Natural Ways to Boost your Immune System Fast
When balancing your life’s responsibilities begins to resemble a circus act, it’s easy to feel superhuman. Work, school, family obligations, packing lunches, throwing dinner parties, getting enough sleep, getting enough exercise, drinking enough water! The list can go on and on until one day your body screams “NO MORE”, and suddenly you’re on forced hiatus from being under the weather due to a cold, the flu, or worse. While the important thing to take away from acute illnesses is to have a well-balanced lifestyle, sometimes you’re stretched too thin and there’s not a lot you can do to remedy that fact. But what if there was? Sometimes you can’t control the competing demands of life, but we’re here to tell you that there is a way to get an advantage over your stressed and weakened immune system through daily and weekly practices. We believe the best defence in life is a good offence and there’s more you can do to give yourself a leg up in the race. Read on to see how you can boost your immune system naturally.
The Basics
Without beating the proverbial, germ invested dead horse, let’s start by talking the fundamentals of a good immune system. Your immune system is your bodies ability to fight off diseases, viruses and other unknown antigens through recognising and ultimately destroying anything it views as foreign or dangerous. Building immunity results from your body fighting off and ultimately building antibodies against these invaders. With that in mind, how do we keep our immune system in tip-top shape? Simply give it what it wants to stay healthy, active and alert.
Drink lots of water
Get your 7-8 hours of sleep (and that’s nightly folks)
Avoid smoking and drinking alcohol
Wash your hands and practise good general hygiene
Exercise regularly and maintain a healthy weight
Load your body up with a diet high in fruits and veggies.
Doing these things will leave your body in a position to prepare itself for more serious threats rather than focusing on minor threats while a serious infection makes its way through your body.
Easy peasy right? Want to do more than the basics? There are many foods that have proven to have immune-boosting benefits through essential vitamins and nutrients that keep your immune system healthy and ready for a fight when needed. Alternatively, some food should be avoided if you want to keep your body strong and on alert
The Good, The Bad and the Healthy
Looking to stock up on those immune-boosting essentials? We’ve got a checklist on the must-have food for your kitchen, pantry and immune-boosting wellness packs:
Lemon
Raw Honey
Ginger
Turmeric
(Pro Tip: add these ingredients to boiling water to make a natural immune-boosting tea that will send viruses packing!)
Garlic (shown to have huge immune-boosting benefits as well as antibacterial properties)
Protein-rich foods (nuts, seeds, oily fish and other leans meats equip the body with infection-fighting and protective proteins necessary to battle foreign attacks)
Citrus Fruits (Grapefruit and oranges, for example, are high in Vitamin C which is essential in the production and maintenance of antibodies)
Berries of all variety (in addition to having great nutritional content like vitamin C, they also are packed with antioxidants which helps stimulate immune function)
Other fruits to add to your produce line-up (rockmelon, kiwi, mango, papaya and pineapple - OH MY!)
Don’t forget to add veggies high in Vitamin C and antioxidants (broccoli, spinach, sweet potato, red peppers.
Other foods high in antioxidants (dark chocolate anyone?)
You can’t go wrong with herbal teas in your cupboard (opt to always have a box of green and chamomile teas for an extra boost)
Food’s to avoid or reduce when your immunity is a priority (when isn’t it?)
Processed foods (Macca’s, I’m looking at you)
Soft drinks
Foods high in sugar
Refined carbohydrates
Alcohol
The vitamins that make the difference
Ultimately, you want to prepare your body for battle when cold and flu season comes around, but a better plan of action is to always keep preventative health care measures in your mind all year round. You can do this by understanding what vitamins help your body fight infection, produce antibodies and give you the best armour to recover fast if you should fall ill. Do your best to incorporate vitamins rich foods into your diet where possible, and if not possible, you should introduce a multivitamin into your daily routine if you’re not getting enough. Some immune-boosting vitamin and nutrients to be aware of are: vitamin C, vitamin B6, vitamin E, zinc, vitamin D, vitamin B12, omega 3 fatty acids and vitamin A.
Want to give yourself better odds in the fight against virus & diseases?
Another lifestyle factor not previously mentioned in this article that’s been shown to contribute to decreasing immune health is stress. The relationship between stress and lowered immune health has long been discussed as stress can be a major factor in the increased likelihood of getting sick. Stress releases cortisol into the body which is responsible for the fight or flight responses and results in a weakened immune system. The concept is simple: reducing stress reduces cortisol which allows your body to fight off antigens and keep you well. There are a number of strategies you can implement into your life to help reduce stress. Practice meditation daily, go for a walk in nature, attend a yoga class or do stretching sequences at home, try journaling or talk therapy, do float therapy, get a massage or use an infrared sauna. Infrared saunas have been shown to effectively boost immune health through raising the body’s core temperature stimulating energy at a cellular level which helps to increase the production of white blood cells: the cells that help protect the body and the immune system from harmful germs. An Infrared sauna also helps to draw out toxins from the body, decreasing blood pressure and reducing stress, giving you every advantage in the fight for preventative health.
Often times, people don’t think about their health until it is compromised. But we are not superhuman - sometimes we need all the advantages we can get when we’re looking at our health. This is the age of preventative health, people are looking to more and more ways of staying well in uncertain times, and with that sentiment, it’s safe to say working toward preventing disease is better than searching for a cure.