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I Changed My Mentality And Haven't Gotten Sick In A Year

Or were there other factors at play?

By Kevin ShanPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
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I Changed My Mentality And Haven't Gotten Sick In A Year
Photo by Emma Simpson on Unsplash

There's a concept I learned from Britain's leading therapist, Marisa Peer, that is slowly changing my life.

You are what you believe you are. What you can and can't do is merely the reflection of what you're thinking inside.

If I believe I will never get sick, my immune system will become stronger and prevent me from getting sick. If I believe I can make money, I will make money.

When I first brought these ideas to my family after watching Marisa Peer's Rapid Hypnotherapy Quest on Mindvalley, my dad asked me, "What kind of bullshit have you been watching?"

"The good bullshit. The stuff that makes my life better," I responded.

He scoffed, turned to my mom, and began conversing with her on an entirely different subject.

It didn't hurt to try, though. There were some crazy testimonials of how people went from being broke to earning four times what they were earning before when they changed their mindset. Other people found that they had started losing weight without changing any diet or exercise patterns.

The only people telling me that Marisa Peer's hypnotherapy didn't work were people who never experienced it. These people were also broke, miserable people whose lives I didn't want to live.

So I began following the program along, hoping for massive life changes.

I Haven't Got Sick In A Long Time

One element of my life that I wanted to tackle was my health. I was known for getting sick. A common description for my brother and me is that my brother is the one who doesn't get sick, and I'm the guy who's frequently coughing.

Now, our roles may have reversed.

When I talk about getting sick, I'm referring to any infection or virus that makes me cough, clogs my nose with mucus, and gives me a sore throat. I'm usually referring to the flu and the common cold.

Typically, I get sick about once or twice a year between October and January. Every time I get sick, I take a least a week to recover. The last time I got sick, it was awful.

Around the beginning of October 2019, I was bedridden for about a month, coughing my lungs out. I felt weak and was unable to do anything. The usual pills and hot water strategy wasn't working.

Two weeks later, I had my dad take me to the doctor. I went outside for the first time in a month, and the sharp pang of cold air surprised me. I had forgotten how chilly Calgary Autumns were, but it was refreshing.

A 10-minute drive later, I entered a small clinic where the receptionist told me to sit down and wait a few minutes. There was a TV up on the wall playing the Food Network channel. I sat for a few minutes watching a guy eating the juiciest burger I have seen. Gosh, I haven't had a burger in the longest time.

After about five-or-so minutes, a doctor called my name. I had met the doctor before when he diagnosed my flat feet. He wore glasses, was about five feet ten in height, and spoke in a friendly, uplifting tone with a thick African accent. I followed him into his office and subsequently went through the standard checkup procedure. You know, the usual how are yous, what's happening, what did I do, etc.

Eventually, the doctor concluded that I had a sinus infection. He prescribed an inhaler, a pack of mini-pills I was supposed to take after lunch, and a salt rinse for my nose. I have never had a prescription so complicated!

I followed the prescription as my doctor gave it to me. I used the inhaler twice a day, gulped down eight mini-pills after lunch, and watched saltwater go into one side of my nose and come out the other three times a day.

A week later and I was still coughing, but at least I wasn't bedridden. I was supposed to go to my doctor again if my symptoms didn't go away after five days, but it was too much of a hassle.

I was finally able to do work now, so it's whatever. After another week, it seemed as if my sickness magically disappeared when I stopped thinking about it.

A couple of months later, I reviewed Marisa Peer's masterclass on MindValley and began implementing her self-talk strategies. Every day, I told myself, "I can't get sick. My body is strong. My immune system will handle anything that comes at me."

Since then, I haven't gotten sick. On the other hand, the rest of my family were still getting colds like normal.

Did COVID-19 Help Me?

Faith and belief are cool and all, but something just didn't sit right with me. I would consider myself a logical person. If I see someone do something spectacular, I want to know the science of what allows them to accomplish amazing things.

For example, if there is some pro athlete that dominates the 100m sprint every time. I want to see what muscular and metabolic differences the athlete has compared to ordinary people. Or at least, I want to know how many hours the athlete put into sprinting.

I don't want to hear the athlete say, "Oh, I just believed in myself," or "I told myself I can, so I did it."

Around September 2020, I told myself that I need to study all this stuff about the Law of Attraction, self-esteem, and faith. But first, I needed to see if it works.

I knew that I got sick around October nearly every year. If Marisa Peer's hypnotherapy works, I shouldn't get sick. I'll wait until after December and see what happens.

Here we are in January, and I haven't gotten sick. As I'm writing this article, however, I realize that I don't have any hard concrete evidence proving that believing I won't get sick directly correlates to me not getting sick.

As I thought about it some more, I realized that there were multiple external factors at play. Some of these factors came into play directly because of COVID-19.

The first factor is my overall contact with other people decreased significantly. School went online, so no more physical contact with sick classmates. My workplace had to adjust to COVID-19 restrictions, which meant fewer co-workers and students I had to interact with.

Additionally, fear of catching the coronavirus led people to emphasize proper sanitation and hygiene protocols. People spent much more time trying to protect themselves by adequately washing their hands more often and wearing face masks.

Many people also stopped going outside by law and recommendation when they had any symptoms resulting from COVID-19.

Despite COVID-19 being a highly contagious disease, people's panic over the virus lowered my chances of getting sick.

I've Been Sleeping And Overall Feeling Better

When I told myself, "I can't get sick," there was another changing variable in my life. In another article titled, "Don't Go To College If You Want To Be An Entrepreneur," I talk about some of the reasons why universities and colleges are unproductive choices for people looking to create their own businesses.

I'm not a fan of our education system. There are better things I could be doing than going to university. I stopped focusing on getting good marks, which has drastically improved my stress and anxiety levels.

Since I don't do all my homework, I'm also getting better sleep. And sleep, as Matthew Walker puts it, is the elixir of life.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent a little bit of time every day watching Matthew Walker's Masterclass on sleep. There were so many cool things I learned about sleep and how it powers our lives.

The most relevant information from the Masterclass in this article is how our sleep affects our immune systems. Matthew Walker brought up a study where a group of individuals had their daily night's amount of sleep tracked for a week. These individuals were then quarantined and had an active rhinovirus (the common cold) shot up their nose.

The people who had five or six hours of sleep per night were over 50% more likely to contract the common cold than the people who had eight hours of sleep when the researchers injected the rhinovirus in their nose.

Recently, my sleep has been considerably better than when I had to physically go to school. I used to sleep late all the time, often doing my homework past midnight. Then I had to wake up the next morning at around six to seven to rush to school.

From middle school into high school, I was basically surviving on six hours of sleep. There were also those unfortunate days where I pulled all-nighter's to get things done.

I didn't realize how much harm that was causing me until after watching Matthew Walker's Masterclass. Nowadays, I'm more focused on getting a good night's sleep. I'm usually sleeping at 11 PM and waking up around 8 AM these days, which is considerably better for me.

My sleep change could be the biggest reason why I haven't gotten sick in a long time.

Other Factors Vs. The Change In My Mentality

Did telling myself I can't get sick and believing in that actually stop me from getting sick? Or were there other factors making my body stronger?

All the scientific proof seems to point to the other factors that have made me a lot healthier. But this is when things get touchy.

Was it because I believed in my body and not getting sick that led to everything else happening? Did my brain subconsciously start wiring myself to optimize my sleep and lower stress levels so I don't get sick? Did the coronavirus appear to make humans care more about health and hygiene?

There is no definite answer. All this Law of Attraction and belief stuff is difficult to prove right or wrong. It's like a religion. If someone says believing in themselves is not working, then it means they're not doing it correctly. And if things do change, well, it works.

All I know is that when I started believing in my body and its ability to fight diseases, I stopped getting sick. Whether there were other factors at play or not, this change in my mindset has improved my life. So I'm not going to stop.

humanity
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About the Creator

Kevin Shan

Project Manager for Concierge Auctions selling multi-million dollar real estate at auction globally blogging on the side for fun.

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