As many of you already know. I am a new father. My son, Nikolas, is 10 1/2 months old and will be walking any day now. To say that he has transformed my world is an understatement. But this isn’t going to be a post by a dad about how great he thinks his son is. This week’s Health Tip will start out with a parental observation, venture briefly into existential musings and then segue into understandings about your immune system and the Life Force inside of you that is on constant watch to protect and heal you.

Interested in seeing how these dots are connected? If so, read on…

As I said, Niko is about to start walking and has been crawling around and pulling him self up onto chairs, coffee tables and everything else 2-3 feet off the ground for a few months now. If you’ve been around kids at this stage of development, you know how clumsy they are as they explore their world in this new way. So I’ve found myself spending a lot of my time with my son on my hands and knees, following him around and making sure that he doesn’t tumble over too hard and hurt himself. Of course, I want him to explore and learn his balance on his own. But I also don’t want him to smack his head on the coffee table or face plant on the hard wood floors. He’s fortunate to have a chiropractor as a father who can adjust him regularly to correct misalignments as they come up. But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure right?

Even when I’m holding him in my arms walking around the house, when he sees something he wants to check out, he just dives towards it. If I didn’t catch him, he’d fall head first onto the ground. The same when he’s traversing the coffee table, walking himself along holding onto the edge. Many times he trips over his own legs or on a toy under his feet. Sometimes he just lets go and again, if I didn’t catch him, he’d crash onto the floor with crying and tears to certain to follow.

Well, last week after another one of these “trust falls” after he went for a ball he suddenly saw out of the corner of his eye that he wanted, I had the thought that he had absolutely no idea that I was protecting him from certain injury by catching him in this way. All he knows is that he sees and wants that ball and after he dives after it, he’s lowered down safely to the floor so he can then play with it. I thought the same thing when he was walking along using the window sill as a support. When he let go to get over to the couch, instead of gravity taking hold and him going SPLAT onto the floor, I caught him and eased him over to his next adventure.

Then I thought to myself how nice it would be if I had someone watching out for me in the same way. How nice it would be knowing I have someone constantly looking out for me, protecting me from trips, falls and face plants. Then it occurred to me that maybe I do. Maybe we all do have someone or something watching us, guiding us in the right directions and protecting us from harm.

But this post won’t be about God, spirit guides or guardian angels.

Because after that thought, my mind turned to the immune system.

Did you know that your body produces cancerous cells every year? At least once per year, some cells mutate into cancerous cells through “normal” defects in cell division, from exposure to toxins, sun damage etc. But you don’t get cancer every year, do you? That’s because your immune system, when functioning optimally, recognizes this problem and destroys these cells before they ever form a tumor large enough to ever be detected by diagnostic testing. However, when your immune system gets chronically overloaded with trying to correct problems resulting from unhealthy lifestyle habits, some of those cancerous cells can “slip through the cracks” and can become a threat to your health.

Your Nervous System coordinates the immune system and regulates every other function of your body as well. It beats your heart and controls your breathing. It digests your food and eliminates wastes. It rebuilds your muscles and all of your organs. All without you having to even think about it.

But it isn’t just your Nervous System that does all of this on its own. Even a corpse has a Nervous System. It still has a brain, a spinal cord and nerves. So what is the difference between a dead person and someone that is alive?

The difference is this:

A corpse has a Nervous System but the Life Force has left the body. The Life Force is what animates the body and keeps you alive. This Life Force flows from Above, Down and then Inside, Out. This “ADIO Principle” is one of the founding principles of Chiropractic philosophy and it is what we work with to help create more health and healing for you.

Another saying chiropractors often use is “The power that made the body, heals the body.” The mysterious force that created your body from one sperm and one egg coming together at conception is the same force that regulates all functions of your body. It protects and heals you. And it does so through your Nervous System.

So the next time you cut your finger, know that your immune system is on the job and ready to heal it for you.

The next time that you feel overwhelmed and stressed out, know that your Nervous System is working to keep you healthy throughout this time so that your health doesn’t break down.

And if you should get bad news from your doctor and you are told that there is nothing that can be done, know that the Life Force is still pulsing inside of you and can be activated to heal you. The light inside of you might have been dimmed, but the dimmer switch can be turned up.

Healing is always available. There is always hope. There is no reason to feel unsafe or vulnerable. Not with the powerful Life Force inside of you.

This Life Force is constantly guiding you and protecting you from harm.

Just like a new parent following his toddler around making sure he doesn’t face plant as he learns how to walk…