HOW TO STAY HEALTHY
A recent illness prompted me to write about what one should do if they get sick. The traditional route would be to see a doctor. I don't want to dissuade anyone from this route. However if you are like many of the millions of Americans that do not have health insurance or when you did go to see a doctor all he/she did was push some pills your way then you need to pay attention to what follows. There are most definitely some actions you can take to prevent illness, and to ward off a cold or the flu in the event that you do become sick. If you are like me, and you view health from a holistic standpoint then you will want to shy away from traditional doctors and find a more natural route. It is my opinion (formulated from learning and experience) that doctors, especially in this country, are trumped up drug dealers. Now, many drugs save lives. I am on a drug called Coumadin (Warfarin). It helps with my blood clotting that I received as a gift from genetics. I almost died two years ago when a clot traveled from my right ankle up through my heart and settled in my lung. If it had gone into my brain I would be dead. The Coumadin is keeping me alive more or less. I recently found out that it is basically rat poison (Google it, or Wikipedia). In lower doses it's used to kill rats. So I'm essentially taking poison to keep me alive and un-clotted. Bad with the good right? Well, my aim is to get off this drug and onto a better anti-coagulant. But Coumadin is dirt cheap, and I still am without insurance. So it may be close to a year before I get anything better than my rat poison. But I digress.
I am preaching prevention. You need to eat right, exercise, stay away from drugs and alcohol, and take care of your teeth. If you do this your body will reward you with a long life and fruitfulness. You may say "well I'm young now and we only live once." Exactly, you only live once. Why ruin your later years by hurting your body now? D not jeopardize your later years by going crazy in your younger years. Especially with regards to your body. Which is for Christ and the church. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 says "Flee fornication. Every sin which a man may do is outside of the body, but he who commits fornication sins against his own body. Or do you not know that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a price. So then glorify God in your body." I believe this verse and Paul's thought relate to how we take care of our body, not just abstaining from fornication.
The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. It is where our soul and our human spirit are contained. The soul, composed of the mind, emotion, and the will is what we use to contact God in our human spirit. So if we damage our body, or it is weakened through illness brouth on from poor diet and or habit, then we are in turn damaging the faculties used to get to the spirit. As we know, the spirit is the goal, from which we commune and fellowship with God. If we damage our body, then we are damaging our worship area. We use our mind, emotion, and our will for expressing God and serving Him. If they are damaged then our worship of the Lord and our pursuit of Him may be jeopardized, causing us to be of less use to God and His purpose could be set back somewhat. There is always this potential.
So it's important to build up good bodily habits from a young age (Proverbs 22:6), because this is what will keep you in your later years. If we damage our bodies now, we might have to go through many years of trying to bring our bodies back into a healthy state. It is said in science that it takes six years for your body to completely regenerate it's cells from the inside out. You body makes new cells and in six years it will be re-celled so to speak. But why not give it the proper fuel and nutrients it needs to thrive? This would go better for us in the future as we need all our bearings to fight the Christian battle and be good stewards of the grace of God (1 Peter 4:19).
Prevention is the best way to stay healthy and keep from getting sick. You don't have to have a degree in Nutrition or Natural Medicine to understand the basics of eating healthy and staying within the normal range of homeostasis and bodily pH levels. But you do need to do a little research on the subject- and its absolutely worth it! Your body health is one of your greatest assets in life, because it is the container of the Holy Spirit.
PREVENTION
Prevention on its basic level starts with what you eat and drink. What we ingest into our bodies is one of the most important things we need to control in our personal lives. The same can be said for what we inject into our mind and how we think, and feel in our spirits and souls. We need to wake up each morning and eat Jesus, drink a fair amount of water, juice, and milk, and eat a healthy breakfast consisting of fruits, lean-lowfat proteins and some grains such as organic whole wheat bread. Thoughts are important just like food and water is important. We should set our minds on the spirit (Romans 8:6) and watch our thoughts and our speech throughout the day (Matthew 15:19-20a, Ephesians 4:29).
Preventing sickness starts with eating right, but what if you can't always eat right or you often get sick for no reason? Well eating right and getting sick go hand in hand. If you eat bad, there's a good chance you will get sick more often and your body will not look and function very well. So my #1 piece of advice to anyone, sick or not, would be to change your diet and start an exercise routine. Bodily exercise is profitable for a little to Christians (1 Timothy 4:8a). We should at the least walk a few miles a day in addition to cleaning and household chores. Some of the stronger ones could do gymnastics or running and a minimal amount of lifting weights. There is no set law on this, but only a warning that too much exercise could lead to building up lust. We want to rule our bodies, not let our bodies rule us. For some this is a hard learned lesson, for others it isn't so difficult.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU GET SICK?
When you are sick its important to understand what your body is going through. It is fighting off a pathogen in your bloodstream that is attacking your red blood cells. The best way to fight this off is to raise your immune system. The best way to do this is to drink a lot of liquid to flush out negative toxins built up in your gut and to pour down your stomach lots of fresh fruit full of vitamin C. Vitamin C is the #1 healer out of vitamin family. It is a superhero. It raises your immune system dramatically and within hours you could be feeling better and on your way to getting over your sickness.
You can get vitamin C in Oranges particularly and many other fruits and berries. A good multivitamin is also very important for everyday use, and when you are sick you need more vitamins and immune system fighters to help you get over your sickness. So it helps to take more vitamins when you get sick than when you feel normal.Please take a daily vitamin and mineral supplement. If you live in a higher region on the globe, you will need to take a fish oil supplement as well for it's added vitamin D which helps regulate sleep and energy cycles. This is because those in the higher regions of the world do not get as much sunlight as do those who live closer to the equator.
Please eat when you get sick. Even if you can't keep the food down, it's better to sip a healthy chicken broth or various other liquids. Your body needs the nutrients to fight off the pathogen.
