Adaptability and The Immune System
If your immune system worked at 100%, would you ever get sick? Although our immune system may never work at that level, there are different ways to improve its capacity. There appears to be much controversy surrounding the immune system and the best way to support it, whether it is via vaccinations or natural immunity. The purpose of this post is to shed light on the immune system and how it works.
When we look at the paradigms of health, it really comes down to 2 trains of thought: the body is a machine waiting to break down and needs outside assistance to keep it working or it is a self-healing, self-regulating organism with the program to be healthy already written in its genes. The immune system is crucial for this.
The great thing about your immune system is that it learns from previous encounters with germs and viruses so that it is prepared for the next time it comes into contact with them; essentially practice makes perfect. Some great examples can be seen in such illnesses as Chicken Pox and Measles; once you get them as a child, you get lifelong immunity. With challenge comes growth, by challenging your immune system, it becomes stronger but what if you take away the opportunity for it to be challenged? In today’s day and age with over sterilization, antibiotics, and vaccinations, our immune systems are no longer allowed the opportunity to be challenged and therefore not getting better. You cannot get a change in your body if you do not go to the gym and you cannot get lasting healthy change if you do not give your immune system a chance to do its job.
Other factors do play a role in our immune system health like emotional stresses in our lives, not getting enough sleep, poor nutrition, etc. A crucial part to any healthy immune system is an optimally functioning nerve system to control and regulate its actions and thus helping the body adapt to the daily life stresses and sickness as fast as possible so you can gain more healthy time with the family.
At the end of the day, we are all responsible for making our own health care decisions. The purpose of this article is not to tell you what you should or should not have put in your body, only that there are options available to you. At the end of the day, I believe that we can all agree that we want our immune systems working at their best and the more we can do to help it in a way that builds it up, the better.