How To Boost Your Immunity Naturally
Happy New Year! I hope you had an amazing break. As we look forward to the new year, everyone is talking about how you can make this your best year yet.
I always think it’s good not to try and put as much pressure on the resolutions that you make and enjoy working towards the end product and navigate the challenges that the coming year will bring, but also excitement as we work towards our own goals.
I want to talk about how we can improve your immunity naturally. This is a source quite close to home is over Christmas, myself, my wife and my two kids came down with the bug that everyone was having. We got it 7 days before Christmas and I thought, “OK, this is our body’s response to a virus. We should be fine for Christmas.”
But it was a relentless bug with night sweats, one day feeling ok and the next day feeling terrible. I’m sure many of you had very similar things or friends and family had a similar bug. That went on for almost three weeks. I want to talk about 8 tips that are really beneficial for your immunity.
1) Active Lifestyle- this has many benefits for improving your immunity. It can reduce chronic inflammation through the body and has been shown to increase the production of antibodies in your body which help fight toxins. We’re not talking about going for a 26-mile run every single day. Even just mild exercise or going for a 15-minute walk, studies show that moderate exercise can reduce the risk of illness by up to 21% and reduce the number of sick days of work. So, get some movement even just walking up and down the stairs.
2) Mental health- we all have busy lives. We all have jobs, families, and stress can build up. It has a detrimental effect to our immune system and can increase the levels of cortisol in the body. Try to use things like head space, mindfulness, gratitude, appreciating the small things in your day. All of these things can help to bring our cortisol levels down and overall improve our immune system.
3) Reduce exposure to toxins- toxins such as alcohol, cigarettes, junk foods, fatty trans fats, takeaways. It will all build inflammation in the body and will increase the stress response.
Living in polluted environment, like a city. It will all increase your susceptibility to bacteria, toxins, viruses and make you more susceptible to becoming ill.
Things like getting out into fresh air, making good choices about what you put in your body are all going to be important to staying off illness this 2023.
4) Good foods- Food is essential to fuel our body and even more to make sure we’re putting the right things in. Having more healthy greens, things like kale, spinach, cucumber, celery can provide a lot of antioxidants to stave off illness. Try to reduce our red meat, salty foods, rich foods and red wine is also going to help to reduce overall inflammation of the body and reduces stress response.
Small portions of white meat, fish, chicken to provide quality protein. But mainly a vegetable, plant-based diet with small amounts of protein, a small amount of complex carbohydrates like brown rice, legumes. This helps keep the blood alkaline levels in check and overall, less stress on the body.
5) Vitamin D- this is very important this time of year. There’s not much sunlight. So, if you can get vitamin D, it’s going to be a massive boost for our immune system. A synthetic form is best which you can get in a supplement store, Vitamin D helps our overall gut health and absorb vitamins and minerals.
6) Vitamin C- this is important to helping our immune system. You can do this in two ways – synthetic forms in terms of effervescent tablets. They’re not great to being absorbed in the gut. The best way to get vitamin C is in natural forms, this includes limes, lemons and oranges. Put them in a juice blender. It’s really a good way to get a huge amount of vitamin C into your body.
7) Sleep- It helps your body to repair and to recover. The more tired you are from not getting 7-8 hours consistently every single night, your body will not be able to repair. Your body won’t restore. It’s going to be weaker and more susceptible to pathogens, virus, bacteria.
8) Hydration- keep drinking water. Try to avoid alcohol if you can. The water helps the tissues to be hydrated in your body and overall keeps your body functioning well and puts a better barrier up to viruses and bacteria. You should be drinking 1.5l at least each day.
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