All around you this time of year of signs of new life and renewal, as the winter starts to wind down and the trees and flowers and grass start waking up. It’s a remarkable season, to watch that which has lost its color and verve start to regenerate, to come back to life.

It’s no wonder that this is also the time we celebrate the Easter season, that time when much of the world commemorates the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.

Romans 8:11, NLT

God’s remarkable design for our physical bodies means that we are a spring-in-process most of the time. Our cells turn over to clear out toxicities and damage and create fresh ones. When we’re injured, our bodies work double-time to heal wounds and broken bones. And the healing processes of our biology can also be enhanced by how we support both our overall health and in particular what we do when we are healing from illness or injury. It’s nothing short of a miracle to see that our Creator put into our very design this surge toward healing.

Researchers are hopeful that as we begin to better understand the body’s ability to repair we’ll be able to better harness and support those processes. “Resilience is the ability of a living entity—a person, an organ, a cell—to rebound from adversity. We need to learn what it is that allows some individuals to recover from heart attack, stroke, and so on, while others don’t. The same is true at the cellular level: why do some cells survive adverse events, while others die?” says Duke University School of Medicine Dean Mary E. Klotman, MD. “When we can isolate the factors that produce resilience, we can learn to enhance those factors and improve resilience. The concept of biologic resilience applies across so many systems and disease areas.” 1 

⚒️ Repair: The processes by which our bodies heal is remarkable. When it comes to an injury such as a broken bone, sprain, or cut, the process is generally in four stages. For wounds, you’ll notice that if you are bleeding, your body quickly sends clotting agents to the open wound to help stop the blood loss. If it’s a broken bone, the body immediately starts making new cells to heal the bone. With most injuries and illnesses, inflammation in the body and at the injury site begins. That inflammation helps increase blood flow to the area and also allows the body to send needed repair materials, such as stem cells and white blood cells to fight infection. While we know that chronic inflammation in the body can be a sign your body is overstressed, specific inflammation to an injury site is a good thing and part of the healing process. 

Stem cells are most often the material generated and used by your body for repair. A fever can also be a healing process. It works by raising your overall body temperature or temperature at the site of a wound enough that it can help kill off bacteria. With this wash of building materials, natural infection-fighting agents, and accelerated pathways to the area of illness or injury, your body is on immediate rebuilding duty.

🧰 Maintenance: These processes are also always at work in the overall maintenance of your health. Our bodies encounter plenty of wear-and-tear as we go through the motions of our daily routines, even when we’re not battling an illness or dealing with an injury. This process of continual repair is part of the power of exercise and weight lifting; those beneficial activities create micro injuries to the muscle, which the body then repairs, making the muscle stronger. This maintenance ability of the body is responsible for everything from hair growth to cell turnover to blood filtration and renewal.

❤️‍🩹 How You Can Support Healing: While these processes of the body generally run on their own, there are ways you can help support yourself. The body is most efficient at running these healing and regeneration programs when you are eating well, getting good sleep, having regular times of resting and relaxation, and being intentional about your stress levels.  “If a body is consistently sleep deprived, does not get adequate nutrition from food or consumes unhealthy foods, fails to exercise, and exists in a constant state of high stress, it will not be able to heal and regenerate itself nearly as efficiently as it could,” says Erik Lundquist, MD, medical director for the Temecula Center for Integrative Medicine. “In this state, injury is occurring in minor ways every single day. How can a body heal itself when it can’t keep up with the damage caused by the person’s lifestyle?” 2 

Daily living takes a toll on nutrients needed by the body. Eating a healthy range of foods and talking with your doctor about supplementation can help your body stay robust in whatever healing processes you might need. Taking breaks and creating boundaries around work and home life can go a long way in supporting your physical health. And your spiritual life deeply connects with your overall health, including the power of prayer and being part of a faith community. 

If you’re a Member of Altrua HealthShare, you also have the help of your Altrua HealthShare community, where we help share in one another’s eligible medical needs for those times you need to see a medical professional. Your membership includes telehealth (which you can conveniently access through your HealthWallet app), so that you can quickly get help with allergies, colds, UTIs, and more. If you’re not yet a Member of Altrua HealthShare or have questions about your membership, you can contact a Member Services Representative at  1-888-244-3839.

In this beautiful season in which we’re surrounded by reminders of resurrection you can invest in your own health with simple steps that keep your body running with what it needs for repair and renewal. Your body is an incredible piece of engineering, with built-in systems that can help you heal. Help your body do its work by being kind to your body with solid nutrition, rest, and emotional health!

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

Psalm 139:13-14, NLT

1  https://medschool.duke.edu/news/harnessing-bodys-ability-heal-itself
2  https://www.tcimedicine.com/post/is-the-body-designed-to-heal-itself