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Hi Friend,
The Nocebo Effect
You've heard of the placebo effect, right? It's when you have an expectation that a particular treatment, substance, activity, or circumstance will have a specific, positive effect on your health. That expectation has such a powerful impact that your mind creates that those physical effects in your body.
But have you heard of the nocebo effect? That's the opposite of the placebo effect. It's where your negative expectation or belief creates harmful effects in your body.
What hasn't gotten much attention this year in the United States is the huge nocebo effect that's been at work sickening our people. Many of our government officials at the state, local, and federal levels have inundated us with messages of doom, fear, disaster, overwhelm, shame, guilt, and danger surrounding COVID-19. And then our acquaintances repeat those messages without questioning them. Have you noticed such influences affecting your mind? If so, that's the nocebo effect at work and it will negatively impact your health and immunity unless you shift to healthier thinking.
Do you recognize any thoughts like these:
- This virus is dangerous
- If I touch that (or this person) I may get sick
- I should be ashamed of breathing around other people
- I need to be careful about where I go because this virus could be in the air
If you've noticed any nocebo type thinking in yourself, let's use some rational, constructive thinking here to replace that nocebo type thinking:
You have been surrounded and filled by viruses, bacteria, and other germs since you were born into a physical body. Your body and its immune system have an innate intelligence that monitors, understands, stores, neutralizes, balances, moves, and coordinates an endless array of substances and processes. It has done this for you around the clock for many years to a degree your conscious mind could not possibly comprehend or coordinate. If your body had not been doing this for you, many years ago you would have died from infectious disease, malnutrition, blood loss, or a slew of other factors that impact you every day. Yet you're still alive and kicking, reading this message, thanks to your body's brilliance. If my body isn't my most loyal, forgiving, supportive friend, I don't know who is.
Let's take this rational, constructive thinking a few steps further:
Not only has your body demonstrated amazing brilliance at and mastery of immunity, wound healing, digestion, balance, and countless other tasks, how well it can perform those tasks is affected by your choices. The thoughts you choose, the foods you eat, the poisons you consume, the adequacy of your sleep, and the activities you engage in have a big impact on your body's ability to perform those tasks and keep you alive and well.
On average, residents of the U.S.A. survive over 99.9% of COVID-19 infections. Most who are sickened by COVID-19 have only mild or moderate symptoms that due not warrant hospitalization. That's what's average and typical. Given that we Americans don't typically take all that good care of ourselves, your odds in regards to COVID-19 are likely good to begin with. And if you make use of some of the insights regarding optimizing your immunity in this message, you can improve your odds and results well beyond what's average.
So if you notice any negative nocebo type thoughts, don't worry about it. Just replace them on the spot with positive, constructive thoughts like: - My body's been doing a brilliant job handling germs around the clock for years
- I've never truly avoided germs any day of my life and I'm still alive
- I can optimize my immunity and health by eating wholesome, natural, nutritious foods
- Be exercising and engaging in activities I enjoy each day, I strengthen my immunity
- I'm responsible for my health. Other people are responsible for their health.
Exercise Prolonged intense exercise suppresses your immune system. But moderate-intensity exercise improves immune function and potentially reduces the risk and severity of respiratory viral infections. (Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2009 Oct; 37(4): 157–164.) So if you want to reduce your stress, improve your mood, and strengthen your immunity to the flu and COVID-19, don't run marathons. Choose some exercise each day that is of a suitable intensity and type for you. It should leave you feeling refreshed rather than exhausted.
Exercise each day in a way that's appropriate and feels good to you, and BAM! You've just significantly reduced your vulnerability to COVID-19. And if you want to add the beneficial placebo effect to that, remind yourself of that every time you exercise.
Diet
I'm not going to go into a great deal of depth or detail about diet's impact on immunity in this email message. But remember that your overall nutrition either strengthens or weakens your immunity. It may make the difference between your getting sick (or not) from an infection and how easily and quickly you recover. So a few general guidelines: - Eat a diet with a wide variety of food groups. The more you limit your food groups, the more likely you'll suffer from nutritional deficiencies. To share my own personal experience, I was frequently sickened by infections when I was eating a vegetarian diet. It just wasn't right or adequate for my body. Once I switched to a more balanced, omnivorous diet, my mood, digestion, and immunity improved substantially.
- Vitamin C is critical to immunity to and recovery from infections. Heat destroys vitamin C. So if you're eating only processed or cooked foods, you won't be getting much vitamin C. Include some fresh, raw vegetables and fruits that are high in vitamin C in your diet every day.
- Favor natural, whole, fresh foods over old, packaged, processed foods.
- Don't eat the same thing every day or at every meal. Change it up for optimal nutrition.
- Favor organic foods over conventional foods. They contain more nutrition and less poisons.
- Avoid juices, soda, sugar, and sweetened foods and beverages. Sugar intake depresses immunity.
Vitamin D
It had already been well established years ago that people's vitamin D levels have a strong correlation to their susceptibility to respiratory infections, including influenza. Those with low vitamin D levels have dramatically higher incidence of and severity of respiratory infections. And guess what? Multiple studies in multiple countries have shown the same for COVID-19, too!
This research has revealed that many thousands of illnesses and deaths from COVID-19 (perhaps the majority) could have been prevented if people's vitamin D levels were adequate. Some governments have acknowledged this and acted on this to protect their people. But I haven't seen this in the U.S.A. despite this being brought to government officials' attention repeatedly. But we don't need corrupt government officials to protect us. We can do it ourselves.
Vitamin D deficiencies are common in much of the world, including the U.S.A. We can get some vitamin D from foods, but humans' main source of vitamin D is actually from our bodies' producing it in reaction to sunlight exposure. How much vitamin D our bodies produce depends on a number of factors, including how dark our skin is and how strong the sunlight is. Had you heard that darker skinned people were having worse COVID-19? A big factor is likely that they tend to be more deficient in vitamin D than lighter skinned people.
The sunlight reaching the earth is weaker in the colder months away from the equator. So if you're in Florida, you can probably get adequate vitamin D from sunlight exposure year round. But in much of the northern U.S.A., it is impossible to get adequate vitamin D from diet and sunlight exposure during the colder months. Ever wondered why respiratory tract infections are more common in the winter? This is a big reason why.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is critical to your immunity and fighting off viral infections in numerous ways. It also helps to keep your body from overreacting to an infection. It's the body's overreaction to the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus that kills people, not the virus itself.
Due to humans' shift away from our hunter gatherer diet and lifestyle over many years, our diets now tend to provide only a small fraction of the vitamin C our bodies need. The daily allowance or recommended daily intake of around 500 milligrams our government agencies specify for adults are typically only suggestions to prevent severe effects from deficiency. Those amounts are not truly optimal for health or immunity.
As I mentioned above, get some fresh, raw fruits and vegetables in your diet to get some vitamin C. But for optimal vitamin C intake, most people do need to supplement. The body uses up vitamin C quickly. So it's best to take vitamin C supplements multiple times a day rather than once a day. I typically take mine with meals. And bear in mind that the body uses a lot more vitamin C when it's dealing with an infection. So you may need to increase your doses if you become sick with an infection. Good, nutritionally-savvy physicians will offer to administer high doses of vitamin C intravenously to people with infections.
Guidelines for vitamin C supplements:
- Ascorbic acid is vitamin C and it’s a really inexpensive form of vitamin C you can get as supplements.
- Ascorbic
acid is acidic, though. It doesn’t bother my stomach but some people
find it bothers theirs. I recommend taking it with food, which can
improve absorption and reduce stomach upset.
- If you’d like a
vitamin C supplement that’s non-acidic and absorbed better by the body,
go with mineral ascorbates like calcium ascorbate, magnesium ascorbate,
etc. They’re just minerals that are bound to ascorbic acid.
- Vitamin
C is used up by the human body pretty fast. The body does not store it,
unlike other nutrients. So for good results you must take it multiple
times a day, not in one big dose.
- Whatever form of vitamin C you
take as supplements, start off with small doses. The body gradually
learns to absorb and use more of it. If you increase the dose too fast,
you’ll experience gas or loose bowel movements. If that occurs, just
reduce your dosage a bit until those symptoms go away.
- For most
adults, I’d suggest starting off with a daily dose of 1,000 to 2,000
milligrams. Divide that into multiple smaller doses that you take
throughout the day. For example, you might start off by taking 500
milligrams, three times per day.
- Over the course of a month or
two, see if you can gradually build up to taking 10,000 or 15,000
milligrams a day. Most adults would benefit substantially from even
3,000 supplemental milligrams per day.
- If you’d like to
go with a really inexpensive but good quality ascorbic acid vitamin C
supplement, you might try NOW Foods’ C-500 tablets. It's available at Amazon here
- I use the ascorbic acid vitamin C tablets called NOW Foods Vitamin C-1000 Sustained Release. They're available via Amazon here.
The tablets release their contents to your digestive system over hours,
rather than immediately. That can help with increasing your daily
intake of vitamin C without having to take it in as many doses. I also like to get some of my supplements from A1supplements.com,
who not only offer supplements at a deep discount off retail, but they
also tend to ship promptly. So you can get the
Sustained Release tablets from A1 Supplements by clicking here if you like.
Social Connection Versus Isolation
Studies have shown that social interaction and loving physical contact with others makes for better immunity and longevity. And social isolation (which fear-mongering, tyrannical government officials have demanded of us in reaction to COVID19) actually depresses immunity and takes years off your life—not to mention harming your quality of life.
So socialize. Spend time with people you enjoy and love. Get a massage. Enjoy hugs. All this is good for your immunity and health.
I could write more, but hopefully I've given you some insights you can use to optimize your immunity to and recovery from COVID-19. By taking just a bit better care of yourself than most other people do, you can dramatically improve your odds.
Did you learn or get something from this? Let me know by replying.
Kind Regards, Health Guru Mike
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