Immune support

As winter approaches its time to start thinking about staying healthy through cold and flu season. Here are some interesting comments on stress and health.

"There is overwhelming evidence that stress -- and the substances secreted by the body during stress -- negatively impacts your ability to remain healthy," says neurophysiologist Carl J. Charnetski, PhD. Woodson Merrell, MD, director of integrative medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, agrees: "There are dozens, if not hundreds of studies attesting to how stress affects the body's ability to respond to infection." The good news is that lowering your stress can help your body maintain both your physical and your emotional health. "People who have less stress are simply healthier overall," says Charnetski.

What matters is how we respond to stressful events - how our body handles them biochemically. When we are relaxed, our immune system functions beautifully - protecting us from cold viruses as well as from cancer cells. There are many ways to facilitate relaxation in ourselves - Five-Element Acupuncture is one of them.

For more information see The Center for Classical Five-Element Acupuncture in Seattle.