Give The Boot to Bugs

Trying to tiptoe around this season’s cold and flu germs?  Let your feet take an active role in boosting your immunity this season.  According to the Centers for Disease Control, flu season can begin as early as October, and affects 5-20% of the U.S population every year.  Prevention is key to staying healthy and reflexology can be a very useful tool.  Reflexology helps to stimulate the immune system protecting you from the viruses which cause the common cold and influenza.

Balance. Relax. Restore.  All three are instrumental in boosting the immune system and preventing germs from taking over.  Reflexology increases circulation, detoxes the body, and helps release “feel good” chemicals in our brains, but most importantly, it helps our bodies restore and find a balance.

Ultimately, our bodies want to be healthy.  The stressors that we encounter on a regular basis, many of them unavoidable, do their best to create havoc in our systems, breaking down our immunity little by little.  Things like junk food, pollutants, stress, medications are very harsh on our bodies, often weakening our immune system enough to allow those nasty germs to take over.  Reflexology helps to get rid of those toxins, helps every system of the body to work at its full potential and helps to restore that precious balance that our bodies crave.  This is vital, so that when presented with cold and flu viruses, we can fight them off, instead of laying down and letting them take over.

For this reason, reflexology can also help you recover from colds and the flu faster and help to lessen your symptoms.  The same way popping a pill will take away your stuffy nose and take away your headache, reflexology can also clear your sinuses and dissolve your headache naturally, without the side effects of drugs.  By clearing out the toxins and increasing the circulation of the body, it allows the body to begin the healing process, the restoration to balance.

TIP:  To jumpstart your immunity at home, use a small amount of lotion or massage oil and massage your entire foot.  Start in the center, just under the ball of your foot and take a few deep breaths to increase relaxation.  Move out from the center, being sure not to neglect the top of the foot, which will help to move the toxins out of your body.   In reflexology, we always treat the entire body first and foremost.  The systems of the body do not work independently, but instead work together in harmony.  For that reason, it would be counter-productive to treat one system and not the others.  After giving your whole foot a little attention, give a few extra squeezes to the toes, which house the sinus reflexes.  This can help with head and sinus congestion.   There are a few other specific reflexes that promote the immune system and we can focus on those during your reflexology session.

Give your body the tools it needs to stay healthy and happy this winter season.  Create an environment that allows your body to stay well and heal faster.

Check out my next post to see how nutrition plays a major role in staying well through cold and flu season.  Get some tips on how “Nature’s Pharmacy” can be your best asset through the winter!

Be well and live well,

Stacey