Tune up for Physical, Spiritual and Energetic Wellness
We need our immune systems to function well all year long but we need them even more during the cold and flu season. It would be nice if boosting the immune system were as simple as taking some fortifying herbs. But it’s not.
There are at least three dimensions to optimum health, physical, spiritual and energetic. To optimize our immune system we must add activities that support those three dimensions, and avoid activities that damage them.
Physical Health
Activities that support the physical body systems
The basic activities are nutrition, rest and exercise, all of which are amply covered by other LesTout.com articles; just search one of the three words. Another class of positive activities is professional help—medical care, strength or fitness training, chiropractic, or massage. One last one that is often overlooked is service to humanity. According to the website of the Corporation for National & Community Service, people who volunteer have been found to live longer with a higher quality of life and lower rates of disease.Activities that harm the physical body systems
Stress, in its broadest sense, is the killer of health—physical as well as spiritual and energetic. Physical stresses are usually the excesses; too much work, too little sleep, too much coffee or alcohol, too much bad food, or too much noise. As a culture we also have too much pollution of our air and water, so our bodies contain too many toxins. Other toxins come from plastics and other artificial materials that surround us.Spiritual Health
Activities that support spiritual health
While prayer and meditation immediately come to mind, their benefit isn’t limited to spiritual health; they also influence physical health. Spiritual health is intimately connected with physical health; each supports the other.Swami Rama said in the book A Practical Guide to Holistic Health,"The basis of holistic health lies in one's understanding the purpose of his life and learning how to achieve that purpose. What label one attaches to this purpose—happiness, perfection, health, a state of tranquility, nirvana, samadhi, Godhead—is immaterial." Prayer and meditation seem to be the right tools to learn our purpose.
Forgiveness is often overlooked. When we hold a grudge because of the past actions of others, regardless of how blameworthy those actions were, we are harming ourselves—not the other person. Carolyn Myss wrote in Anatomy of the Spirit, “Self-love means caring for ourselves enough to forgive people in our past so that the wounds can no longer damage us—for our wounds do not hurt the people who hurt us, they hurt only us.”
Activities that detract from spiritual health
Psychiatrist Gerry Jampolsky, author of Love is Letting Go of Fear, says that all of psychiatry can be boiled down to just love and fear—whatever the problem may be, we have to increase love or decrease fear. Fear, anger, worry, or any kind of negative thoughts sap our spiritual strength. Some of us can just learn that lesson, others may need professional help to get past our fear.Energetic Health
Activities that strengthen the energy body
Most people aren’t aware that they have an energy body. We understand that we have a physical body. Most of us believe that we have a soul or spirit that isn’t a physical thing but is the basis of our spiritual life. There is this third part of us, that isn’t physical and it isn’t spiritual. It has to do with the energy field of our bodies and how that interacts with the energy fields in our environment, even of the earth itself.While exercise in general improves the energy body, Tai Chi and Chi Gong are specifically designed to improve the energy flows in the body. Acupuncture is a healing method that involves manipulating the energy channels in the body.
Activities that weaken the energy body
All of the negative actions mentioned above are detrimental to the energy body. As with our physical body, excessive eating, resting or exercising is weakening. We must be balanced and moderate in our activities.
Summary
Building up our immune system for the winter is more than taking an extra Astragalus or Echinacea capsule with our morning pills. If we want to stay healthy we have to strengthen our physical body, nourish our spiritual self and enliven our energy body--all within moderation.
