Your Body's Astounding Intelligence

 

The Body's Intelligence

Let's get intimate with the astounding intelligence of your body.

You may not remember the time when your body was a single cell, a newly fertilized ova in your mother's body. At the point of fertilization your body received the full design blueprint and can then proceed to assemble your body into your first phase of being. The single cell, which is a design collaboration between your mother's and father's DNA, knew exactly how to proceed with the assembly process creating tissues, organs, bones and blood vessels with clockwork precision. Mistakes happen but they are rare. All of the 7.9 billion people on earth underwent the same intricate process yet each one designed with individually unique features. Each one a product of DNA matched and filtered from ancestors reaching far back into millennia. 

The moment of conception when our blueprint is set, our body locks into a profound awareness of self. From that point on, it will make a distinction between self and not self. Anything that is not self will not be allowed to penetrate the system of self unless it establishes a collaborative relationship with the self. While in the womb a placenta develops around us to keep our mother's blood separate from our own. Even our mother's blood cannot violate the sanctity of our self and our blood cannot breach that of our mother's. Our cell's outer membrane has self receptors that recognize and retain full memory of the self. Even after all our cells have died and been replaced with new ones, our body is still able to fully remember the self. It is able to maintain and identity continuum throughout life, except when afflicted with degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer's.

At around 21 days after fertilization, our heart starts beating and will continue to do so until the day we die. We take our first breath almost immediately upon being delivered out of the womb and likewise continue to do so for as long as we live. We never had to concern ourselves with breathing or pumping blood throughout our body. The body takes care of that for us. It also takes care of digesting the food we eat, distributes nutrition and oxygen, and prepares us for fight or flight. It lubricates, inflates, deflates, secretes, excretes, heats up, cools down, filters, releases, stores, burns, dilates, contracts and controls so many other processes in response to what you've done and in anticipation of what you are about to do. It does all of this purely on its own inherent genius.

Most people think that our brain resides inside our skull but the truth is we also have fully autonomous brains in our heart and our gut. Each brain is responsible for separate functions but all of them communicate with each other. Each brain can independently store their own set of memories. It has been documented that many organ transplant patients acquire memories and preferences from their organ donor (especially the heart). In a video, Greg Braden relates the story of one such transplant patient. This young girl, who through a recurring dream,  was able to describe how her heart donor was murdered. She was even able to describe the murderer's appearance and his last words to her. This led to his eventual arrest. All this happened because the heart that she received still carried the memories of her donor.

A most intriguing feature in our brain is known as mirror neurons. We have these neurons dedicated to detecting, codifying, and replicating relevant expressions and gestures of other people in our field. Since we have evolved as highly social beings this is a very useful tool for navigating through our social world. We routinely scan people to discern their state or disposition and without realizing it, we mirror back to them what we pick up from them and they to us. This is why moods seem to be contagious. The wonderful thing about these neurons is we can use it to hack the moods of people and ultimately our own. Unless someone is a psychopath (who would tend to lack these neurons), everyone else has them. So instead of simply reacting to people's mood, we can opt to sway them. When we sense a negative mood, a smile is usually enough to lighten it. If you are up to it at the moment, giving that person a space to express feelings can ease so much tension. Doing something nice for other people, especially those we value dearly, is really good for our own well-being. Due mainly to these neurons, we derive deep pleasure from watching the pleasure of others. Their pleasure is mirrored identically in our brains. The happier they are the happier we become.

For as long as the body is healthy, it will maintain only a healthy level of blood sugar. The body will always retain some sugar in the blood as a source of quick energy. But whenever our blood sugar spikes the body will send an alarm to the pancreas to release insulin to eliminate the excess sugar in the blood. High levels of blood sugar can be very harmful that's why the body cleans out the excess immediately. The body can tolerate occasional spikes in blood sugar without any major problems. When these spikes in sugar levels become chronic, the body will keep converting the excess sugar into fat cells and store it. Also, the organs involved get fatigued and will no longer be able to clean out the system.  This is the onset of obesity and diabetes. To avoid this condition it is best to be mindful of our sugar intake. Sugar can be addictive. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.

The digestive system processes the food we eat, filtering out parts that we cannot use. It will induce a vomit response and/ or diarrhea when we eat anything toxic to purge the body of harmful toxins as quickly as possible. Again it should be emphasized here that trying to "cure" nausea or diarrhea will make it harder for your body to rid itself of toxins or pathogens. You can help the body by allowing it to purge naturally. Drink plenty of fluids to facilitate the flushing process. When you feel the urge to throw up, allow the body to let it all out, to minimize any toxin damage. The body is working to save you from the potential harm it has detected.

Our body will slow down our metabolism in anticipation of a lack of food. It will build up fat tissue to keep you warmer during the colder months and shed them as the climate gets warmer.

The immune system is constantly on the prowl for harmful invaders ready to respond in real time. Our body will maintain its temperature at a constant range of 36.4 - 37.2° C (97.5 - 98.9 °F) unless it is battling an infection, during which it will raise the temperature above the normal range. We get a fever (a spike in body temperature) as an immune response to infections. The body produces more heat to slow down the pathogen's reproduction rate. Pathogens (organisms that cause disease) typically have difficulty propagating in higher temperatures. Part of the body's strategy is to curb the increase of harmful microbes so it can track and arrest the weakened invaders before the body is overwhelmed by its growing numbers. There is no need to "cure" a fever with antipyretic medication unless you are prone to convulsions (only 5% are at risk). In fact, forcing your body temperature down with medication only makes it harder for the body to fight infection. When you have a fever, it is best to get bed rest, keep the head area cool. Hydrate profusely and eat light, but do allow your body to heat up until the body has the infection under control. The fever will break on its own, once it has served its purpose. When you sense that the infection is

Our body does everything in its power to protect us from harm or even death. And it has incredible powers when we know how to work with it. It will self-regulate so masterfully according to the needs of the moment. 

When threatened with trauma, starvation or the inability to breathe the body has a brilliant crisis protocol. It will drastically change its normal functioning to make sure that the extremely low supply of blood, nutrients, calories or oxygen will be reserved only for the vital functions. Only the functions that are absolutely critical to maintain life will be supported. It will destroy all cells that are damaged or cannot directly support life. The body will shut down non-critical systems to preserve life as long as possible. It will focus and streamline all its efforts into one last valiant attempt to survive. Once the body has cleared the life threatening phase, it will magically begin the process of rebuilding itself.

I find it really sad how some people treat their body like an enemy. They view it with contempt, putting it through unnecessary stresses and alterations. Beating it into shape, binding, poisoning and depriving it into submission. And when the body does not respond in the way they expected they punish it even more. Our bodies have served us (or have tried to serve us) with unwavering persistence and diligence from the moment of our conception without any prompting. If you haven't done so lately, take a full minute to give your body the appreciation it truly deserves.  It's time to make friends with our body and learn to harness its remarkable innate genius. The body's brilliant design has behind it millennia worth of experience navigating the planet serving as a vessel for us transiting souls. 

When we understand the intricacies of our body, we can use body hacks to heal and supercharge its protective mechanisms so we can live happier, healthier lives. We will discuss 4 body hacks briefly here and dive deeper into each individual practice in dedicated articles.

Body Hack # 1 - The Placebo Effect

The placebo effect is healing through belief. Very simply put, you can heal the body completely by believing it will heal. The deeper a person's  belief, the more profound the healing. The healing effect becomes even more powerful when more people share the same belief or when a recognized "authority" endorses the healing modality, even without any basis. This hack can work for anything from minor headaches to stage 4 cancer.

Body Hack # 2 - Earthing/ Grounding

Earthing or grounding is using direct contact of our skin to the surface of the earth to heal the body. Because the surface of Planet Earth carries a negative charge, the entire planet acts like one giant antioxidant and our body's direct contact with the earth can correct so many health issues, especially those caused by inflammation. Spending at least 20 minutes a day with your bare skin in contact with the earth can greatly improve your health and well being. Take every opportunity to walk barefooted. This is the most common form of grounding. You can immediately feel a vast improvement in your health and well being immediately.

Body Hack # 3 - Fasting

Fasting is the practice of abstaining from eating for a short or long period. As mentioned above, our body's crisis response triggers an amazing process of streamlining its use of scarce resources. It seems counterintuitive to starve the body when it is ill, but in reality it results in modulation of disrupted body functions and remarkable healing. Intermittent fasting (no eating for 12-18 hours a day) regularly does wonders for maintaining health. While fasting for a minimum of 14 days straight is used to correct conditions like diabetes, hypertension and many other chronic problems. Make sure that you have professional supervision when attempting to do long term or more extreme methods of fasting. There are many things to keep in mind to get the full benefits of fasting.

Body Hack # 4 - Hyperventilation and Breath Hold Techniques 

Like fasting, certain breathing techniques can trigger the crisis response that in turn results in wonderful changes in the body. Breathing deeply and rapidly for extended periods of time then holding the breath past the point of ease will put the body under such stress. The immediate effects can get very frightening at times because it feels like you are about to pass out. With proper coaching, that feeling of panic will disappear as you learn to find comfort in the extreme discomfort. Over time the body will be primed for peak performance. If you want to try this, enlist the help of a breathwork practitioner to learn how to do this properly to avoid any harm or injury.  You will experience improvements in your health within a few days of starting a breathing practice