IMMUNITY AND IMMUNE BUILDING
Energetic Responses During a Zone Session
I love learning myself! I simply can’t get enough of it on any topic at all . . . AND . . . I am, and have always been a teacher. (I began with my first class of 4-year-olds in a church setting when I was only an eleven-year-old myself! Shortly after that, I was asked to be the music leader in the weekly children’s meeting.) I love writing these newsletters and trying to share with you things that I have found useful in my own life and my years doing Foot Zones. And Butterfly Expressions, LLC is about sharing and educating!
This month’s topic and sale items for the general Butterfly Express, LLC Newsletter are “Immunity and Immune Building”. As Foot Zone therapists, I am making the assumption that each of you understands how critical an understanding of anatomy is to the work you do! I am also assuming that you have made your own study of anatomy and how the Immune System works, so as to enable you to better recognize and understand those things that the feet can reveal about the physical and emotional health of those people you work with.
I have been informed that the majority of you (Foot Zone Therapists) also receive the general Butterfly Express Newsletter. I have gone into quite a lot of detail about the Immune System in that newsletter, and I have also discussed some of the properties of this month’s ‘on sale’ Immune Building products at Butterfly Express, LLC there. I will not be taking the time or space to re-discuss those items here. If you do not get that newsletter sent to you and you are interested, the monthly general Newsletter may be accessed online at ButterflyExpressions.org.
Additional items, more specific and chosen by myself, based on my favorites for possible use during a Foot Zone treatment, will be the topics of this article. I will, however, be including a slightly shorter summation of the General Newsletter here along with a list of those ‘on sale’ items at the end of this article/newsletter. (The promised summary of the Butterfly Expressions General Newsletter can be found at the very end of this article, if you are interested in accessing it that way.)
The Zone, although very ‘energetic’ in nature, brings about real changes in the physical body. Of course, you have all seen both the physical and energetic balancing and healing that the Foot Zone treatment is capable of bringing about! As you can see from the title of this article/newsletter, I will be focusing on energetic responses during a Foot Zone session and how those responses may affect the body’s physical immune system.
The Adrenal Glands and That Important Hormone Cortisol
Albert Einstein is reputed to have said that he studied science in order to better ‘understand God’s thoughts’ as He created this wonderful world. As I have studied anatomy and physiology and the healing properties of ‘God’s pharmacy’—for a lifetime—I am, like Einstein, absolutely in awe of the genius of our Creator and of His overwhelming love for each of us!
With plants, in either herb or essential oil form, we have been given wonderful ways to nourish and heal our bodies. I have also been fascinated by and love the study of anatomy (where things are placed in the body) and physiology (what their functions are and why they are where they are)! Placing those little adrenal glands right on top of the kidneys makes perfect, beautiful, harmonious sense! Because of their importance to survival, they are placed with each other in a well-protected spot in the body!
Most of this perhaps too-long article is taken directly from part of what I teach about the Endocrine System during Foot Zone Therapy classes at Butterfly Expressions, LLC in Clifton, Idaho.
The heart is an incredible muscle—yes, muscle. The amount of work done by the heart each day is almost too incredible to even believe. The body contains approximately six quarts of blood. This blood is pushed through the blood vessels over 1000 times in a day. The heart, incredibly, pumps about 6000 quarts (about 1,500 gallons) of blood in a single day for all the days of one’s life!
There is simply no way that I can cover the complicated workings and anatomy of the heart in this article. (I certainly do try during Foot Zone Therapy classes, as some of you can probably attest, to do my best with pages and pages of information—possibly too much information—in the material provided.
Two systems regulate heart activity. One involves the nerves of the autonomic nervous system and acts as an accelerator and as brakes for the heart rate. The other is the intrinsic conduction system—nodes which are built right into the heart tissue. This system sets the basic rhythm of the heart. For this article, let me stress firmly (very firmly) that when a person is under either physical or emotional stress, the heart works much too hard, pumping faster and more forcefully, in order to make more oxygen and glucose available to the systems of the body. The good news: For people who know how to handle stress more calmly or know how to rest and rejuvenate between periods of stress or hard work, the heart will slow down and beat steadily. This gives the heart a period of rest when the crisis is over.
Stress Cardiomyopathy – Broken Heart Syndrome
A troubled mind may lead to a broken heart in a very literal and physical sense.
Many patients arriving at emergency rooms and doctors’ offices with symptoms of a heart attack have just experienced the death or loss of a loved one. Traumatic experiences such as a car accident or mugging are also recognized as triggers for heart attack-type symptoms.
Intense emotional events can trigger your sympathetic nervous system, unleashing a flood of chemicals. This sudden surge of chemicals can stun the heart’s muscle and leave it temporarily, and sometimes permanently, unable to pump properly. In medical speak, this is referred to as ‘Stress Cardiomyopathy’. Energy workers often refer to this situation as ‘Broken Heart Syndrome’. It is very real!
My point? If we insist on living our lives in real or imaginary stress, we will be increasing, daily, the stress on our hearts.
A second point? Anything that strengthens you emotionally—whether oils, herbs, exercise, faith, or anything else—will benefit your heart. . . and the heart certainly needs all the help that we can give it. Statistically speaking, heart disease of various types is the leading cause of death for both men and women and has been for more than a century!
During sleep, our bodies should be working to support healthy brain function and maintain our physical health.
How is that working for you?
I hope very well! But, if not, I hope something in this article can help you! There are few things in life more frustrating—and more detrimental to our health—than lying awake, so very tired, but unable to sleep. Not getting enough good quality sleep is, however, more than just frustrating because sleep is a very essential function! Without sufficient rest/sleep, it is impossible for a person to be well either physically or emotionally! As you sleep, your body and mind get a chance to recharge. If that ‘recharging’ gets accomplished, you should wake up refreshed, energetic, and alert. If not . . .?
During childhood and into the teenage years, sleep also supports growth and development. Getting inadequate sleep over time increases the risk of chronic (long-term) health problems.
Studies show that when we don’t get quality sleep or enough sleep, our immune system gets disrupted and weakened. This, of course, makes it more likely that we will get sick when we have been exposed to any sort of illness. Our bodies need sleep to fight infections that are passed from one person to the next. Long-term lack of sleep also raises our risk of obesity, diabetes, depression, high blood pressure, stroke, and heart disease.
I could go on and on here, but let’s just get on to possible solutions!
As fall rolls in and the air turns crisp, it also brings along an unwelcome guest—“sickness season.” Cooler weather means respiratory viruses and other illnesses tend to pop up more often. Kids in school are exposed to all kinds of germs (and generously share them at home). Plus, when it’s chilly outside, we spend more time indoors and closer to others, making it easier for germs to spread. To make matters worse, cooler temps and drier air create the perfect environment for viruses to stick around longer, both in the air and on surfaces.
The best way to stay healthy is to give your immune system a boost before sickness season kicks into high gear. That way, you can avoid, or at least lessen, the bugs that come your way. But life happens, and sometimes those best-laid plans don’t pan out. That’s where the products in this blog come in. They can help you stay well, bounce back faster, and make those symptoms a whole lot easier to handle.
As I have said often and with emphasis over many years, “All drugs have side effects!”
As an introduction to this section on Alternative Pain Management, I am including parts of an “FDA Drug Safety Communication” issued on July 9, 2015. If you wish to read the entire communication (with pages of additional information for patients and consumers and even more information for Health Care Professionals along with a comprehensive Data Summary) I am providing the link to the FDA announcement itself on the U.S Food & Drug Administration’s web page.
This statement certainly is true of the drugs used for pain management, as is illustrated by these statements taken from the FDA website itself. The use of herbs, essential oils, and Blessed Water or Homeopathic remedies is an effective and safe way to manage pain.
There is, absolutely and without doubt, no road to good health (or recovery from illness and chronic ailments) without good nutrition being a priority every day!
Studies done at the School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, indicate that if a person has a sub-clinical nutritional deficiency, he or she might appear ‘perfectly normal’ except for increased susceptibility to disease, longer recovery time from surgery, adverse reactions to vaccines, extreme fatigue that interferes with normal functioning, depression, insomnia, and irritability.
Richard Revlin, M.D., of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer institute says,
“In the United States today, we rarely see cases of classical vitamin deficiency, such as scurvy and pellagra—to name just a few cited in this article. However, we are now beginning to recognize a vast new series of marginal deficiencies related to disease. Marginal deficiency, it now appears, may be a surprisingly common phenomenon.”
One very important reason herbal remedies work for a particular problem is that the herb has provided one or more vital nutrients that are missing in the diet.
It is important to understand, and remember, that vitamins and minerals chemically constructed in a laboratory cannot fill the nutritional needs of the body. Man has been unable to produce a single molecular structure that is exactly identical to those produced in nature. Laboratories can assemble the correct components in the correct amounts but somewhere in the joining of the atoms will be a rotation to the left that should be rotating to the right. The resulting isomer (that is the scientific word for it) is not bio-identical, no matter what the advertising says. This is as true of hormones and amino acids as it is of vitamins. (Hint: If the supplement you are buying says “L-something or other”, the ‘L’ is a warning that this supplement has been artificially produced in a laboratory and will not be providing the nutrition you think you are getting!
There is a great deal of information about the nutritional components of herbs in the book, Butterfly Miracles with Herbal Remedies which can be purchased at Butterflyexpress.shop. Nutrition and health is a topic that has fascinated me for years. See the full list of topics.
This is the time of year that I am aching to get out in my yard and get started. Spring cleanup and all the activities of spring can leave you with lots of aches and pains and that is why I decided to focus this month’s blog on aches, pains, and sprains. This is an area where herbs, essential oils, and homeopathics really shine. Some of the things we are going to talk about have been used in my family for over 40 years. These are staples in my home and I hope learning to use them will be a blessing in yours. Thanks for reading.
See the full list of topics.
In July, we will be talking about DEHYDRATION and MINERALS. We are all aware that when you are extremely dehydrated, it is a serious situation. However, most of us do not realize how important it is to avoid being even slightly dehydrated. We also don’t really grasp how minerals work to help us stay hydrated. Water is only part of staying hydrated. Join us as we talk about the importance of minerals, and electrolytes. We will also talk about essential oils, herbs, and blessed waters. See the full list of topics.