Are you driving with your brakes on?
Have you ever driven your car with the emergency brake on? It’s an easy thing to do and it can take a while before you notice. At first, the car just feels a little sluggish, so you give it a more gas. But it gets worse as you pick up speed and begin to realize something isn’t working right.
Did I run over a nail? Could it be the engine? Am I about to break down?
It doesn’t matter how fast your car is or how new your tires are… Driving with the brakes on is like swimming upstream. Yes, it works, but it’s a lot more work than it needs to be.
Just like driving a car with the brake on, overlooking just one key area can damage your best efforts to get rid of an infection. No matter how powerful your treatment or remedies may be, you could be overlooking one key thing that’s sabotaging your recovery.
An overlooked factor fueling infection?
It took me a long time to realize what my biggest stumbling blocks were that helped fuel my recurring infections. I believe this is a much more important factor than most people realize. And unfortunately, it’s something very easy and quite natural to fall into without recognizing it.
This largely overlooked factor can weaken your natural defenses, depress your body, and impair your judgment. And by undermining your immune system, you are much more prone to getting sick and promoting the recurring infection cycle…
It’s stress.
Sounds silly, right? How can the way you feel have anything to do with your success in treatments, or catching an infection? Well, stress has a lot more impact on your health than you may realize. There’s a lot of scientific research on the effects of stress on your health, but I’ll refrain from going into that right now.
Back when I had recurring infections, there was a correlation to stress events in my life. To this day, if I get stressed out I invariably start to catch a cold. Even if I don’t get “sick”, stress immediately saps my energy and drags down my body’s reserves.
Of course, stress management is not a “silver bullet” treatment or the only key to successful control of a stubborn infection. But if you’re like me, it may be a crucial unexamined or underestimated factor that’s sabotaging your recovery.
What you can do
The tricky thing is, stress is almost a given in today’s hectic world. And dealing with dangerous, chronic infections can be one of the most stressful events you can go through. The good news is that just knowing that stress affects your health can make a big difference. And there are simple ways to reduce stress without seeing a psychiatrist or reciting self-help affirmations.
The next time you become stressed, pay close attention to how your body is feeling. Do you notice a connection between your stress level and your Staph infection symptoms? Do you get tired and sapped of energy? Are you unable to sleep well? Do you break out with boils or abscesses?
Your body and mind are intimately connected. Just as your physical body needs treatments and remedies, your mind and psyche also deserve attention. The next time you get stressed can be an opportunity for you to determine if it’s affecting your infection symptoms. If so, maybe it’s time to “take off the brakes” and make the “engine” in your body run like it’s supposed to.
To your health,
Michelle Moore
Microbiologist and Natural Health Advocate
Michelle’s book includes simple and effective methods to identify and reduce stress and fortify your immune system.
