, with compelling lyrics that drove me to my personal best on Peloton.

It’s a person who’ll take a chance on
Something they were told could never happen.
It’s a person that can see the bright side
Through the dark times when there ain’t one
It’s when someone who ain’t never had nothin’
Ain’t afraid to walk away from
More profit ’cause they’d rather do something
That they really love and take the pay cut – Excerpt from the Lyrics of Hope by NF (Nathan Feurestein)

Develop a vision board and visualize achieving it. 

One of the main components of hope is a vision of the future where you become the person you should be.  One way to give hope a nudge is to develop a vision board of what you will become.  Below is the vision board that I created when I was at my most unhealthy weight and disposition. 

For more information on developing a vision board and how to use it, please read my previous blog on the topic, which is located here.

Making a vision board is a start, but not enough.  You should wake up every morning to your why and visualize how you will achieve the best version of yourself through meditation and prayer.  A vision without visualization is an empty promise or a meandering dream.  Focus each morning on how you will make that vision happen and reflect each evening on what steps you made to make your vision happen, no matter the size.

Positively affirm yourself and others. 

You will inevitably have setbacks in becoming the best version of yourself.  During these times of setback, you need to affirm yourself.  One thing I do each day is write at least two “I am” affirmations in my Thankfulness Journal.  Here is one from yesterday when I struggled and did not finish this blog and podcast.  “I am an inventive and dynamic blogger and podcaster who helps others.”  It reminded me of the progress that I have made in writing and spurred me on to finish this blog and podcast today. 

Besides affirming yourself, you can help others by affirming their progress as they strive to become the best version of themselves.  Take time to write a handwritten note to a friend that you see making progress.  Or better yet, tell them over coffee or lunch.  We are all trying to make it through this complex and confusing world.  A few words of hope and encouragement help lighten the load and make you a better person.

Use Your Strengths and Understand Your Weaknesses. 

Hopeful people rely on their strengths while still understanding their weaknesses.  One of the best ways to understand your strengths is to take the Clifton Strengths Survey by Gallup.  Why take a survey? For two reasons.  First, we may think we know our strengths, but this scientific survey investigates 34 strength themes.  You may have a hidden strength you are not leveraging or a weakness you are discounting.    Second, when taken by team members, the survey can point out other people’s strengths that can counter your weaknesses and vice versa.   A seemingly impossible team task suddenly becomes possible when you pool the team’s unique talents. 

Hope Springs Eternal.

We move now to the spiritual aspect of hope. There is always room for hope, even if you get on in years like I am. Many people face hardships most of their lives only to go on to success later in life. A good example is Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned much of his adult life only to become president of South Africa in 1994.

 The obstacle or sickness in your way may be the launch pad for success in this life or the next.  We may not always know why a hardship is set in our way.  However, we can look for the value in sacrifice, even if we do not see the reason for it on this earthly plane. 

To close, in his poem, “Essay of Man”, Alexander Pope writes,

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.”

Let hope spring eternally in your life so you can become the person you were meant to be! 

5 Powerful Ways to Increase Mental Health

Don Grier

The Benefits of Fellowship on Mental Health

Today, October 10, 2024 is World Mental Health Day.  Accordingly, our blog today focuses on the positive impact of fellowship and companionship on mental well-being and overall wellness. 

Numerous studies have shown the positive effects of companionship.  One study found that married people have a longer life expectancy than single people:  an average of 2.2 years for married men and 1.5 years for married women (Read Article from U.S. Medicare Health Outcome Survey (HOS)).  The longer life expectancy of happily married people is partly due to their mutual support.

Humans are inherently social animals. Friendship and group participation provides support, accountability, and meaning. But despite the positive impact of companionship, we are getting lonelier.

 A disturbing fact is that 15% of men have no close friends.   The same Western Oregon Study stated that the U.S. Men’s suicide rate is at its highest level ever at 14.3 men per 100,000.  We need to do something to stem this epidemic of loneliness.

But not all people are joiners.  For those less inclined to engage in groups, interacting with pets positively impacts well-being. These include decreased levels of cortisol, blood pressure, and loneliness.

One look at our daughter’s dog Beau, pictured below, waiting expectantly, shows why. Pets love us unconditionally if we treat them right.  They can serve as a sounding board and comfort as you face daily anxieties.  One look at Beau playing with his toy can brighten the darkest day.

dog waiting expectantly
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Why is companionship, whether it be human or pet, so critical to mental well-being?  Here are the five reasons for this and examples from my life.

Emotional Support and Encouragement 

One of the best reasons to join a group or form a friendship is to encourage one another.  Life alone is tough, and tackling hardships or an addiction is even more challenging.  Finding a friend or group to share mutual support can keep you on track when confronting an addiction or facing a medical or other type of obstacle. 

I could never have overcome my stressful eating habits without my friends at the Round Rock, Texas, WW group. For the last ten years, I have shared my successes and failures with a group of like-minded weight loss journeyers. Their encouragement and support during the ups and downs of my weight loss journey were instrumental to my getting healthy. I now love playing it forward, helping others improve their health in the group.

Sharing Ideas Improves Mental Health

Fellowship also helps us grow intellectually through the sharing of ideas.  I have grown in areas of interest by engaging with people interested in the same topic.  Two such groups were the Learning to Lead Book Club at my prior company and the two business networks I am currently a member of, BXN in Austin and 10X Vets.  

I established the Learning to Lead Book Club for those interested in improving their management and team-building abilities. Each month, the group read and discussed a book that improved their leadership abilities. The leader responsible for that month also wrote a blog on the group’s discussion. I am initiating a new free program hosted by Wellness Leadership, LLC. If interested, please sign up for the Learning to Lead Informational Session. 

The Business Exchange Network in Austin has several monthly sessions around Austin and its suburbs to bring business owners together to share ideas on running a business and referrals. 10X Vets does a similar thing for Veterans on a national level.  Both of them have helped me learn and move outside my comfort zone.

Sense of Belonging and Sharing Activities

We all crave belonging to a group and a higher purpose. A few weeks back, I blogged about a remarkable group supporting the mental well-being of returning veterans: Irreverent Warriors. During a day-long march and social event, this group brings together veterans to share stories and humor to lighten the load and support Veteran mental health. Don, the Change Well podcast host, will lead a similar team on a 6+ mile ruck march on Veterans Day in Temple, Texas.  If interested, sign up for Rucks on Main on our Event site.  

Employee resource groups (ERGs) are a good way for companies to establish a sense of belonging and share activities. Companies such as Accenture have an ERG program to accommodate their employees’ diverse interests.

Reduced Loneliness Improves Mental Health

Our opening statistics demonstrated that companionship with family, friends, and pets reduces loneliness. I gave a shout earlier to my granddog, Beau, but I would be remiss if I failed to mention our dog Boots.   

Boots’ impact on my and my wife’s well-being is well chronicled in previous blog posts.  Boots was by my side as we both got healthy, and he has been a stalwart companion to my wife and me when we are apart.  But there is one other area of mental health that Boots has assisted me with – patience.  Boots is getting up in dog years.  He is 16 or 114 years old in human years.  He is still spry in many ways, but he has improved my and my wife’s patience as we take him on slow, wandering walks. 

boots the dog

Accountability

One of the most essential things to mental well-being is being accountable for your actions and direction.  Well-intentioned groups and friends can hold you accountable as you strive to change well.  A weekly weigh-in holds us responsible for our weekly health goals in WW.  Another group that has been instrumental in helping me improve my prayer life is Exodus 90.  I will ever be grateful to my seven fellow Exodus 90 brothers for our weekly accountability

Unlock the Body’s Self-Healing Secrets

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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!