“Can You Trick Your Body to Heal Faster?”

One of my students is dealing with an injury to his calf that’s requiring him to wear a boot, which, as you could imagine, is putting a huge "cramp" to his training. But he’s still coming in to class and moving around on the mats where ever and however he can.


  I encourage students to do this. If you are injured, you can still come to class and watch or do some of the work in whatever way that’s suitable for the class and that’s not going to aggravate the injury. Watch and study and internalize what’s going on in the class as you would in a school setting.


  I used to think that main benefit to doing this was simply maintaining consistency and of course keeping up with what’s being taught. And yes, these are very important and beneficial, but I’ve come to learn there’s even more going on.


  There are a great many studies in the fields of epigenetics, neuroplasticity, and psychoneuroimmunology, that demonstrate time and again the body’s ability to initiate a chemical reality directly influenced by the combination of one’s emotional state and their conscious intention.


  For example, if you have the mindset that you “aren’t injured” and that you are “healthy”, you demonstrate this to your body when doing things like coming to class and doing minimal movement or even just mentally participating, you’re sending an energetic signal to the body to create chemical and physiological conditions that reflect that mindset. This in turn can speed up healing and recovery. I will go into more detail on this stuff in later posts.


   Now don’t misunderstand me, yes, you should listen to your body when dealing with pain and take the proper measures to rest and heal damaged tissues. Seek out the professional medical care of your preference and decide what works best for you.

​   But, while resting and healing, you don’t have to think of yourself as the victim. In fact try not to. Try preemptively being thankful for your healing as if it’s already happened.
  
  Visualize yourself being healed up and training. You may be able to trick your body into healing faster than you expected.