Do you remember a time when coughing in public was a normal thing? Since COVID, anyone with a slight cough is looked at with caution and judgement. I jest with this, but it is so true, and many of you recently, including me have been struggling with coughs. Made worse by the fact we try not to cough in public and hold back the ‘hacking’.
But is someone with a cough always sick? This week I want to discuss the lovely world symptoms v sickness.
You see we have been taught from a very young age that if we have a cough, a running nose, or sneezing, that we are ‘sick’. But are we?
All of the aforementioned are symptoms, this means expressions of the body. And when you actually think about this, those expressions of the body are all a healthy response. Why would such an intelligent organism such as yourself, do something pointless and energy wasting when it is fighting off an infection, bacteria, or virus?
Let us think about this, the running nose is the bodies way to push out the bacteria, the cough repels the virus as does the sneeze. So while the body may express these symptoms when we have contracted an ‘illness’, does it mean we are ill?
I would suggest not. I would suggest here that your body is doing exactly what it needs to do in order to get rid of the unwanted invader, it is having a healthy response.
Which then begs the question, what should we do? Is taking pills to stop the running nose and cough really the answer? Maybe by doing so we are stopping our body’s ability to heal quickly and prolonging the problem…
So, this week as we all navigate the tail end of cold and cough season, my encouragement to you is to trust what your body is doing, know that the symptoms, as annoying as they may be, are your body’s way do doing the right thing, and expressing health.
With love,
Tom
