What is the Endocrine System and how can it boost your immune system?
The Endocrine System is the most important system of the body. Our endocrine system's role is to secrete hormones from different glands in the body into the blood stream, for example, the pituitary gland, the pineal gland, the thyroid gland, the adrenal glands. The glands tell our bodies what to do and when to do it. How efficiently they work depends on how equipped we are for the task. Our endocrine and immune system are interlinked and both need to be in optimal health to enable each other to function. We will discuss each of the nine endocrine glands of the body as we go through this series.
1. Emotions
In our last blog post we discussed "Psychoneuroimmunology." Psychoneuroimmunology is the scientifically proved concept that our thoughts have an instant effect on our endocrine and immune system. Negative thoughts such as fear, grief, sadness, anger, no validation negatively effect our glandular systems ability to maintain the right amount of hormones in the body, meaning that we cannot deal with physical or emotional stress efficiently. This causes imbalances in the body. Instead we should think positive thoughts such as love, confidence, joy, forgiveness and respect, which will boost our endocrine and immune function, enabling us to fight stress and disease.
What in our life can challenge our emotions?
Parents, partner, family, children, money, work, friends, house, bereavement, the media, studying and holidays. Just about anything can challenge our emotions!
2. Nutrition
The food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, medications we are prescribed or drugs we take can decrease our endocrine and immune system function.
What food and drink can challenge our endocrine and immune system?
Wheat, milk, sugar, carbonated drinks, salt, alcohol, smoking, chewing gum, chemicals in tap water.
3. Physical
Our muscles and bones and how we use them can impact our endocrine and immune system. This includes the exercise we do or we do not do. It also includes accidents, injuries, our sleep positions, the quality of our sleep and any other physical interaction such as working at a desk or watching television.
What physical action can affect our endocrine and immune system?
Working too hard, too much exercise, wrong working positions, hunching posture, slouching, no exercise, accidents and injuries.
4. Energy
Our body's cells are specialised to conduct electrical currents. Electricity is required for the nervous system to send signals throughout the body and to the brain, making it possible for us to move, think and feel. We live in an electromagnetic smog which interrupts our energy, our meridian flows and bodily functions that require electrical impulses. The environment we live in and people we interact with can also impact on our body's energy.
What energetic and environmental factors can challenge our endocrine and immune systems?
Computers, power cables, high voltage cables and pylons, electric railways, mobile phones and other devices. Noise, exhaust fumes, geopathic stress, thermal stress, neighbours, colleagues, soil poisoning and lack of sunshine.
What can I do now?
Removing or making changes to the factors listed above can affect our endocrine system positively and thus our immune system will benefit hugely. It may be impossible to do some of these things. Some factors may be more harmful than others and some factors may affect us more than other people, as we are all unique.
How can Kinesiology help?
As there are so many factors that affect our endocrine and immune systems, it is hard to know what the main contributing factors are. Kinesiology can get right to the problem using muscle testing. Kinesiology can detect, correct and suggest changes to get back into optimal health efficiently.