Beat the cold and flu naturally

“Two doctors are driving in a car. One is a chiropractic doctor and the other, a medical doctor.

As they are cruising they see a guy on the side of the road vomiting everywhere. The MD says, ‘Stop the car. I have some anti-nausea medication that will stop that man from puking.’

‘No,’ says the chiropractor.

‘What!’ jumps back the MD.

‘No, he’s healing,’ says the chiropractor.

This is a one of the best pictures of the difference in philosophy between the traditional healthcare philosophy and a philosophy lead by chiropractors.

The idea is that your body is intelligent and it is doing what it needs to do to be well. No, chiropractors (at least our chiropractors at Thrive) agree that there is a time to intervene, but many Americans approach the human body with the idea that they are sick due to an absence of pills or an overabundance of organs.

At Thrive, we teach a health care philosophy called “Adaptive Physiology,” meaning that: 1) The body is the best pharmaceutical company on the planet, 2) Your body is constantly adapting to intelligently overcome stressors in its environment, 3) the best way to support the body is to stimulate its own ability, rather than suppress symptoms.

YOUR BODY is a Pharmacy

Your body is a chemical factory. It creates endorphin, cortisone insulin, and hormones of all sorts. Your t-cells are lethal killers of bacteria, fungus, and viruses. In fact, most of what we know of pharmacology, we have learned from the human body.

And your body is defending you on a daily basis. No matter how many times you wash your hands and clothes, you are not germ free. You have invaders crawling all over you right now, and your body is successfully kills and disposing of them.

Ever notice that you get sick after staying up late or eating too much sugar. You’ve likely weakened your body’s defenses, and the invaders win

Adaptive physiology

What is a cold, really? Isn’t it a set of symptoms that we call a cold: runny nose, cough, sneezing, and maybe a sinus headache.

A cold is nothing more than a set of symptoms that our body is creating to expunge an invading microbe from our body. A cold is our body’s most intelligent response to its environment, and it is good. In fact, the symptoms are what will get us well.

A cold can dramatically lessen its life span by how we respond to it. If we nurture our body, it will be shorter than if we abuse our body. If we chose to abuse our body, then it can last for months, lingering.

How does it change your perspective of illness, to know that illness or disease is a name we give symptoms that our own body creates as its most intelligent response to overcome its environment?

For us at Thrive, it changes how we care for our bodies, everyday. We work to stimulate our bodies so that they can defend themselves well against “the bad guys,” as kids so affectionately call them.

Stimulation vs suppression

You can’t watch an hour of television without seeing an advertisement for a cough suppressant. NyQuil, DayQuil – we just need AfternoonQuil.

The health care philosophy of stimulation believes that the body is constantly overcoming invaders and that the best way to be healthy is to focus on stimulating the body’s own self-defense rather than trying to attack microbes.

Sound crazy? Then, what is the reason that some people get sick in a family while others don’t. Could it be that some people have a strong body that is processing the same invaders in a more effective way, and that is why the do not get sick? Chew on it.