How our bodies are hardwired to heal themselves.
How our bodies are hardwired to heal themselves.
During a steep and winding rabbit hole of curiosity the other day, I came across an interview with a vocal coach who was analyzing the tonal quality, resilience and vocal agility of a multiple Grammy award-winning singer. Each of his insights were fascinating, having coached major music industry and Broadway talents for many years. However, out of everything that he knowledgeably espoused, there was one piece that particularly piqued my interest given its supreme relevance to what we are going through, presently, with the world’s current—and persistent—pandemic.
He spoke about post-show vocal recovery after a performer has been on stage for hours each night within the duration of an entire tour, or an entire Broadway run. He debunked the long practiced myth that total vocal rest was best. He went on to explain that if a singer were to just stop speaking for the rest of the night following their performance, their chance of recovery and maintaining their voice for the entirety of their run would plummet substantially. Instead, if the performer went through a quick series of humming exercises after coming off stage, the simple act of humming provokes their vocal chords to secrete an enzyme that actually repairs them.
We may look at medicine as a stepping stone to health, we may look to surgeons to fix what’s egregiously broken, but it is the universe of ingenuity within our own brilliant cells that truly heals us.
The information he offered in that moment coursed through my consciousness. Of any time to recognize and acknowledge the innate ability—the insatiability—our bodies have to rampantly maintain their internal balance, it is now. In the heart of mass fear over our physical vulnerability, he offered a reminder of just ONE of the magnificent things that our bodies do in every millisecond to regulate our well-being. Our bodies are constantly calibrating, incessantly adjusting to all that we expose them to environmentally—via our air, food and beverage—and physiologically through our thought, emotion, and inherited ideology.
Our bodies have means and resources beyond what even the most expert scientists have yet to find. There is unrecognized, pure genius within each atom of our being. And now is the perfect time to take a beat and appreciate all that our bodies have done for us in every moment of every day, for our entire lifetime. This living, breathing, constantly morphing, brilliant, biologically agile organism is our beautiful vehicle in which we get to experience this human existence. Now, in the heart of this encouraged stillness, is the perfect time to give it some serious love.
Trust your body. Tap into your body. Take CARE of your body. Your body ALWAYS HAS YOUR BACK...in more ways than you can possibly fathom.
