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.
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.
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