Life is the accumulation of our experiences, both physical and non-physical. In our bodies, every experience accumulates to add to our health or bring us closer towards expressing disease. Therefore, it is so important to evaluate your life from time to time. What things are accumulating in your life? Are they healthy or should a change be made?

Take these following scenarios for example:

• Building muscle is cumulative. There must be a force placed on your muscles to cause them to tear, repair, and grow. That is why bodybuilders spend so much time in the gym lifting weights.
• Radiation is cumulative. Yes, I am talking about ionizing, or X-ray radiation. Meaning, that we are always exposed to low levels of environmental ionizing radiation (adds up to 1-2 mSv annually). Our bodies can deal with those levels throughout our lives. It has always been that way, and hopefully always will be. Our bodies can even tolerate greater amounts of ionizing radiation on an annual basis without consequence (if you are subluxation free!!). The Journal of Health Physics estimates that if a human stay below 100 mSv of radiation exposure annually, they should not have any complications from the cumulative buildup that their body must deal with. One X-ray is anywhere from 1-6 mSv, well below the limit. And even with the numbers of X-rays of will have in1 year of your care, it is still well under the upper limit! In fact, you are exposed to approximately the same amount of radiation as one X-ray when you are in a 2-hourplane ride at 30,000 feet.
• Antioxidants are cumulative. Meaning we always will need more as our body depletes them. It’s a great thing that our body, when functioning properly, can naturally produce its own antioxidants such as glutathione, and we can get lots of antioxidants from vegetables and supplements. The flip side of this equation is their depletion as antioxidants are constantly neutralizing free radicals in our bodies. This means that free radicals are cumulative as well. So, this should give you a better understanding that the antioxidant/free radical relationship is always influx in our body system and is always heading in one of two directions-towards betterment of our overall health or leading towards disease. See how this can be applied to an endless number of other relationships within our bodies?
• Thoughts are accumulative. Why do some people have greater fears over something than others? The same fearful thought repeatedly will lead to a heightened sympathetic state every time that fear could possibly be a reality. This is reason that some individuals can hang out with snakes, while others cringe when someone else talks about them. It’s all in the thoughts!
• There is a term known as bioaccumulation in our bodies. This is a term to indicate that the buildup of some chemical or organic compound in our bodies is greater than our bodies ability to breakdown and eliminate it. For example, the largest concentration of Vitamin A in an organic compound is in polar bear liver. This is because the polar bears are a carnivore that feeds primarily on other arctic wildlife such as seals and penguins. If a human was to eat the liver of a polar bear, severe Vitamin A toxicity would occur, even death.

It’s wild to think of all the ways our body accumulates and depletes different things as we runaround living our lives. I hope that some of these examples can give some powerful insight into how your body is working as hard as it can for you to keep functioning, keep moving, and keep living.

Therefore, it’s so important to keep your accumulations in check. Whatever they are. As a patient of chiropractic, you are already lightyears ahead of others who are not getting the input to their nervous system to remove any interferences. If you put equal effort into eating clean, healthy foods and drinks, you are working to prevent the bioaccumulation of toxins within your body. You are doing the right things to prevent gut issues, inflammatory immune reactions, and the cascade of events that bioaccumulation of food toxins bring with it. When you get enough sleep, exercise, and practice having great thoughts about yourself, this world, and others, your body responds by working as it should, and you keep thriving.

What are the big things accumulating in your life? Are they beneficial or hurtful to your health? What are you doing to be mindful of what’s accumulating in your life?? Let me know atdrchris@askdrernst.com. Let’s figure out a way together to keep bringing health into this world and spreading the messages of natural healing.