Reprinted with permission from author David Kolowski, DC. Original post found here.
The news is flooded with stories about the coronavirus, along with plenty of misinformation coming from social media and even from our own elected officials. It’s hard to know who to trust or what to believe!
We’re not going to downplay the seriousness of this virus or promote any unproven therapies, instead we’re going to show what the science says about how you can stay healthy in spite of the virus.
Starting in 2007, researchers in Pittsburgh recruited 164 volunteers for a long-term health study. These volunteers willingly subjected themselves to receive nasal drops containing the virus for the common cold. The common cold is also a coronavirus, though the researchers didn’t comment on which strain was used or if it was the same as this new one sweeping the globe.
First of all, can you imagine doing this today? Trying to get approval for a study like this, or volunteers, by advertising that you’re going to give them the coronavirus straight up their nose?!
In the end, they found that people who slept less than 6 hours per night had a FOUR TIMES HIGHER chance of becoming sick compared to those who slept more than 7 hours.
That difference in sleep doesn’t sound like much, but the difference in the strength of the immune system is amazing.
The lead author of the study, Dr. Aric Prather PhD, said, “Short sleep was more important than any other factor in predicting subjects’ likelihood of catching cold. It didn’t matter how old people were, their stress levels, their race, education or income. It didn’t matter if they were a smoker. With all those things taken into account, statistically sleep still carried the day.”
What else can we take away from this study? How about the fact that it’s not the virus that makes us sick. The world is full of viruses and bacteria of all types, and every one of us is constantly exposed. The volunteers in this study couldn’t have had a more direct exposure, yet there were many who did not get “sick” – and there were factors like sleep that are correlated with a stronger immune system.
So, let me repeat – Germs do not make us sick. It is a deficient body that allows the germs to take over, and it is the response of the immune system attacking and clearing out the germs that we perceive as being “sick”.
There is much we can do to maintain a strong immune system. Wash your hands, don’t touch your face with unclean hands, cover your coughs, and use some common sense. (although common sense is not always common practice!) And now, get some more sleep. It’s free, it’s easy, and it’s rewarding in many other ways. Watch our sleep lecture we just did for more information.
This study looked at the “average” person living the “average” life. We don’t like “average”. The average American is overweight and taking 9 prescription medications per year. We’d rather be NORMAL. Normal health is not needing any medications, eating normal food (raised organically and without other drugs or chemicals), moving our bodies regularly, and having a normally functioning nervous system – the most powerful system in the body that controls all other systems.
This is where Nutrition Response Testing and Chiropractic come into play. Through these services, we can support and improve the most powerful parts of your health, allowing you to experience what “normal” health can truly be like.
When you are normal in an abnormal world, you will stand out. And we think this is a very good thing.
Image from iStock/chameleonseye.
Dr. David Kolowski is a chiropractor, speaker, and author in Loveland, Colorado. His booklet The Night Before Wellness gives the Big Idea of natural healthcare to readers young and old. Dr. Kolowski describes his mission as helping people ask better questions while seeing the bigger picture. You can find him at Inside Health.
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