Best way to boost your immune system

For many years during the winter season usually led to the colds and sicknesses. Especially since the COVID, majority of us are more health conscious then ever. However, as much as we want to improve our health and wellness by boosting our immune system, but really not many are taking action or even know how!

Our body defend against sickness and disease need a healthy immune system. There are several ways we can bolster our body’s natural defences and the best way to boost our immune system are as follow:

1. Balance healthy eating

Instead of using the words healthy diet, I preferred to use balance healthy eating instead. Because many people see diet is a task for certain period and reason. But balance healthy eating is for life.

Balance healthy eating involves the balance of the ‘Macronutrients’ intake covering protein, carbs, lipids and water. The single best thing you can focus on is incorporating more antioxidants rich fruits and vegetables and help decrease inflammation in your body. Chronic inflammation can suppress your immune system.

Whole plant foods contain nutrients that can help ward off harmful pathogens. Fruits and vegetables contain lots of vitamin C, which can help us get over a common cold much faster. Foods like citrus fruits, kiwis, cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts are all great sources of vitamin C.

Eat more fruit bowl, the fibre in plant foods feeds the healthy bacteria that live in our gut. Remember 70% of our immune system is in our gut, which will improve our immunity and lower our susceptibility to illness.

Protein providing us energy, healing and recovery. Foods like seafood, lean meat, eggs, beans, peas, soy products, and nuts and seeds plays a very important part in our balance healthy eating.

In addition, healthy fats are associated with a decreased risk of diseases such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes, and help our body fight off harmful bacteria and viruses. We need to ensure that we are getting enough Omega3 fatty acids from foods like salmon or chia seeds.

Finally, we need to consider fermented foods which are packed with probiotics. Regular intake will improve the health of our digestive tract and can make it easier for your immune cells to distinguish between normal cells and harmful cells. Foods like miso, yoghurt, kimchi, kefir and sauerkraut are always good to add to the shopping list.

2. Water – drink a lot of them

One of the easiest and most effective ways to boost our overall health is through hydration. Drinking plenty of water doesn’t necessarily ward off germs and viruses, it does still help support our immune system too. When we are not sufficiently hydrated, our circulatory system called lymph, which is predominantly made from water and transports infection flighting cells around our bodies will be hindered, which can lead to a weakened immune system.

When we are dehydrated, it can cause headaches and affect our focus, mood and digestion, as well as the function of our heart and kidney. On the other hand, reduce the intake of sugary drinks and drink plain water instead. Also, it is advisable not to wait until thirsty to drink, just make sure consume plenty of water regularly throughout the day.

3. Plenty of quality sleep

Sleeping and resting is very useful to boost our immune system, and our overall physical and mental health. Our body takes the chance to heal and regenerate while we sleep. Most importantly, it produces essential immune cells that flights inflammation and white blood cell that controls immune response. The more we sleep, the greater chance to give our body to fight off illness and repair itself.

If we don’t get enough sleep, our immune system can weaken, the risk of becoming ill is far greater. In an ideal world, we should have at least 7-8 hours of quality sleep a night, and limiting the use of electronic devices before bed and avoid stressful conversations in the hours before bed, and to sleep in a completely dark room.

4. Reduce stress

Stress and anxiety are the killers for our immune system, we must learn to manage them at all cost. They are very harmful for our overall health and wellbeing. If we’re stressed, our body responds by instigating a stress response which inhibits our immune system, increasing our chances of falling ill or developing an infection.

Long term stress can elevate levels of the steroid hormone cortisol. Although cortisol is good for our immune system on a short-term basis, but when our body goes into flight mode on a longer-term basis, it will obstruct the immune system and prevent it from protecting our body. But of course, it is almost impossible to avoid stress altogether. We need to try to identify feeling of stress when they first kick in, and then try to manage them.

5. Regular exercise

Exercise is not only just to help us to strengthen our body, it also helps us to de-stress ourselves. Our body releases endorphins or happy hormones during our exercise, while reducing cortisol levels at the same time. Therefore, best to do regular moderate exercise to help us reduce stress and improve our health. Exercise also stimulates our immune system to improves circulation, making it easier for immune cells to pass through our body and detect cells that are damaged or infected.

A single session of moderate exercise like can improve the effectiveness of vaccines in people with compromised immune systems. There’s also powerful evidence that people who exercise regularly have significantly lower rates of acute illnesses, like viral and bacterial infections, and chronic ones, like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

6. Practice deep breathing

Deep breathing supports our lymph flow is directly related to immunity, and anything we can do to improve lymph flow can improve our overall immunity. In addition to staying hydrated, another effective way of managing stress also has a knock-on effect on lymph flow – deep breathing. Each time we breathe, our diaphragm moves up and down, causing a sequence of pressure differences that create movement in the body – including lymph flow, which sends those essential infection-fighting white blood cells through our bodies.

The best way to practise regular deep breathing is to have a go at mindfulness or yoga, which are both focused around becoming more aware of your beathing.

7. Drink less alcohol

Alcohol is a toxin, not only just effect for our overall health, it also decreasing our immune function. When we consume alcohol, our body go into over drive to expel it and detoxify our system, because of this, our normal immune function is neglected. If you regularly drink too much alcohol, your body may struggle to process excess toxins and maintain normal immune system function.

Drinking large quantities of alcohol can undermine your body’s ability to fight infection and also hold up your recovery time. As a result, heavy drinkers are much more likely to suffer from acute respiratory distress syndrome, liver disease, certain cancers, and pneumonia. If you enjoy a glass of wine or an evening whisky, you don’t need to stop altogether, but where possible, you should try to limit your alcohol consumption to 14 units per week.

8. Give up smoking

Cigarettes produce toxin which is very harmful on our immune health. Smoke contains carbon monoxide, nicotine, nitrogen oxides and cadmium. All these chemicals interfere with both T cells and B cells performance in our immune system.

Smoking cigarettes also aggravates viral and bacterial infections, particularly post-surgical infections, those that affect the lungs, and rheumatoid arthritis.

9. Keep chronic symptoms in check and measure your antioxidants level regularly

Conditions like diabetes, heart disease and asthmas can heighten the risk of infections to our immune system. Asthma sufferers are more susceptible to catching flu, and suffering serious health consequences from it. For those have type 2 diabetes must manage their blood sugar properly. Failing that it can create a low level yet chronic inflammatory response which will harm the immune system.

Most people are living with a chronic condition have to learn how to manage their symptoms, ensuring they take the medications as directed, regular visits and check up with their doctor If you’re living with a chronic condition, it’s important to do everything you can do to manage your symptoms as best you can. This means ensuring you take any medications as directed, staying on top of doctor visits, and trying to practice health-boosting habits. Keeping your chronic symptoms in check means you’ll free up more reserves to fight infection and give your immune system a helping hand. However, please bear in mind that this is for those who are choosing the ‘Cure’ method. But there’s a much better way is using the ‘Prevention’ method.

If we have a healthy lifestyle through balance healthy eating, exercise and ensure that we have high level of antioxidants in our immune system. It will certainly help to prevent most chronic diseases in our body. The fact is the amount of antioxidants that we maintain in our body is directly proportional to how long and healthy we will live. If we can measure the level of antioxidants regularly, continue to make adjustment and to improve our lifestyle, this will certainly help us to avoid to see the doctor. Want to know more about how to measure the level of antioxidants, just message me!

10. Choose supplements wisely

We all know that our bodies absorb vitamins and minerals more efficiently from Macronutrients. But we can’t guarantee that we are getting sufficient nutrients due to the modern way our foods produced. We need to consume more to get the right amount of nutrients. So, if we are concerned that we are not getting enough Micronutrients - vitamins and minerals, then we must consider taking supplement as our insurance policy.

Some scientific studies suggest that the following basic supplements might improve your body’s immune response – and while they won’t necessarily prevent us from becoming sick, they might make it easier for our body to fight infection:

● Vitamin C: According to a clinical trial of over 10,000 people, taking up to 2,000 mg of vitamin C per day reduced the duration of colds by 8% in adults.

● Vitamin D: Being deficient in vitamin D can increase the likelihood of becoming sick, so if we are low in vitamin D you might want to supplement it.

● Zinc: From the clinical trial of 1,000 people with the common cold found that supplementing more than 75 mg of zinc per day reduced the duration of the cold by 33%.

However, it’s important to highlight the fact that while supplements may help strengthen our body’s general immune response, they shouldn’t be used as a substitute as medication or for a healthy diet, which remains the most important and beneficial step we can take to boost our immune system.

Cheap supplements will not give us the right amount of vitamins and minerals you need. Most cheap supplements have high volume of bulking agents and fillers, therefore, we won’t get the right amount of nutrients from cheap supplements, so, read the label.

Summary

If we want to give our immune system a boost, make sure we are doing it gradually toward a healthier lifestyle. Don’t rush and just take one day at a time but be consistent. All good things need to take time, never look for a quick fix because they never work, in fact it will only stress our body and immune system. Focus on these 3 areas daily – balance healthy eating, exercise and supplementation. Quitting smoking, reduce the alcohol level. Continue to maintain such healthy lifestyle until gradually it becoming a habit so that you can keep up with and feel good about.

Have you made any lifestyle changes to boost your immune system or overall health? I would love to hear about your experiences. Please leave me a comment below.