The word stress is used daily by almost everyone, from teenagers to adults. It seems to have become a part of normal daily life. There are two categories that stress can fall into – emotional and physical. Ultimately both impact each other. The side-effects of emotional stress weaken the physical body. The side-effects of physical stress, can lead to emotional stress when we are confronted with health problems.

What are the emotional stressors?  We go to work and work 14-hour days even bringing the work home with us.  We are in constant fights with our children or spouse. Our child is doing poorly in school or getting into fights at school or doing drugs. We have lost a loved one. We feel betrayed by someone that we love. We are struggling financially to make ends meet. We are always afraid and don’t know what is causing it. We feel an underlying chronic sadness without anything we can point our finger to. We spend 3 hours each day in our car commuting back and forth to work.

What are the physical stressors?We are not able to sleep well or deeply at night. We are exposed to pollution in our city on a daily basis. We take medication on a regular basis. We have silver fillings in our teeth, which are toxic to our body. We eat non-organic foods filled with chemical pesticides. We drink a bit too much alcohol. We eat a lot of sugar. We use body products that have many chemicals as their ingredients. We drink out of plastic bottles regularly that leach estrogen mimicking particles into the water. We don’t eat enough. We eat too much. We don’t eat high quality, nutrient-rich foods. We exercise in excess. We don’t chew our food well and eat quickly or on the go. We don’t drink enough water and dehydrate our body.

Many of these factors seem inevitable or even appear to be enjoyable, advantageous to our temporary happiness. Who wants to give up sugar? Who wants to drink water when there is coke? Who wants to make a radical change in their lifestyle choices when things ‘appear’ to be going ok with medications or even without them?

No matter if our body is showing symptoms or not at the present moment, all the factors above take a toll on our body. When disease occurs, it’s often not as a result of last nights meal or last weeks 60 hours of work. It’s as a result of gradual neglect of our body and our mind and its needs to function optimally.  Our body is resilient, but only up to a certain point.

When we are in a constant state of stress we begin to drain our adrenals.

Our stomach is not able to secrete the acid and enzymes necessary to break down food and digest it, because our body needs relaxation in order to digest food well.

As a result, our intestines receive food only partially digested, which leads to our cells not getting the full nutrients they need and the lining of the intestines becoming weakened, unable to protect us from toxins and other pathogens and allowing these to enter into our blood stream.

Now we have particles that don’t belong in our blood stream, adding more stress to our system.

In addition to that, if we are exposing ourselves to body products that have chemicals, foods that are filled with harmful pesticides (conventional food), pollution in our environment, medications which inevitably have side-effects and put greater strain on the liver, we are overloading our body with more and more toxicity.

The body needs to rid itself of toxins, but it requires very specific nutrients to do so.

If we are adding more toxins to our body and not taking in the right food (fast food, fried food, cooking with harmful oils, sweets, energy drinks, soda’s etc) that are nutrient deficient, we create the terrain for toxic overload and inflammation, the perfect foundation for disease to grow.

Add to that drinking very little water and you have a terrain that doesn’t even have sufficient fluids to rid itself of toxins nor bring nutrients to the cells, basically a stagnant river in our body.

Illness doesn’t suddenly appear. It builds gradually and then suddenly appears. Its better to prevent illness than to have to deal with it once its shown its face.  What may seem like ‘harmless’ or ‘usual’ issues such as headaches, constipation, diarrhea, nausea, sinus congestion, fatigue, pain, should not be taken lightly.

The body speaks to us and it speaks in a whisper until it becomes a scream. Many chronic health problems can be improved or healed, if we take the right steps and put in the effort to make changes in our habits towards better choices.

What are some things you can do to improve your health?

Drink more room temperature water! All of you know this is my first medicine!

Take 5 minutes in the morning and the evening to sit quietly and meditate or be in nature and take it in.

Eat a large bowl (not just a side serving) of mixed steamed vegetables every day or at least every other day.

Be sure that your bowel movements well-formed and at least 1-2 times daily without difficulty.

Sleep enough hours every night.

Reflect on what you can change in your life, to create an environment that is more supportive of your and your families health LONG TERM!

May yourself and your health a priority.

Make healthy food choices. Many ‘diets’ are not good for everyone. It all depends on your body’s constitution, symptoms, and from Chinese Medicine point of view, your pulses and your tongue and the imbalances they show.

Get acupuncture sessions, if not weekly, then at least once a month just for a tune up and to stay on track with your health.

No matter where you start, it’s important that you start or put in a little more effort to maintain your health.

With the holidays around the corner, remember to make healthy choices when possible. Take time to breathe. Appreciate your family and friends.

And lastly, if you have any family members or friends that are not sure where to begin to take care of their health, but really need to, you might want to get them my book “Own Your Health Change Your Destiny available as ebook and paperback on amazon. A great inexpensive but extremely valuable gift for their health in the new year and the years to come.

I also help many people long-distance by going over their entire health history and guiding them on changes that would support their health. Feel free to let your family and friends know.

www.RitaPanahi.com

www.Author.RitaPanahi.com