We all want to avoid getting sick or injured. Nobody likes being down and out with a cold or flu, or laid up with a sprained joint or broken bone. Unfortunately, no matter how hard you try, you will occasionally get sick, and no matter how careful you are, you will have injuries.
You could stay inside and avoid others, and you might get sick less often. And you could prevent injuries by being extra careful, avoiding activities, and being inactive. But I think we all would agree that a good life includes going out, engaging with others, being physically active, and doing fun stuff. While it’s a good goal is to prevent sickness and injury, we, as humans, will inevitably get sick and injured, so, it makes sense to figure out how to get better as fast as possible.
I’ve been interested in health and wellness my whole life. One thing that has always intrigued me is how two people can have the same illness or the same injury, yet one gets better faster than the other. I’ve seen it in practice with my own patients. Two people, the same age, with the same condition, getting the same treatment, yet one responds much quicker than the other.
Even with bacteria and viruses, the severity of illness varies from person to person. The pandemic was a great example of this. The same virus caused hospitalization or death in one person, yet others did not even know they were infected.
The truth is, it is not the injury or illness that matters most, it’s your ability to heal. The human body has a remarkable ability to fend off pathogens and can sustain quite a bit of abuse before becoming injured, but even the healthiest and strongest among us occasionally get knocked down. So, a great question to ask is… how do I improve my ability to heal?
Dr. James Chestnut, a Canadian wellness expert that I have admired and followed for many, many years, refers to those that get better quicker as fast responders. Fast responders have wounds that heal in less time, have colds and flus that come and go much quicker than the average person, and beat the odds and averages when it comes to any sickness, disease, or condition. But what makes a fast responder someone who responds faster?
There are two keys becoming a fast responder. First, the level of health you are at when exposed to a pathogen or hit with an injury matters. The stronger and healthier you are at the outset has a huge impact at how severe the impact will be and how long it will take to recover. During the pandemic, if you were older, obese, and had other chronic conditions (diabetes, COPD, heart disease, etc.), your odds of complications and death from the virus went way up, while a younger person with no other health conditions was virtually unaffected. Working on building your health, getting stronger, and eliminating current health conditions, is critical to being able to better withstand any virus, bacteria, or trauma you might encounter. Your ability to fight off infection or heal wounds is dramatically improved if you are in a stronger state of health when hit with any of those. The fastest responders are healthier before getting injured or sick.
Second, once injured or sick, you can become a fast responder by adding health-boosting actions to your daily regimen. Eating whole real foods in place of highly processed, artificial junk foods provides the building blocks we need to repair and recover. Moving our bodies through appropriate exercise improves blood flow, lymph drainage, and allows our cells to get the required oxygen they need. More sleep, and better quality sleep, is essential for our cells to repair, our energy to be restored, and our brains to be renewed. And managing our response to stress ensures that our immune system can function at its best. Avoiding stress is ideal, but in this day and age, it’s impossible, so the key is to be better at managing how we respond to that stress.
If you want to heal faster, get better health outcomes, and defy the odds if hit with a disease, injury, or condition, you need to become a fast responder. Everything you do matters. What you eat, how much you move, the quality of your sleep, and the way you manage stress will either slow your healing or speed it up. It will make a cold or flu last two days or ten. It will affect whether you are cured or remain ill. And it will affect the quality of your daily life.
No matter how good you do or how hard you try, you will inevitably get sick or injured. Avoiding or preventing this is ideal, and that is the ultimate goal. But if injured or sick, getting better as fast as possible is the next best thing. Become a fast responder so you have the best chance possible to fend off sickness, have less injuries, and get better quicker if you do get sick or injured.
