Your body is an amazing self-healing and self-regenerating miracle. Capable of regenerating after a wound, healing from traumatic events, repairing a broken bone, completely recovering from cancer and the list goes on. In this article I would like to shine some light on the amazing self-healing capacity of the body and how you can age radiantly. A client of ours is Anthony Field ‘the Blue wiggles’ from The Wiggles, in his book he has outlined his journey of recovery and healing and this article will explain the reasons why you too can heal too.

If you could completely change your lifestyle for the better you would probably be able to live until you were 120. Eating only whole foods, relaxing your body and mind whenever you need to; and I mean unadulterated, guilt-free, total relaxation, exercising whenever you felt like it, sleeping when your body asked for it, having quality relationships with yourself, family, friends and community, feeling a sense of fitting in and belonging, being wanted and accepted as you are, and having positive attitude towards yourself and others. You could live on an island sanctuary if you wanted. Breathed fresh air, drank pure water…and the list goes on.

Maybe you already live a life like that. Good for you!! But for the rest of us there are some very practical, tangible and accessible things you can do right now to aid your body in healing and aging gracefully.

Let’s face it; aging is part of living so there’s just no way around it. But you can do so much to embrace all parts of yourself and look back on every year of your life and truly say that you are happy with your lot in life.

What we will look at in this article and subsequent articles is what things you can do to improve your present state of health and future for you.

Your body is an amazing healing being!

Ask yourself these questions:
1. How many days does a skin cell live for?
2. How many months do liver cells last before they die?
3. How long will it take for your stomach lining to be replaced with a new one?
4. How long does a heart cell live before it is programmed to die off and be replaced by a new one?
5. Did you know that your body cells are programmed to live for a fixed period of time before they die off and get replaced by another brand new healthy cell?

Every single cell in your body is programmed to live, function and die. They last a finite period of time and then reproduce a new cell and die off. The dead cell is broken down by the body and recycled to be used by other cells and body tissues. The unusable portions are filtered through the kidneys, liver and gut. Then all toxic and unusable elements are excreted out of your body. Like MAGIC!!! Your body is an absolute miracle.

When I learnt this back at university I was dumb struck. I couldn’t believe that I had gone through my first 20 years in life not fully appreciating that cells have a cycle of existence and replacement. I came to a realisation how a bad diet of fast food, soft drinks and stress could mean that my new replacement cells were going to be less than 100% healthy. If you are living a poor lifestyle, year after year, then each subsequent new cell that your body produces would cause mistakes in replication and cell division. Have you ever played ‘Chinese whispers’? You know that game where one person says a statement and whispers it into the ear of the person next to them and then the message is passed on around the group. Well, what if the group had 300 people, can you imagine how distorted the message would be by the time it got to the very last person?

Well, that is how cancer cells grow. A cancer cell is a poor imitation (mutated cell) of its previous cell, but it gets super charged with a cell engine that is able to run riot and be immune to the body’s defense system.

So what I am saying is that your body does heal itself, it’s a fact of life!

Here are some numbers for you:

Cell Type Lifespan
Stomach lining cells 2 days
Sperm cells 2-3 Days
Colon cells 3-4 days
Small intestine cells 1 week or less
Platelets 10 days
Skin cells 2-4 weeks
Red blood cells 4 months
Liver cells 3 months
Bone cells 7 years

 

Here are some things you can do to improve the aging of your body today
Exercise, rest, play, have a strong spine and nervous system, eat well… Basically you can do anything that enhances your body’s natural systems of nutrition uptake, excretion and toxic elimination, self-regulation and homeostasis.

Strong Spine & Nervous System

The reason why I put spine on this list is because it has the very important function of protecting and housing the spinal cord and nervous system. Your brain send trillions upon trillions of electrical impulses from your brain to body and back up again every second of the day. It does this to maintain a level of homeostasis or balance throughout your body and mind. Almost all homeostatic functions of the body are automatic. You don’t have to consciously think about them…thankfully. It all happens as a ‘reflex’. Just like when you tap your knee, the area just under your knee and your leg kicks out. This is a reflex. It all happens automatically. And a big governing power of all of this is the nervous system. As a holistic chiropractor I help create better alignment of my clients’ spines to ensure there isn’t any pressure on the spinal nerves that exit from the spine on their journey to organs and tissues. Try this: gently place a finger on one of your closed eyes. This type of gentle pressure, if placed on a nerve in your lower back would produce ragging leg pain and sciatica. So if you are not already under the care of a chiropractor, please ask around, maybe one of your friends who knows a good one. Do yourself a favor because your graceful aging may depend on it.

Eating Whole Foods

Eating well is a given for most people. We’ve all heard of antioxidant and free radicals. Antioxidants are found in all whole foods as vitamins and nutrients that mop up free radicals inside your body. Free radicals are ‘unstable’ molecules inside your body that are formed by normal and abnormal cell function. Eating fast food is one of the major causes of free radical production in the body, along with cigarette smoking, over consumption of alcohol, stress and a generally busy lifestyle in the city. Eating healthy organic whole foods is one of the best things you can do for healthy aging. And again, your future self depends on this one too.

Exercise

This one is a biggie!! Imagine what happens to your clothes in the washing machine. They get soaked with soap and water and then they’re mixed around to get all the dirt and muck off them. This is the kind of thing that exercise does to your insides. It shakes everything up and helps to dislodge the sick and dead cells so they can be replaced by new fresh healthy cells.

Your circulation also improves so that nutrients can be spread around your body to feed and rejuvenate cell stores so they can keep on doing their job of cellular metabolism. What would happen to the paint work on your house if you didn’t scrap off the old flaking paint and just painted over the old stuff each time? Apart from looking terrible, it wouldn’t last as long and after a while the pain would start falling off in chunks.

So if you are just thinking of starting a new exercise regime, it would be a good idea to go past your local gym and ask for some guidance from a person trainer. Again, ask one of your friends because they may know a good one. And yes…your future gracefully aging self depends on this one too.

Rest, Relaxation & Fun

I bet you already know what happens to your energy levels and moods when you don’t get enough sleep or rest. You get moody, easily agitated and anxious. This is exactly what happens to your body on a cellular level. Your cells start playing up. They aren’t able to excrete toxins, assimilate new nutrients, and undergo cellular division and replication. In general the team breaks down and no one is communicating. So cells are more likely to mutate and take short cuts. This is where cancer cells may take hold. That’s why they always tell cancer patients to rest, sleep and generally try and relax. So the body can take stock, recharge and regenerate again. Is sitting in front of the T.V. watching a trashy ‘real life’ cop show considered resting? Absolutely not! Your body and mind needs periods of solitude and introspection for a body mind balance to happen again. Meditation is a fantastic form of rest. In future articles we’ll touch more on what you can do to relax and rejuvenate your body, mind and spirit.
 

So far in this article we have talked about some things you can do with your body to aid your goal of healthy graceful aging. There are so many more topics I can talk about and in future articles we will go more into these. Like how you can charge up your bodies energy systems (meridians and chakras), self healing visualisation techniques and so much more. In following article on healthy aging I will go into Mind (positive mental attitude, visualisation and meditation), Nutrition and Internal chemistry (water, whole foods, meal timing and nutrition and enzyme supplementation), and Spirit (intuition, relationships with self and others, creativity, acceptance and destiny).

But for now I will end it here and wish you all the very best in your journey through life.

Your coach,

John Petrozzi

Holistic chiropractor