Did you know you can boost your immune system with mindfulness practices?
People are not talking enough about how to maintain a calm mental approach to health. The power of having a solid mindset, maintaining calm, and not giving in to fear and panic cannot be understated. Use this opportunity to practice mindfulness, a powerful tool that can help you maintain a healthy mindset and a strong immune system.
Take a look at some of the most powerful mindfulness practices that have been scientifically proven to boost your immune system. As an added benefit – these are all free and can be done by almost everyone and from any country.
Gratitude Improves Immune Function
One of the most popular mindfulness practices that many people find effective is gratitude. Though the practice can be awkward at first for some people, the evidence is clear.
First of all, it just feels good. Right away. You don’t need to wait for the positive results - when you consciously acknowledge something you’re grateful for, you instantly feel lighter and better. Plus, it has long-term positive impacts on your mindset and helps you develop a natural habit for thinking more positively without even trying.
Gratitude does more than help you think optimistically and put things in perspective. A leading expert on the science of gratitude and professor of psychology at UC Davis, Robert A. Emmons says:
“The practice of gratitude can have dramatic and lasting effects in a person’s life... It can lower blood pressure, improve immune function and facilitate more efficient sleep. Gratitude reduces lifetime risk for depression, anxiety and substance abuse disorders, and is a key resiliency factor in the prevention of suicide.”
You can practice gratitude silently in your head, write it down in a journal, take notes in your phone, or say what you’re thankful for out loud with your partner. However you choose to do it, a gratitude practice can help anyone and everyone think and feel better, and build a stronger defense against potential illnesses.
Your Thoughts Can Make You Healthy
“It’s a scientific fact that the hormones of stress down-regulate genes and create disease. Human beings, because of the size of the neocortex, can turn on the stress response just by thought alone. That means then, our thoughts could make us sick.” - Dr. Joe Dispenza
As ‘wooey’ as it sounds to some people, this is a fact that is developing within the scientific community, and it all relates to stress. When you look at the root of stress scientifically, it is not external. You may think that other people cause you stress, but the fact is, you ultimately choose to feel the feeling of stress.
If you didn’t know that stress can harm you, The US National Library of Medicine National Institute of Health has published research saying there is validity to the notion that too much stress makes you sick.
All anxieties about health can be draining and stressful. It’s important to remember that stress and anxiety on their own are leading causes of mortality - which has been proven through extensive research from doctors like Dr. Joe Dispenza, an advocate of positive thinking.
“So if it’s possible that our thoughts could make us sick, is it possible that our thoughts can make us well? The answer is absolutely yes.”
The Medication of Meditation
You might be wondering if meditation really can have an impact that goes beyond your mental state, and truly helps improve your physical wellbeing. Could a meditation practice really boost your immune system? A study done with researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, University of California at San Francisco, and Harvard Medical School proved that it can.
"Based on our results, the benefit we experience from meditation isn't strictly psychological; there is a clear and quantifiable change in how our bodies function," said Rudolph Tanzi, who holds positions both at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, in a statement.”
Furthermore, the study directly mentions that it can provide relief for your immune system:
"Meditation is one of the ways to engage in restorative activities that may provide relief for our immune systems, easing the day-to-day stress of a body constantly trying to protect itself.”
As a result of the coronavirus, lots of large events and conferences are being canceled, many people are working from home, and we’re all being advised to practice “social distancing”. This is a great opportunity to spend some quality time with yourself and learn to meditate, restart your practice, or take it a step further.
Conclusion
With a constant influx of negative news, it’s easy to give in to the anxiety and perpetuate the spread. Instead of getting caught up in a constant spiral worrying (which will stress you out and in turn threaten your immune system), take a healthy and positive action with mindfulness.
Mindfulness practices like meditation, thought management, and gratitude go a long way to help boost your immune system and improve your state of mind at the same time.
Beyond just immune function, if we all practiced mindfulness, the benefits would go past immune boosting and have a far-reaching positive impact on the whole world.
Further Immune Protection Support
For more information on how to leverage mindfulness and meditation to improve your wellbeing, you can turn to MindfulText. Each day we’ll send you positivity and actionable ways to integrate mindfulness and meditation into your life. Our team sources our work from scientific evidence and includes a range of tactics and processes that you can use at any moment in time. We built MindfulText to integrate into the flow of life. Think of us as a team of wellness practitioners in your pocket!
Contact us for more!