"Time will heal all wounds -- but you may not like time's methods" -- Anonymous
FitQuip- Healing Clock
When your body is injured, ill or just malfunctioning, healing and recovery never seems fast enough. This is true for the flu or if you are recovering from major surgery or illness, or even a broken ankle or wrist.
Your body's ability to heal itself is truly remarkable. As soon as a problem occurs, a calvary of specialized cells and processes are called in to action, mending and patching things back to as normal as possible. Most of the time the mission is accomplished, flawlessly. Sometimes your body is like brand new, other times, scars of varying sorts, some physical, some emotional, are left. The process is not always quite as good as the salamander that can re-grow its tail when cut off -- but overall things usually heal pretty well.
As I stated before, the process is truly remarkable, and not entirely understood, but the timetable can be an issue.
Why do some seem to always heal rapidly and fully? And for others, the process stalls, goes on strike or the workmanship is not first-class- why?
The answer is complex and multifactorial. One thing is for certain, it is not a random process and it's not completely out of your direct control. In addition to the pure biological and physiological mechanisms and the help of your immune system (your internal Homeland Security), there are other factors under our direct control that contribute to the quality, quantity and speed of healing.
In addition to getting proper medical care and following your doctor's orders when needed, things like lifestyle, nutrition, and even mindset all play important roles. When all cylinders are firing properly, in concert, "accelerated healing" (a concept you will hear more and more about) is indeed a possibility.
Science too has made tremendous advancements in boosting and accelerating your body's healing response and the best is yet to come. Cell therapies and even genetic manipulation are being used to juice up the healing process. But don't just sit back and wait for, or count on, high tech. Get involved and see the results. Optimize healing by not smoking. Reduce intake of sugars and processed food which can create harmful inflammation. Get enough sleep and rest, take your vitamins, exercise regularly -- all of which boost your immunity. Learn to control the damaging disruptive effects of stress and use the powers of your mind to positively affect your healing.
We are just beginning to understand the powers of the mind in the mind-body axis. In fact, I believe this is the tiebreaker when it comes to rapid or slow healing. I've seen it over and over and I can almost predict, based on mindset and attitude, at the beginning of injury or illness, who will have a long and rocky road to recovery, and who will set a speed record.
Healing and recovery also involve more than one path, more than one process. With most illnesses or injuries, I have found at least four parallel, non-linear simultaneous types of healing that must occur for total recovery. They include the following:
- Physical or Biological Healing - The actual physical repair of the injured, damaged or ill part. Purely biological mechanical healing. A local process at the problem site itself.
- Metabolic or Systemic Healing - Many injuries or ailments not only tax a localized body part or organ but also can challenge the entire body's system and metabolic capabilities as a whole.
- Psychological or Emotional Healing - Each illness or injury takes it's toll (on some more than others) and getting back to “normal” mentally is not always a given.
- Functional Healing - the overall system's recovery back to normal functioning.
Each has its own timetable with some working flawlessly, and others hitting glitches. One can be complete while others lag behind. Some examples:
- After a broken ankle, the bone itself may be fully healed (physical healing), but agility, and ability to run (functional healing) can be still compromised, and the injury and downtime has resulted in a loss of confidence (psychological healing). The x-ray looks fine, but the patient is not. Another individual with the same diagnosis may have excellent strength, motion, and agility about the ankle, with tremendous mental outlook- but the bone itself is not fully healed.
- Your physician or surgeon tells you that you have recovered nicely from surgery or an infection and they're pleased with your result, yet you still don't feel quite right. You don't have your strength or energy back. It's somewhat like taxes -- you've paid your local ones (local healing), but have not yet paid the federal taxes (systemic/total body healing).
- A cut on your arm or leg heals quickly. The same cut on your face heels even more rapidly (from a pure biological standpoint- because of richer circulation in the facial area), but may have a much longer-term impact on you psychologically.
It should be obvious that "healing" has a much broader definition then what is usually considered. It occurs at many levels, involving separate and distinct parallel yet inter-related paths. If one or more fails or is incomplete, you may not reach optimal recovery… you may not feel whole.
You need to be sure that ALL your healing paths are moving in the right direction, and hopefully at the same speed.
FitTip:
Always ask what you can do to optimize and speed up the healing process when needed. Your body usually does a great job all on its own, but anything you can do to help it heal and regenerate is always appreciated.
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