NaturalSociety May 20 2013

Blood is the ‘water’ of our body’s rivers. The expression “my life’s blood” comes to mind, because the circulating blood is what keeps our immune system healthy and our heart pumping. It literally gives life.

What Happens When the Blood Can’t Flow?

If you accompany this realization with the work of DNA biologist, Bruce Lipton, who believes our DNA is affected and even permanently changed by our emotions, then a hardened heart would certainly leave us open to disease, since our blood cannot flow through it. When the emotion of love doesn’t stream through our veins, neither do the important T-lymphocyte cells of the immune system, regulated by the thymus, an important endocrine gland situated behind the heart.

Emotions Hormones and Blood

A ‘flood’ of emotion can either rush through the blood in a concoction of hormones, like serotonin, melatonin, GABA, and oxytocin when we are happy or pleased, that bring life to our bodies. Or emotions like anger, fear, and distrust can cause our blood to literally start to become sticky. According to a Harvard study, anger can break our hearts. We become hardened against life, or reticent to our lot, but these expressions only highlight the importance of flowing, healthy blood again.

Since many endocrine glands, including the pituitary gland, pancreas, testes, thyroid, and ovaries release hormones right into the blood stream, they have a direct impact on our physical health immediately. Even the stomach releases ghrelin into the bloodstream to turn food into entrainable circadian clocks so that we know when to sleep and when to wake.

Our ‘blood, sweat and tears’, are an important indicator of the toxicity levels in the body. Those exposed to heavy metals and other environmental toxins can have their blood tested to address the problem, and even a saliva test can measure the amount of stress we have been exposed to, and therefore the adrenal hormones that have been pumping into our blood.

Our blood is constantly extracting nutrients from food and helping to stave off disease. We only have about 10 pints of blood circulating through the body, but it does an amazing job at keeping our bodily systems afloat. We can increase blood flow through exercise, but just keeping the blood healthy is a great way to keep the heart, immune system and hormonal system in balance. You can consume cayenne pepper, garlic, and ginkgo biloba to support blood flow. You can lower blood sugar with cinnamon, cloves, and oregano. And you can lower blood pressure with olives, cardamom spice, and the Ayurvedic herb, ashwagandha.

If you have healthy blood already, consider donating some to someone else at one of the many blood banks throughout the country.

Additional Sources

• LiveStrong