If you have ever owned a car, then there is a good possibility that you’ve seen a few different warning lights to help guide you to safety. Perhaps it was a gaslight, an oil light, your tire pressure, or temperature signal that flashed on. Either way, all of them serve to warn you that if you don’t take action immediately, or soon enough, you’re going to experience challenges that will likely be costly. Interestingly enough, your body works the same way.
Our body is designed to give us warning signs. In the west, we call them symptoms. Unfortunately, they don't flash as brightly and as prominently as many do in a car. However, it’s not a very difficult talent to acquire, understanding the basic signals of the human body. Some of the most common symptoms doctors see today are cough, back pain, abdominal pain, sore throat, skin issues, fever, headache, leg symptoms, and fatigue.
The biggest challenge we have when self-diagnosing warning signs are slowing down. Even in a car, we often don’t slow down at first warning. Many times we push it to the absolute edge before we service our vehicles, and we tend to do the same thing with our body until we feel symptomatic enough to slow down and address the symptom.
Just like a repair shop for your car, going to a doctor’s office is an expensive way to treat common symptoms. Albeit emergency situations, most symptoms are just signs of stress and can be avoided by paying attention to basic fundamental health principles. For car trouble, you will indeed need to consult your mechanic because that’s not our specialty. But for signals relating to your body, here are some simple steps to take for reducing almost all minor to moderate symptoms when they arise.
Water
The most effective remedy in most cases, when addressing symptoms, is adequate water intake. Most clients will express to us that they do indeed drink plenty of water. However, when asked to keep track, they quickly realize that they’re missing the mark. In general, this mark is half of your body weight, in ounces, of water daily.
This is a minimum requirement. So, we often encourage a little more to ensure your body has adequate amounts to balance your bodily systems. Because your body is a water-dependent system, you can easily see how important this remedy can be to treating almost any symptom.
Sleep
When healing the body, it’s important to know that deep sleep is our most anabolic state. Meaning, it’s when the body does it’s most healing. Regardless of what you’ve been told or what you think your body may need, we are subject to the light/dark cylces of the sun, which is called the circadian rhythm.
Physical healing begins around 10 PM and if we are not in bed by about 10:30 PM, with lights out, then we miss this healing opportunity and physical breakdown adn exaserbation of symptoms is often the outcome. Note that having lights, tablets, and screens off sooner will help you relax and get to bed. If you go from screen to bed, it can be very difficult for the body to shift gears, which results in tossing and turning before finally falling to sleep.
Play-time
This doesn’t mean running out to the local playground and jumping around like a kid, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing either. What play means here is taking time off from the daily hustle and bustle. Many of us get swept away in doing, doing, doing, and work, work, work, that we never slow down and just enjoy the moment. Including some play-time in your day can be as simple as painting with watercolors, doing a puzzle, playing an instrument, or any other activity that allows you just enjoy the moment.
Slowing down to have a little fun is very stress-reducing. Like we mentioned, symptoms are often just signs of stress, which are signals that warn us that we’re doing too much. So, take a moment to color a page in a book, play a game of checkers with your kids, or read fun and relaxing books (suspense novels are stress-inducing) and you’ll notice that many of your symptoms get left behind. Further, you’ll begin to notice that slowing down to have some fun will allow you to get more done throughout the day without feeling these symptoms of stress.
Movement
More than 80% of the population does not exercise on a regular basis. Is it any wonder that 80% of the population gets one or more chronic diseases!? When we don’t move our bodies, we get gunky. It’s like turning off the pump in a fish tank. Our body, when it moves, helps pump toxins and metabolic waste out of our body each day, which is our natural detoxification mechanism. Sitting at desks, standing, and avoiding exercise only serves to shut our detoxification pathways down. Obviously, this can cause a myriad of symptoms.
The challenge today is that many people are too stressed out to participate in even moderate exercise. Exercise releases stress hormones into our body of which many people have too much of, to begin with. The challenge is in the recovery. Even if you can get through a workout, most don’t have the energy to recover and they find themselves feeling more fatigued, achy, and more symptomatic.
We recommend starting with light exercises, such as stretches and breath-based movements. The goal here is to not allow your heart rate to rise. This may seem backward! But, you’ll be getting all the benefits of exercise without the stress hormone. Basic bodyweight exercises, casual walking, and low-intensity yoga-like exercises are great ways to reduce stress and prepare your body for more rigorous exercises. Once you prepared your body, you’ll have more energy to not only get through a tougher routine, but you’ll have the ability to recover from them too!
There are a number of things that we can do to reduce stress and symptoms in our bodies. When we pay attention to what is causing the stress, it’s even easiser. We simply stop whatever is causing it and go in a different direction. These signals are more subtle than a flashing light in your car, true. But if we slow down a little bit, check-in with ourselves, and what we’re doing with our time, we’ll begin to identify many of the things that are causing us stress. When we observe our daily habits, most people are dehydrated, fatigued, work too much, and don’t exercise. Although these are not always easy remedies to weave into our day, these simple steps do often “cure” most of the signals and symptoms that flash and warn us of greater dangers ahead, on our human dashboards.