7 Ways To Use Love To Optimize Your Health

Love is an energy that vibrates higher than any other energy in the Universe. Love is the very energy that you are made up of, which suggests that love is profoundly biological as well. Love permeates every area of life and has the power to heal and conversely, in the absence of love, we become sick and may even die. 

The energy of love can be used in many ways because love is found everywhere. You need not be in an intimate relationship with another to vibrate on a high-frequency filled with love. You can experience the energy of love in a multitude of ways but for this moment, let’s narrow it down for you. Here are 7 ways you can use love to optimize your health.

7 Ways You Can Use Love to Optimize Your Health

1. Practice compassion for yourself and all living things. The Latin root word for compassion is 'pati' which means "to suffer" and the prefix 'com' means "with." If you want to feel peace and understand the energy that drives love, start sensing what it's like to be beneath someone else's skin who is suffering and know that you can never have real peace unless they have real peace. This can be a hard concept to grasp but once you do, it has the potential to bring powerful healing at an individual level and in the collective. As such, the same rings true for self-compassion and is vital to your health. When you practice self-compassion you take an active role in self-kindness, non-judgment, and unconditional benevolence. Statistics show that those who practice self-compassion experience reduced feelings of depression, anxiety, and increased psychological well-being, mental health, and connection with others. 
2. Trust what you can't see and know that everything will be okay. There is powerful wisdom in uncertainty and when you trust that all will be okay you are releasing the need to have all of the answers and allowing the Universe to open you up to greater things in life. Another key factor is that in the absence of trust you will have no choice but to let in fear and allow that fear to control your life which in turn has the potential to make you physically and mentally ill. So, stop worrying! Just stop! 
3. Forgive someone or a situation so that there are no thoughts to block the flow of love. One of the elements that block the flow of love is feelings of non-forgiveness toward an individual being, a country, a race, an event or situation, and so on. The list of things that you may be harboring non-forgiveness toward has the potential to be endless but it doesn't have to be. Forgiveness is not condoning a behavior or event. Forgiveness is letting go of past behavior or events and exclaiming that it has no power over you! This is freedom, and when you have that freedom you can truly be happy which in turn will benefit your physical, emotional, and mental health.
4. Smile as much as you can. When you smile it helps you take a shift in mood. It also release cortisol and endorphins that provide a multitude of health benefits like reduced pain, lower blood pressure, and increased endurance. When you smile it is also infectious so you are helping others benefit as well! 
5. Hug a loved one. Human touch is vital to your physical, emotional, and mental health. Research suggests that hugging can boost your immune system, lower your stress level, and lower your heart rate and blood pressure. And who doesn't enjoy a good thirty-second hug?
6. Support others. I speak and write a lot about support. Support of self and others is an element of love that acts as the glue between the conflicts within yourself, and between others. When you assist and hold up a loved one, a co-worker, and yourself you are inviting the energy of love to envelop you. You are not here to condemn and put down yourself, or another. Conversely, when you love and support yourself, and one another regardless of what you judge the world is shelling out, you are instructing the Universe to send that love and support back to you. This will align you with the Universe and you can experience the benefits of health in your body, mind, and spirit.
7.  Recover. The body, mind, and spirit need appropriate time to recover. This is a big one that is often overlooked. You know the benefits to the recovery of the body after a strenuous week of workouts, and recovery of an overcrowded and over-worked mind, but what I would suggest is that you pay equally close attention to spirit. Spend that time with yourself in acute awareness. Listen. Is spirit in need of an internal hug, a smile, forgiveness, compassion, support, trust, and rest in stillness? Recognize the power you have to be still and know, and then do exactly that. It is in that very stillness that you reap the benefits and recover in body, mind, and spirit at any particular moment, season, or lifetime because the energy that derives from that stillness is love. No matter what, love yourself and shine it on others. It is why we are here.