The Beach Heals

“The sea cures all ailments of man.” Plato

…quite possibly even autoimmunity.

Reno and I spent our honeymoon in Kauai, HI and celebrated Reno’s 50th in the Bahamas. The palpable and positive transformation in my body, while immersed in the sun, sand and sea of these beautiful islands, made me analyze the variables beyond these most obvious three influencers. 

Curious as to my thoughts on why the beach environment helps heal the body? Keep Reading.

A Little Backstory:

Many years ago now, while on our honeymoon in Hawaii, and whilst figuring all this autoimmunity stuff out, the ability to push a few of my food intolerances like coffee, nightshades and alcohol was definitely present.  My body just felt good – pain free and less stiff to name a few.  We had just gotten married and the thought did cross my mind the hormones flooding my body were quite possibly druglike.  Whatever the cause, I soaked it up and ran with it. 

For Reno’s midcentury celebration on Cape Santa Maria in the Bahamas, only a day in to our trip, I noticed the exact same thing.   

What really made me put pen to paper, and not just think ‘this is so interesting’, is the husband of a couple we befriended while there suffered from vitiligo – a visible autoimmune condition that attacks the melanin of the skin causing discoloration. 

His autoimmunity is very objective, meaning it is visible and measurable.  My autoimmunity is subjective, meaning it is my own opinion (aside from measuring antibodies in my bloodwork) of how my body is reacting to certain things, visible or not. 

He told me of his childhood visiting his grandparents at the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  During these trips every summer, the vitiligo would clear up significantly.  Although still visible, he said it was clearing up on this trip to the Bahamas.

Our conversations validated my own subjective experience that being at the beach does, in fact, change the physiology of the body.  But why the potential for such potent healing?

My Theories:

1)    Sun/Vitamin D

At 70 degrees or higher your body synthesizes vitamin D from the sun. Vitamin D acts like a hormone in the body and is responsible for myriad functions including quelling inflammation. People who have autoimmunity are usually very low in this and it is theorized why AI is more prevalent in northern states where they don’t get as much sun. Is it a cause, or outcome, of autoimmunity? In my particular case, a diagnosis didn’t come until after suffering for 10 years. My vitamin D wasn’t low until 3 years into my diagnosis. Completely anecdotal but lends towards the latter theory. My thought at this point is that if there is significant inflammation in the body, the vitamin D is being used up at higher quantities. The more you are quelling inflammation the longer it takes for the vitamin D to deplete.

2)    Ocean/Magnesium

Ocean water and human blood plasma share nearly the same mineral composition: sodium, magnesium, potassium, calcium. Our bodies receive electrolytes through the skin and our system recognizes the similarities so much so that the ocean feels like medicine. The ocean is like one big Epsom salt bath (and then some). Healing in so many ways, the salt in the ocean acts like a calming agent and a detoxifier in the body. Magnesium alone is a mineral in which 80% of Americans are depleted, regardless of autoimmunity.  Those with cardiovascular disease also show extremely low levels. Soaking for hours every day, well...

Additionally, ocean waves follow a rhythmic pattern of 12 cycles per minute - which is the same breathing pattern as a relaxed human. This allows for the body to almost immediately go into a meditative or parasympathetic state of rest, digest, release and repair. That is if you aren’t listening to your ear buds or zoning out on your phone or other electronic device.

3)    Air Quality

Generally speaking, so much less pollution as there are very few cars, open air on most sides of you instead of buildings, no corporations and just the salty breeze. Much like the gut and other immune barriers, our lungs also have a mucosal lining that protects our body from outside material that shouldn’t be in our blood. When this barrier is calmed, or not inflamed with material it’s trying to clean up that you’re breathing in, the body as a whole also becomes less inflamed.

In addition to simply less proximity to pollution, ocean air has been found to contain high levels of negative ions which have been linked to several health benefits.

Ions are atoms or molecules that have an extra electron and are thought to interact with the body in various ways for overall health - they are highly concentrated in nature and especially around moving bodies of water like the ocean.

Benefits of Negative Ions Include:

• Improved Mood: Negative ions are thought to increase serotonin, a neurotransmitter associated with feelings of happiness and well being.

• Reduced Stress: Negative ions help to lower the stress hormone cortisol. This reduction lowers levels of anxiety and induces feelings of relaxation.

• Improved Breathing: Negative ions help clear the air of pollutants, including dust and allergens, which can make it easier to breathe for people with asthma or other respiratory conditions. Coupling that with what I wrote above about the mucosal barrier in the lungs makes this one a compounded benefit.

• Increased Energy: Negative ions increase the flow of oxygen to the brain which can lead to increased mental alertness and greater physical energy.

• Better Sleep: Negative ions are believed to help regulate the body’s circadian rhythm which can lead to improved sleep quality.

Enlightenment is when a wave realizes it is the ocean.

Thich Nhat Hanh

4)    Sand

Much like the ocean and magnesium, the sand is full of minerals that are absorbed transdermally as you walk barefoot or dig your feet into a groove sitting on the beach.

A quick Wikipedia read explained that the sand where we were in the Bahamas is Oolitic Aragonite sand which is a phosphate free, calcium carbonite that stabilizes the body’s PH.

The source also stated that this type of sand is found in “high energy” environments. This statement could be a post all on its own, however, the gist, according to the various types of esoteric healing I’ve studied, is that the body can heal only when your field of energy has been addressed. When surrounded by high energy environments like undisturbed nature, your personal energy level rises enabling greater ability to heal.

For those of you who think this is a bit Wu, the earth’s resonance (frequency) is 7.83 Hz. This is called Schumann’s Resonance, also known as the earth’s heartbeat. It is the frequency of healing. It is why being in nature is so incredible for our bodies and minds. It is also why wifi and frequencies from our devices can be extremely detrimental as I speak about in #7.

5)    The View

Healing happens when in, or simply viewing, natural environments.  This research has become so adopted into present day approaches to health that many hospitals now include nature scenes on their walls, open spaces for both patients and employees and even include into their architecture more flowing curves emulating hills, water or natural spaces as opposed to sharp corners, hard lines rarely found in our natural environment.

Don’t get me wrong, there is very much sequence and pattern in nature like the rhythm of the ocean mentioned above. Research shows that looking at the ocean (not simply listening to the rhythmic pattern) changes the brain wave frequency moving the body into a meditative state. Listening and looking… A double wammy of goodness.

If you haven’t heard of the Fibernacci Sequence, just to prove how patterned and precious our world is, go search examples of how this represents in our environment. If nothing else, the awe that is inspired by this will elevate dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins - all hormones released when the body is in the parasympathetic. These are also known as the healing hormones.

6)    Sleep/Nap

Every day I took a nap on the beach and at night slept 8-9 hours in complete darkness. Each hour of sleep before midnight is like 2 hours of sleep after midnight in terms of what your body is healing and detoxing. Early to bed, early to rise - truer words were never spoken. We were in bed by 9:30 most nights and woke to the sun rising. In other words, we were in rhythm with the earth which helps set your own circadian rhythm balancing hormones and setting in place a balance in the body. More than anything, when it comes to health, sleep is THE number 1 thing that needs to be in check.

7)    No wifi/Blue light or screens of any kind

There was only wifi in one building where we stayed.  So, once every other day we would take our phones there and check in to see if anything needed attention. In our present way of life this seems unrealistic, but if you are trying to heal the body, boundaries must be set around use of these things and more specifically times of day. Circadian rhythm, mentioned above, has been in our DNA evolution for millions of years. Our pineal gland (responsible in part for melatonin production-the major hormone the body needs for sleep and brain detoxifying) responds to light taken in through our eyes.   Light tells our pineal gland it’s daytime and inhibits melatonin production which then inhibits healthy sleep patterns.

Our brain’s frequencies change depending on if we are sleeping, alert, meditative, etc. If we are constantly surrounded by frequencies higher than the Schumann’s Resonance mentioned earlier, this is in direct competition to the healing state our bodies need and have evolved with over millions of years-especially while we sleep when our bodies and brains are doing the most healing and detoxing. Compare 100 giga (billion) hertz to 7.83 hertz. It’s substantial and we didn’t evolve with it. Like most of our ‘food’ and chemicals, we didn’t evolve with this so our bodies are struggling to figure out how to live with it.

8)    Routine

Highly beneficial for your neuroendocrine (brain/nerves/hormones) system, we did the same thing every day! The body loves balance and the same schedule maintained daily stabilizes the circadian rhythm and soothsays overall.  If you think of routine as a pattern, and then think of this in its opposite, as sporadic or chaotic, you can see how maintaining the same schedule every day decreases stress allowing more opportunity for healing. 

Chaos is nerve-racking. Routine is calming.

9)    Quality time

Something else our systems have evolved to need is a sense of community.  Spending time with people you love releases oxytocin (a feel-good hormone) and allows for the body to feel safe. This in turn begins to heal the adrenal glands, putting the body into rest and digest with a cascade affect ensuing.  If the body is in constant survival mode, also known as fight or flight, then it is not worried about healing.  ONLY when the body is in rest and digest, can it begin to heal.  Being around those you love feeds your soul in a way that chemically nourishes the body.

Interestingly, social connection is the number 1 predictor of longevity.

10)    Coconut Milk

And this one is a little iffy as recent research has shown a connection between coconut milk and LPS, or lipopolysaccharides (things that can hinder healing).

In general, though, both coconut milk and coconut meat are full of good, healthy fat for the body. To contextualize, most of your vitamins, A, D, E and K, are fat soluble, meaning you need to be eating good fat in order for those vitamins to even be absorbed by the body. 

Your cell walls are made of fat. If they aren’t being given the proper building blocks, they aren’t absorbing nutrients or letting the bad things out. Your brain is also made predominantly of fat. Give your body the good stuff so that it can function.

11)     Music/Sounds

The pineal gland, mentioned above with regard to sleep and circadian rhythm, is stimulated by cadence and very specific rhythms. For this and other reasons, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), also known as tapping, has become a way to heal and calm the body.  In my personal opinion, I felt I had some form of cadence influencing my system with the island music played in both Hawaii and the Bahamas-as well as the ocean already discussed. 

The lapping waves of the ocean, the birds chirping, the breeze rustling the trees and bushes…, these sounds qualify as “brain tingles”, an experience also known as ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) which calms the brain and heart even if just listening to them through headphones and not in actuality. 

Binaural beats, which you can find by doing a quick internet search, also restore the nervous system and can be used to lull the body to sleep.  This is human produced but still a profound way sound influences our system and worth mentioning if you too are looking for calm.

The natural sounds of the environment, as well as the music within these island communities, together produce a cool and tranquil soundtrack.

Other Theories:

When I posted a version of this on Facebook upon our return from the Bahamas, I asked if others with autoimmunity had experienced the same healing properties.  I also asked if anyone had other theories as to why this was happening.  This is what they offered:

1)     Altitude

While on an island or at the beach, you are at sea level.  If you don’t live at the beach, this means that you are most likely living at a higher altitude.  At higher altitudes your body makes more red blood cells to deliver oxygen to help you breathe.  Maybe you have heard of athletes training at higher altitudes for this reason.  When the athletes come back down to lower altitudes, they perform better because they have a surplus of red blood cells.  We live at approximately 965 feet elevation, so quite possibly my body was reacting to this immediate 1000-foot decrease in elevation. 

2)     Stress of everyday life is less

Stress definitely plays a tremendous role in inflammation.  The physiological response to stress impacts your stress hormones, which impacts sex hormones, blood sugar, minerals that affect digestion and stomach acid. Stress drastically decreases your immune response, and the chemicals released while under stress exacerbate any symptom.  As mentioned earlier, stress puts the body into fight or flight, or survival mode, the sympathetic branch of the nervous system.  When the body is in this state, it isn’t concerned with things like procreation, digestion, sleep/rest or healing.  It is trying to survive.  In our present culture, traffic can constitute enough stress to throw the body out of rest and digest.  When these elements are removed, yes, the body has less to deal with and can more readily migrate to a state of rest and digest or the parasympathetic nervous system.

3)     “My blood sugar is better at the beach”

This was an anecdotal comment from someone who checks their blood sugar every morning upon waking. It validates the above that every day stress is usually less. 

My interpretation of why this is:  When we are under stress, or in fight or flight, our bodies produce an influx of cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone.  Cortisol is a glucocorticoid-meaning it is sugar steroid, influenced by and influencing blood sugar.  When we are under stress, therefore in survival mode (even if we don’t think we are), the body increases cortisol, which increases blood sugar so that our brain and body are hyper alert and ready to fight or run for our lives.  When we are less stressed, we produce less cortisol, which means our blood sugar would be more stable, or lower. 

We are nature and when we return to it our body begins to balance. xoxox Lauren

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