In the last post, I shared with you seven keys to boosting your immune system during the Coronavirus pandemic. Most of the keys I introduced help you physically. Today I would like to share with you keys that can help you mentally.
Physical approaches such as diet and exercise can help you build up your immune system, and yet, they work better if you combine them with mental strategies.
I believe in holistic measures. One of the reasons a single method sometimes doesn’t work is that we are a holistic being and deal with all kinds of factors at the same time. While we may be eating the right kind of food, we may also have a negative thought, such as fear. In that case, the fear counterbalances the diet, and we go back to square one.
One example of this is that health-conscious people can sometimes get sick more often than regular people can because the former is more worried about what you eat and can have a lot of negative thoughts about food surrounding you.
During this pandemic, we need to be careful with our minds. Fear is everywhere. Whenever we turn on the TV, we hear a report about more people have gotten infected and died, or how hospitals are packed with patients, or how many more people lost their jobs and so on.
It is vital to get information so that we can protect ourselves based on the up to date knowledge, but being afraid won’t help our wellbeing, and it can counterbalance all other measures you have been taking.
Therefore I strongly urge you that you control your mind. One thing I do is to feel happy and positive all the time, no matter what happens. This pleasant feeling will send a positive vibration to your gut bacteria, and as a result, it will boost your immune system.
To do it, I always look at the positive aspects of what is happening in my life.
You need a little practice to be able to have this state of mind. What I do is what I call past successful experience meditation. I remember the things which once had been my dreams in the past but became a reality.
For example, how many of us are living in neighborhoods we once dreamed of living in? How many of us dreamt of having a life partner and now have one? How many of us are in a field of work we always wanted to work in? How many of us are now in shape after working out for some time? How many of us desired to drive a car when we were a teenager and now drive one?
I appreciate these things every day and feel happy about them.
There are also things that I haven’t achieved; a lot of things-haha, but I don’t pay attention to them. I focus on the things I have accomplished. Your brain has limited space, and if it is occupied with these thoughts, there is no space left for negative thoughts.
By doing this kind of meditation every day, you condition yourself to look at the bright side of things surrounding your life.
It is too bad the city is locked down, and we are stuck at home, but that means we can enjoy our time as a family or gives us an opportunity to clean up our house, which we didn’t have time to do before.
It is too bad that we can’t socialize and communicate with others. In that case, we might as well use this period to communicate with ourselves. It is a perfect time to meditate or look at our life and make plans for the future.
In Chapter 12: The Key to Manifestation Is Successfully Dealing With Your Past Experiences
of my book Zen and a Way of Sustainable Prosperity, I talk about it more in detail.