Love-Boost Your Immune System

I am in London for Fashion Week, and all I see is style. I've been reminded how style has been trying to shock us - for centuries so I read - trying to make us take a look at ordinary things differently. I still remember Hussein Chalayan's table skirt in 2000!

I love style, especially when it has substance, because it shows passion, and opens our lenses to see things in a new light. Love is a lot like that, too.

Can you guess that love is a subject I'm passionate about :) It's also closely linked to health and wellbeing, another subject that is near to my heart. Embracing love positively can help combat stress and induce healing. It can also boost our immunity to diseases, or give us a fighting chance when we are really ill. How many stories have we read where loved ones have pulled people back from the brink?

Recently, I've been reading about how the strength of our immune system varies throughout the day, with recent studies showing that the time of day we get infected has an impact on whether or not that infection takes hold in our bodies.

James Gallagher, health and science reporter for BBC News, says that our immune system is 'altered' by our body clock, a daily 24-hour routine known as a circadian rhythm, which is something all living things, even bacteria, are subject to. For example we get jet lag when our body goes out of sync with its internal clock.

The immune system needs to first detect an infection before it starts to fight it, and it seems that there are different times in the day it is best able to do this, and so if we knew the times, the logic is that taking medication at these 'peak times' would aid quicker recovery.

It got me to thinking, wouldn't it be great if there was a love pill to give our systems an added boost, to remind us of our blessings and kick-start our fight back to health?

Well, there is a sort of 'pill' in a way. When we physically connect with our loved ones through touching and kissing, it passes the love we feel to the one we love. Even holding the hand of a loved one who is unwell is a conduit that can channel the healing energy of love. Now that's true faith healing.

So, next time someone you love is unwell and reaches out to hold your hand, don't pull away. Look at it this way: It could be the necessary sugar to help the medicine go down.

Well I'm off to enjoy the rest of Fashion Week, until my next post, in sickness and in health, may love always sleep on your pillow and hold you in the hollow of its hand,

Yours in love,