Tips for boosting your immune system

Nick Hall has been published in over 150 periodicals and featured on CBS’ 60 Minutes, the BBC’s Nova series, and the Emmy Award-winning program Healing and the Mind, aired by PBS.

I want to clarify some things from yesterday’s post about the Type C personality. I try to keep my posts short – hey you’re all busy – so sometimes I don’t get to explore things as thoroughly as I’d like. Dr. Hall, who led the seminar I spoke about, emphasized healthy individuals have aspects of different personality types. Sometimes we’re Type C and sometimes Type A. Also, I wanted to stress that I was not implying it was anybody’s fault for getting cancer or any other kind of disease.

I thought about this last night after reading a passage of the book, Grace and Grit by Ken Wilber. The author shares journal shares the spiritual journey he and his wife took during her breast cancer treatment and subsequent death in the ’80s.

Her first thought when she was diagnosed, as was mine, was to question how she was responsible for the cancer. Did she drink too much coffee and consume too much sugar? Was she too stressed? Or as I thought, did I forget to do enough prayer, visualization and affirmations?

I really believe in the body-mind-spirit connection, but there is so many possible causes of cancer that it is hard to pinpoint one thing. The worst thing to do is to beat yourself up because you have cancer.

My thought is to not look back, but to look forward on how I can create a healthy, positive lifestyle to keep cancer at bay, especially while in treatment.  Dr. Hall suggested a few easy things we can all do to boost our immune system and stay healthy:

• Know more and you’ll fear less: research, ask your doctor good questions, know what’s in store for the future. You’ll feel more in control and less helpless.
• Maintain a sense of optimism that things will get better. This is not denial; you need to know bad things happen. It’s simply realizing that this too shall pass and that it doesn’t have to affect all aspects of your life. For me, having faith in God is essential for this mindset.
• Go to bed early. Early  in the sleep cycle is when you get your deepest sleep. This stimulates growth hormones needed to heal and stimulate the immune system. You don’t get the same benefit from sleeping in late.
• Exercise at least 30 minutes, three times a week. A brisk walk will do.
• Eat a healthy, whole foods diet. Choices like green tea, red wine and fruits and vegetables are preferable to taking supplements. Avoid white flour and refined sugar.
• Practice mindfulness-based meditation. Be aware of your surroundings, like the sound of a clock ticking, so you don’t fall asleep.
• Incorporate visualization: Threat/stress triggers a fight-or-flight syndrome, which is fine if your’e being attacked, but over time this can affect your immune sytem. Visualizing a positive outcome, such as healing, early on can intercede this before the body responds. Our brain responds to our image of reality. I’ll share more about this in later posts.
• Practice deep breathing, both from the addomen and chest. This ensures you get more oxygen to your lungs, while slowing down your heart rate.
• Rock on! Yes, rocking in a rocking chair has been shown to activate a relaxation response in your nervous system. That’s why it works for babies and why you’re seeing them in airports!
• Reduce your caloric intake by 80 percent. The National Institute of Aging has shown that many species live longer with fewer calories because it reduces the number of free radicals in the diet. That is one reason why our western culture, which consumes more food, is more prone to cancer than our eastern counterparts.

For more information, visit www.drnickhall.com.