Reduce Inflammation by Shifting Your Habits

 "Our human biochemistry is subtle and sacred.” Cate Stillman.

​Over the last century, in the Western world particularly, our material wealth and technology have grown exponentially. This has significantly changed how we live, particularly our conventional habits around food and sleep. Our activity is no longer as governed by whether the sun is up or down, nor is our diet as subject to the seasons. As our habits have changed we have become more and more disconnected from Nature, and with that disconnect our health has declined.

What hasn’t changed is our physiology. And therein lies the reason for and the answer to our chronic health issues.
We ARE Nature and Nature has rhythms and cycles. When we live in alignment with those rhythms we feel well and when we don’t, we get sick.

It really is that simple.

The body doesn't actually sleep it just has two shifts - day shift and night shift. During the day it as at the beck and call of our mind...digest this, go here, do that. At night it's the mind that goes to sleep and the body moves into night shift mode and gets on with the behind the scenes tasks that keep everything running smoothly. Like any 24 hour organisation certain things have to happen on each shift to keep the wheels turning. If they don't happen problems occur. Our body is no different. When the day shift activities extend into the night shift and there isn't the time to do the night shift tasks the wheels will eventually fall off.  

Here's what happens.

When the Pineal Gland registers the change in light as the sun goes down our biochemistry shifts. It stops producing the bile we needed during the day to digest food and the sleepy hormone, Melatonin, is prioritised. When we sleep it is really only the Mind that's off duty. The body's clean-up and repair & maintenance crews go to work completing tasks that can only take place during certain frequencies of sleep. As the sun comes up the Pineal gland registers the change in light which shifts the body back into day shift mode. Bile comes back onto the production line, increasing production at midday when the sun is highest in the sky. The Mind starts bossing the body around again and day shift is in full swing. 

This is known as our Circadian Rhythm and in Ayurveda is also called the Doshic Clock. Recognising that different times of day have different energy that support different activities. When our day to day habits are in sync with those energies life flows more easily.

These simple examples of our physiology make sense of the grandmother wisdom of ‘Early to bed, early to rise, makes a person healthy, wealthy & wise’, or ‘Eat breakfast like a Queen, lunch like a King and dinner like a pauper”.

It’s not hard to see how we have gotten so out of whack. Being able to have light with the flip of a switch means we can stay up as late as we like plus looking at blue screens at night inhibits the production of Melatonin. Over time sleep issues arise. When we don't get enough sleep at the right times the night shift work may not all get done or sometimes even started…waste accumulates and repairs don’t happen.

Artificial light also allows us to eat later at time when our digestion is weaker, often this is the largest and heaviest meal of the day and with a weak digestion we get poor quality nutrition. Undigested food particles accumulate making more waste that doesn’t get put out.

We also habitually too much because it's always there. Our shelves are full of food so we don’t experience the benefits of the fast and famine regime that is part of Nature’s seasonal rhythms and kept our ancestor’s digestion strong. Additionally, our food is processed and artificially engineered so we can have everything available all year round and without seasonal fresh food our microbiome weakens. All of this upsets the balance of our very subtle and sensitive biochemistry to the point where our immune system can't tell the difference between an enemy and a friendly and we are diagnosed with an autoimmune condition.  It's something we just have to live with. Or take a chemical medication that further upsets the delicate balance and a vicious cycle becomes more and more deeply entrenched. 

In short we have become too clever for our own good. We are slowly killing ourselves with habits that create inflammation in the body because they are contrary to our biochemistry and how we are designed to live.

This is a list of some of the symptoms currently linked to inflammation…

• Depressions, overwhelm, anxiety, frustration, brain fog, mental confusion, poor memory, difficulty making decisions and concentrating, poor will power and lack of motivation.  
• Fatigue, poor sleep, morning join pain and stiffness, feeling heavy, stagnant or stuck, poor digestion – bloating, lose or irregular bowel motions, constipation, indigestion, bad breath and coated tongue.
• Puffiness, sinus congestion, water retention, belly fat, cellulite, excess body weight, , emotional eating, overeating, craving crappy food, skin issues, rashes, hives, psoriasis, eczema, allergies, asthma
• Headaches, PMS, fibroids, susceptibility to infection, HBP, low libido
• Sense of disconnect from purpose or meaning, lack of clarity and creativity.  

There isn't much missing from that list. In fact it is reasonable to say that whatever the discomfort we may be experiencing in our bodymind, it has its roots in inflammation.

The good news is that these habits are relatively new, they have only been around for a few generations, and we can change them. 

Join me for a mini workshop on Beating Inflammation 9.00-11.00am Sunday 12 March 2023 at Girl Guides Hall Redhead.

Book Here

You can also book a FREE 45 minute WellBeing Strategy Call with me to discuss how inflammation might be showing up in and impacting your life. 

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