It might sound like semantics, simply arguing about the meaning of words, but there is a massive difference between ‘sickness’ and ‘expressing symptoms’. We know when you’re not feeling great, you don’t call in to work and tell your boss you’re ‘expressing symptoms’. But what is really happening when you’re coughing, sneezing, have an upset stomach, muscle spasm, a headache, a fever, an achy back or a swollen knee?
Your body has an intelligence that is constantly working to keep it in homeostasis. The nerve and endocrine (hormone) systems exert the ultimate purposeful control over this process. If we start with this understanding, the expression of symptoms makes more sense. Artificially (taking drugs) decreasing the expression of healthy symptoms usually means it takes us longer to get better. Let your body heal!
Symptom Purpose
cough clear lungs of fluid/discharge/phlegm
sneeze clear sinuses/nasal passage of fluid
upset stomach recognize and remove toxin from digestive tract, often viral or bacterial
muscle spasm healthy response to injury or pending injury, limits movement of joint, find cause
headache drink water, decrease life stress, change posture, move your head/neck more
fever increases immune system efficiency, decreases bacteria/viral efficiency
achy back natural chemicals are released in your body to help white blood cells fight off infection, these same chemicals cause your body to feel aches and pains as a side effect, reminds you to rest to allow resources to go to healing
swollen/sore knee inflammation, first step in the cascade of healing, slows movement to limit more injury, ice can slow the healing process – only use for pain management
Not so sure your body has an inborn intelligence….check out these stats:
• 37 thousand billion billion chemical reactions occur per second in your body
• 1 200 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 molecules working together to make you function
• Your genome contains approximately 3 billion ‘base pairs’, which reside in the 23 pairs of chromosomes within the nucleus of all your cells. Each chromosome contains hundreds to thousands of genes, which carry the instructions for making your proteins (building blocks)
