Happy Thanksgiving!
I want to take a moment and share some cool energy and science ideas about Thanksgiving and its importance in this time of the worldwide panic-demic and isolationism. And I want to give you the science and the energetic healing solutions to support you through this.
On this day that is generally a day of celebration and love of family and relatives, eating more turkey and drinking more than we probably should… many, if not most people who have been watching the news, have chosen to go it alone, limiting family time, skipping the trip, and the connection, and are living in fear and anxiety of getting sick and dying.
Looking at this strictly from the body’s perspective, there are more health and wellbeing factors here to consider when deciding how to interact this holiday season.
First of all, we know that stress and anxiety is one of the top killers in the world. Covid has increased the level of stress many times over. Stress causes the body to live at a hyper-reactive level that fills the body with adrenalin and cortisol, constricts the diaphragm, limits the breath, constricts blood vessels and blood pressure, to push the blood out of the organs and into the muscles and the head for “fight or flight,” causing poor digestion, headaches, irritability, high blood pressure, depression, exhaustion, lower immunity and a laundry list of illnesses including heart attack. Stress is a killer.
There is good news though. In the 75 year Harvard study on what creates the healthiest and happiest and longest lived people, they concluded that the number one factor in health, immunity, protection against Alzheimer’s, and general enjoyment of life, are the depth and quality of your relationships. Not cholesterol, eating habits, career, socioeconomic conditions, illness, etc. Just heathy loving connection with family and friends.
They also concluded that isolation and loneliness kills.
So why is being with loved ones good for you?
Scientific studies have shown that people who play with family and friends and create deeper loving, non-superficial relationships and connections, naturally create more dopamine (happy hormones) and a neurotransmitter hormone called oxytocin that literally opens the heart center and the person relaxes and trusts more.
Oxytocin has been called “the cuddle hormone” or “the love hormone” due to its association with bonding between mother and child and in romantic love relationships. It promotes feelings of love, social bonding and well-being… and much more.
When people report being in love, laughing and connecting deeply with friends and family, they are far less likely to get stressed or feel depressed or get ill. They often report feeling lighter and “wonderful,” and expanded, and heal faster.
Physiologically oxytocin allows the cells in the body to hold more water, and therefor you feel more expanded, and a cell with more water in it can conduct more of the body’s electromagnetic charge, so you have a huge boost in energy. With more voltage, the system communicates faster, and muscles and organs don’t have to work so hard to do their jobs. Life becomes easier. This boosts the immune system, the brain power, memory, sexual drive and your time of recovery, letting you relax, when other people are walking stress machines.
But that is not all…
When love and deeper connections with someone you resonate with occur, it not only produces oxytocin in the pituitary gland, but also nitric oxide that relaxes the inner lining of blood vessels that literally causes the heart to swell.
I know it’s the wrong holiday, the Grinch’s heart swelled at Christmas…
But your heart literally swells when you are in love, all year long. Dilated, the blood vessels increase blood flow, pumping more oxygen, more white blood cells to combat illness and more needed nutrients to the organs and cells of the body.
And there is even more, there is one more neurotransmitter, vasopressin that is released when combined with oxytocin seems to have an influence in lifelong bonding which turned out to be the healthiest group in the Harvard study.
So clearly the benefits of family get togethers are more than a good meal, and chronic aloneness is creating a huge health risk to humanity…
So what can you do if you are just too afraid of Covid to get together with family and get that massive oxytocin and dopamine healing rush?
Well another kind of scientist, a quantum physicist will tell you that all of life is connected. Everything that exists is part of a continuum of frequency that just appear to form certain objects at different frequencies that our brains can decode.
How does that help you when you are alone? That is saying that in truth you are never alone, every point in the universe is touching every other point. So the loving hug you want to give to your son or mom can be done just by making that connection, even as you sit alone.
If you are alone you, can still create plenty of oxytocin, vasopressin and nitric oxide. Just close your eyes and feel in your heart the hug, and warmth, the voice, the laughter, the happiness, the good smells… the love… then go deeper into it, sit with it, dream with it, play with it, fall in love. Put your hand over your heart and feel them in it and breathe deeply till you begin to feel the expanded state of your heart swelling and you can feel the love from them and can see the love in their eyes.
If you are not a seasoned meditator this might take a half hour to an hour to really get your body in this state of love like you are actually there with your loved ones… but what else do you have to lose besides your stress and potential illness and sense of loneliness? Hmmm…
Oh, and if you get really good at this, you might try using it every day, not just on Thanksgiving. And with all your newfound love and joy and energy, you will also become part of the solution to the current crisis in which we will need people who know how to heal themselves.
I love you all, be well and wonderful!
P.S. if you want a simple meditation that can help you create that level of connection, grab your copy of Harnessing the Creative Force the Heart at the special Thanksgiving price of only $15