6 Things You Can Do to Boost Your Immune System and Improve Your Overall Health
The human body is an amazing thing. It is a massive combination of complex autonomous systems that manage to grow, repair and evolve contained in a person-sized wrapper. This balance however is susceptible to outside influence. Luckily the human body has the immune system, a complex system of cells and hormones that serve to destroy pathogens and to keep you happy and healthy.
It is at this point that I must point out that I am not a doctor, I am a holistic nutritionist. None of this should be taken as medical advice. Please consult a medical physician before significantly altering your diet.
Now that the legal BS is out of the way, here are 6 steps to boost the immune system and to improve overall health.
#1) Vitamin C
Vitamin C is known as the ubiquitous immune booster. You’ve probably heard about its effects a million times. Well it’s true, according to the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism: Vitamin C serves to enhance the ability of the immune system to do its job. It is also characterized as an anti-oxidant (1) helping to protect cells from free radicals.
So where can you get some? Simple, Vitamin C is found in most fruits and vegetables, but particularly in bell peppers, citrus fruits and cruciferous vegetables.
#2) Vitamin D
Vitamin D is something that everyone needs but few people think about. Vitamin D is part of a crucial trio for bone health, is important in calcium balance throughout the body and according to the British Medical Journal: has been shown to protect against acute respiratory infections (2) (which in 2020-2021 seems to be a pretty important thing to bring up). The trick with Vitamin D is that the major source of it is the sun, and with everyone staying inside due to recent events (I’m not going to say the name,) means that it is doubly important to make sure that we are either getting enough Vitamin D from the sun or that we are supplementing adequately.
Large sources of Vitamin D are salmon and sardines (3) or a Vitamin D supplement (there are lots of them so do some research to find one that’s right for you)
#3) Zinc
Zinc is one of the most important minerals when it comes to the immune system, not only does it help with wound healing (4) (the skin is a massive part of the immune system) but it also helps with cell differentiation (5) and helps immune cells function. In other words, Zinc makes everything work the way it should.
Some ample sources of zinc are: Sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and cashews.
#4) Reduction of stress
Stress is a massive factor in one’s immunity. The body deals with stress by releasing cortisol, among many other hormones that help to suppress the immune system. This is particularly problematic when we all have such highly stressful lives. Between, work/school, the news, social media, interpersonal relationships as well as the relationships we have with ourselves, stress is inevitable. It is however manageable. How? Pick up a hobby, meditate, exercise, read a book… in short, do something that you find enjoyable and go from there. Not only will your immune system thank you but you might develop a new skill.
#5) SLEEP!!!!
For the love of Morpheus sleep (see what I did there?) Sleep is the bodies way of restoring itself and recovering from a stressful day. If you go without sleep, or are having non restful sleep, it can lead to increased stress (see #4) and just impaired function of not only the immune system but just you in general. And if you’re wondering how much sleep you need, it varies but the average agreed upon time is 8 hours.
Not getting 8 hours, have no plan on getting 8 hours, thinking I’m insane thinking that anyone can get 8 hours. Fine I hear you, at least try and turn off electronic devices (TV, laptop, cell phones, tablets…) 60 to 90 minutes before bed. This is because the blue shifted light tricks your brain into staying awake longer. If though, you can’t sleep without a podcast or watching your favourite video online, then just make sure that you put a red/orange shifted filter on your devices so that your brain won’t stay awake as long (you can find these filters on most devices because they come with them natively.)
#6) Reduction of Inflammation
Reduction of inflammation, where to begin? I could write an entire post on inflammation reduction, (perhaps I will at some point). The big thing to avoid though is processed foods, especially anything that comes in a plastic/metallic bag, a drink that fizzes or anything that doesn’t look like the ingredients listed on the bag, it’s not helping you. Processed sugar is one of the nastiest culprits of this because it can directly affect immunity by lowering immune cell function (6). If you’re eating processed sugar every day (it’s in more foods than you think) then you’re suppressing your immune system everyday.
With the hectic lives that we live everyday, doing every single thing on this list might not be feasible right away and that’s okay. The trick is to do at least one thing and build from there. I wrote this post because at the time of writing this we are going through a massive crisis globally, and instead of giving us information that would help us, the “authorities” are just scaring us and causing us more stress. Hopefully this will help some of you out and show that there is more than one way to stay healthy.
Take care and eat well.