The tandem health philosophy of Jon Kabat-Zinn is that we have to be in our bodies to maintain health and to heal ourselves.
The first thing you need to know is that your body is not a box you can check into and leave; it’s a complex ecosystem that includes cells, organs, muscles, skin and fat. A small amount of damage, a minor infection, or a broken bone can have serious repercussions on your health.
But what if an infection is more serious than you thought? What if you are in your body and then suddenly get a fever? Or have a headache? Or are dizzy and nauseous? You know that the most serious consequences are going to occur if you don’t have your blood circulating to fight off the infection.
A tandem health is a healthy person that has their body’s cells and organs all in good working order. A tandem health will have their blood circulating to fight off infection, and their brain functioning to help them think and respond to threats.
What if you suddenly get a fever and you feel like you are going to pass out? Or you have a headache and feel like your head is going to explode? It happens. When your body and its resources are out of sync, the result is that you are in a state of high fever, headache, and/or dizziness.
There was an interesting article in Scientific American a few years back that talked about the body’s self-healing ability and how the body’s systems could be set off in a coordinated way to quickly restore itself. One of the systems mentioned is the body’s immune system. The idea being that when you have a fever, your body’s immune system can immediately react with the fever and help it to break down, thus restoring you to full health.
It looks like the bodys immune system is the only one that’s doing something and it’s working well. It’s also the only one I think that’s being used in tandem with the respiratory system and this may tie in with the fact that we’ve all been sick recently.
I know that this sounds like science fiction stuff, but it seems like something that could be pretty cool. I mean if you get infected with a deadly virus or bacterium that has the ability to wipe out a whole population that would be pretty useful.
The respiratory system is actually doing something. We don’t know if it’s a virus or a bacterium, but we’ve been feeling a little sick to the point of having trouble breathing lately. But other than that, the rest of the immune system is doing its thing, albeit in a bit of a different way. We’re all aware of the fact that the rest of the immune system is doing its thing, but the respiratory system is doing something else.
The respiratory system is doing its thing as the body is fighting off illness. Normally, the respiratory system would be a big part of it. But the respiratory system is doing something else. The respiratory system is doing its thing and that causes the rest of the immune system to do its thing. It doesn’t matter if you think you have a cold or not. What matters is that when you start to feel a bit better, the respiratory system suddenly begins to do its thing.
