As you may have noticed, I have not posted a We The Change article in over a week. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that I have spent the last several days very sick with little appetite for writing (or food)!

It began last Sunday as I relaxed on my couch watching the Master’s golf tournament. I had just flown back from Los Angeles where I spent a hectic 4 days in full work mode. As I got up to make a sandwich, I felt a twinge in my throat and a weakening in my legs. At that moment, I knew that some form of illness fell upon me.

Although this ‘immediate awareness’ to my sickness may seem pretty cool to you, the truth is that my body was breaking down for several days before this. I just didn’t take notice. Here are 4 great suggestions for sickness prevention and care:

1. Prepare for Airplanes

The human body is not used to being at 30,000 feet of altitude for several hours. It has been scientifically proven that we are much more susceptible to illness, particularly infections, when flying.

What I ended up contracting was a pretty serious nasal and ear infection, and I am sure this manifested through a combination of lack of sleep, work stress, and high altitudes. Therefore it is imperative to prepare your immune system each time you fly by securing adequate rest, eating healthful foods, and limiting anxiety before and after your trip.

You can also go a step further and load up on vitamins and products like Emergen-C to prepare for flying. The point is, don’t be like me and learn the hard way…

2. Understand The Nature of Your Illness

Another mistake I made was not understanding the true nature of my poor health. For some reason, I was under the impression that I had contracted some type of virus while in Los Angeles, while the truth was a pretty hard-core bacterium had taken hold of my head, neck and chest.

After three days of resting, taking vitamins, and ingesting bowl after bowl of chicken soup I should have seen a health professional. Not doing this caused the infection to grow much stronger than it should have and left me sick for much longer than I anticipated.

When you are unsure what your sickness really is, go to a doctor.

3. Use Modern Medicine After Holistic Measures Fail

I always try and heal my body with holistic measures first. 95% of the time I find it works, but there is always the 5% chance that we need the genius of modern medicine to help us.

Believe me, I hate going on antibiotics. They cause much damage to the body, particularly to the large intestines where they kill off millions of disease fighting bacteria that we need for optimum health. However, sometimes modern medicine can be wonderful, and my recent bout with infection was certainly one of those times.

The important thing when taking a dose of antibiotics is to build the immune system back up afterwards. I am currently taking a daily dose of probiotics to build my large intestines back up, for example.

4. Use Exercise as a Means to Gauge Your Sickness

Everyone says “rest, rest, rest” when you start feeling sick. But I always find it more useful to ‘test’ my body when it is not feeling well is by exercising. I am not talking about running a marathon but doing some moderate cardio workout to gauge the nature of your sickness, and even flush it away.

After two days of feeling ill, I went to the gym and jogged lightly for about 15 minutes. Afterwards I went into the sauna and envisioned the sickness being soaked out of me. This process usually works quite well. In this case, it didn’t work as I still felt ill the next day.

At this point I was quite sure that whatever I had, it was more serious than the common cold. I still didn’t go to a doctor (like an idiot), but knew I needed to take it real easy.

In The End…

Because I rarely fall ill, I have learned it usually means the divine wisdom of the body is communicating with me that I need to slow down and take a break. When I was younger, I used to fight and ignore sickness. Now, I look at times of physical weakness as a check point in the continuous cycles of my life.

SO, honor the wisdom of your body and pay attention to the signs if illness. Then, take proper care of yourself. I hope you found these four recommenndations useful…

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