Well, I’m hoping you all had a better holiday season than I did. I enjoyed the holidays, but was sick with a stomach flu after Christmas and attended a party a week after New Year’s and came down with the common flu, fever and aches.
I will have to admit that everything I’ve learned about health over the past 36 years was totally substantiated by everything I did wrong over the past 5 months. I ran down my immune system and didn’t give it enough time to fully recover before forging ahead.
Here’s what I did wrong. Although I was recovering nicely from the mumps, minor case only on the right side, and was gauging my walks and rest carefully, I completely overdid it for 5 days before Christmas. I did not walk. I did push myself far too hard every day doing work, gave myself little or not enough time to rest, ate badly (it’s the holidays!) and went to bed late, got up early and kept thinking about all the things I wanted to do.
I love Christmas!
No rest. Not enough sleep. Pushing too hard physically. Eating a poor diet’ eating too fast. That’s plenty enough to do the job of impairing my immune system so badly that when accosted by those nasty bugs it just folded. It needed rest badly and got it.
I spent 5 days allowing my body to rest and readjust before New Years. That worked well, although I was very weak.
A week after New Year’s I again subjected myself to the rigors of flu/cold season at a fun party without a worry. I should have worried. The very next day I knew I was coming down with the flu as I began to count the tiny aches here and there. And I did get pretty hot pretty fast within 24 hours.
I was determined to allow my body its due time so I hunkered down in my room and was ready to stay the course. I was seemingly better by Wednesday and ventured out. The next day, not so good. So I spent the next few days sick in bed. We really expect far too much from our bodies for very little consideration.
After 8 days, I finally really feeling better. No more aches. No more fever. But — quite weak. I’m very happy to give my poor body whatever it takes to bring it back up to par and you can watch while I do.
I will search online for ways to strengthen the immune system and use whatever is good for me. I’ll continue to use the supplements that I’ve added these last few weeks to help it along. I’ll eat more fresh fruits and veggies and even do some juicing. I’ve already added a few small exercises that really seem to be making a huge difference. Nothing taxing and only when I really feel up to it.
It’s a great lesson I’m learning and you can help me with any ideas you happen to have gleaned along your path of sickness and healing.
And know that the light is always shining, no matter how low we go.
