How to Work With Your Body to Heal Faster and Stay Healthy

Health Is Not Something That Happens at a Checkup

Most people grow up believing health is something that happens at a checkup. You show up, get a few numbers, maybe a prescription, and wait until the next appointment. That model assumes your body is too complicated to understand without a middleman. In truth, your body is something you live in every day. It is more like a home, an ecosystem, or a business you manage. You decide what gets maintained, repaired, and improved, and those decisions determine how well it runs over time.

The most effective care is not a top-down hierarchy. It is a partnership. That is why I call the

people I work with clients instead of patients – it engages them in their own healing process and decision making and shows respect. My role is to help you understand your body’s language so you can respond in real time to what it needs.

The Patterns That Shape Your Healing Capacity

Whether you are an athlete, a busy parent, a business owner, or someone working through

chronic symptoms, your nervous system and biochemistry respond to life the same way they

respond to injury - through patterns. If the pattern is constant “go,” the repair crews never get the green light. Over time that neglect adds up, like a major city lacking repairs. Nervous system adaptability, the ability to switch between activation and recovery, is the foundation for resilience.

The Overlooked Injuries That Keep You Stuck

When we think of injury, we tend to picture the visible ones: a torn ligament, a twisted ankle, a strained back. But your body experiences injury in three ways:

• Physical injuries that damage muscles, joints, and tissues you can see or feel

• Chemical injuries that harm organs and cells through toxins, infections, poor diet, or nutrient depletion

• Mental injuries from sustained stress, loss, or identity disruption that alter nervous

  system patterns

A health crisis often blends all three. A physical injury can trigger inflammation and chemical

stress, which can lead to an emotional blow - the identity crisis of not being able to perform,

move, or live the way you are used to and losing what you know to be you. That mental injury

then drives more inflammation through stress chemistry, locking the body in a cycle where repair is delayed and resilience erodes. Research has even shown that during gut inflammation/injury, the insula region of the brain is more active, leading to existential “who am I?” type thoughts with activation of our gut feelings, which can create forms of stress. However, this is also where that gift in the crisis comes in – we find ourselves more deeply and evolve through hardship and recovery.

Hidden Injuries and Allostatic Load

These injuries often leave hidden damage. A joint tear may also lead to gut lining injury from the inflammation itself, exacerbated by common practices like pain medications. A respiratory infection can inflame the liver’s detox pathways. Prolonged high stress can damage nutrient absorption. These unfinished healing cycles add to your allostatic load (the total stress your body is managing at once).

When that load becomes too heavy, recovery slows, inflammation lingers, and even small

stressors cause big setbacks. Balancing that load is daily work. If you just had a week of intense emotional stress, choose restorative movement instead of a hard workout. If you have been traveling, skip the alcohol and give your body clean, nutrient-dense meals. If you have been fighting an infection, don’t also ask your system to handle heavy environmental toxin exposure or limited sleep. Every decision that lightens the load gives your system more capacity to repair.

The Wake-Up Call Hidden in a Setback

Every crisis is also a checkpoint. It forces you to see what is working, what is not, and what you have been ignoring. It exposes the relationships that truly support you and the habits that quietly drain you. It gives you a chance to meet parts of yourself you only find when the usual distractions are stripped away.

If you see it this way, healing is not just repair, it is redesign. You are building a more adaptable system than you had before, one that does not return to the exact patterns that created the breakdown.

Healing Begins With the Signals You Send

Your subconscious mind directs most of your physiology. It decides if resources are sent to

rebuild or to guard the perimeter. If the message is “I am broken, this will take forever,”

lingering at the back of your mind all the time, your chemistry stays in defense mode. Nutrients are hoarded instead of used, oxygen delivery slows, and tissues stay tense.

When you change the signal to “My body is capable of rapid, intelligent repair” and feel the truth of it, your internal environment changes. Nutrients are delivered, oxygen flows, and repair pathways turn on. This is not wishful thinking. It is basic neurochemistry.

Meditation amplifies this process. It is one of the most direct ways to send your body a repair

signal. In meditation, you quiet the noise of stress chemistry and create the space for

neurological reprogramming. Studies have shown meditation can lower cortisol, shift brain wave patterns, improve immune function, and even change the microbiome. It is the daily act of clearing mental debris so your physiology can focus on repair.

Breathwork works alongside it. Long, slow exhales pull you into repair mode. Faster patterns

prime you for performance. Sustained techniques like holotropic breathing can help release

stored tension and trauma. These are not abstract practices. They are tools that change chemistry in real time.

Remove the Inhibitors, Feed the Builders

You cannot repair well if the system is clogged. Processed sugars, trans fats, excessive caffeine, alcohol, and environmental toxins all slow repairs and drain resources.

You also need to send in quality building materials:

• Leafy greens for vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that protect and repair cells

• Clean proteins for amino acids that rebuild tissue and immune cells

• Omega-3 fats to resolve inflammation at the cell membrane

• Color-rich fruits to buffer oxidative stress and protect DNA

• Bone broth for collagen, gelatin, and gut-healing amino acids

Recovery Tools Used with Precision

Recovery tools work best when they are used with precision. Cold immersion can calm

inflammation on rest days but is not ideal immediately after a strength session. Meditation and breathwork can be stacked for a deeper nervous system reset. Heat therapy, infrared saunas, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy are infrastructure upgrades that improve circulation, accelerate tissue repair, and build long-term resilience, but intensity and frequency is different depending on the state of your body.

Applying the Approach

When I work with someone after an injury or health setback, we address all three layers:

Mental: Reset the repair signal and keep the nervous system adaptable

Biochemical: Remove irritants, replenish nutrients, and support oxygen delivery

Physical: Retrain movement, restore tissue integrity, and keep pain in a repair-supportive

range

The same structure applies whether you are recovering from surgery, rebuilding after burnout, or resolving chronic digestive issues. The sequence matters, and each layer strengthens the others.

Partnering With Your Own Physiology

This is how you step out of a system that waits for collapse before acting. By understanding your allostatic load and listening to your body’s signals, you can anticipate needs instead of waiting for crisis. You stop being a passive recipient of care and start being an active partner in your health that eventually can manage it on your own.

Health is not the absence of problems. It is the capacity to recover. When you give each repair cycle the time and resources it needs before adding the next stressor, you create surplus energy and resilience. Over time your body, your home, your ecosystem, becomes stronger, more adaptable, and better prepared for whatever comes next.

That is the partnership I want for every client. To know the systems you live in, to keep them

thriving through wise management, and to trust that you have the skills to keep them running for life. Your body is designed to heal if you listen to it.

Dr. Christine Smith, DC

CEO Depth Wellness LLC

RCCF 6945 Indiana Ct. #100

Arvada, CO 80007

720-295-3147  

info@depthwellness.com  

www.DepthWellness.com