I'm going to read you a little bit of material out of my book that I've written about immune
boosting, on different ways you can boost your immune system and make it more powerful.
The 12 Step Relief and Immune Boosting Plan.
I'll just read a little bit and then I'll give you some extra advice alongside that.
Find the stress leaks in your life and plug them up.
The first thing to do is to admit that stress certainly plays a role in your life.
It occurs in everyone's life.
I'm amazed how many people won't even admit they have stress in their lives, any kind
of stress.
Ask yourself why and how you're letting stress get to you.
And what can you do to mitigate the responses?
Examine any tension or hot spots in your body regularly like the sides of your neck or your
jaw, your shoulders, your lower back.
Many people keep tension in their body.
They'll get a little bit emotionally tense in certain situations like speaking with certain
people or performing certain actions.
These tense spots end up becoming quite tight and sore, and they become what we call [trigger
points,] very painful points that can hurt for a long, long time.
And with massage, you'll certainly feel these points.
You can get knots in different parts of the body as well.
It's not uncommon to have a knot from sitting there with a mouse all day working on a computer
to have a knot up here in the shoulder, for example, can be very sore.
Think about those things.
Number two.
Reduce stress in your life right now.
One of the most important points you'll learn, if you study psychology, is that there are
three things that you can do when you have a difficult or stressful situation.
Number one is you can change the situation.
Number two, you can change yourself to fit the situation or adapt to it.
And number three, you can walk away or leave the situation.
Remember that stresses are additive and cumulative.
Removing or neutralizing your largest source of stress can make a very significant difference
to your overall health and well-being.
Most of the time, if you take care of the big stresses, the smaller ones will take care
of themselves.
Your body has a natural ability to handle stress and remain healthy.
It is only when the stress is overwhelming in quantity, duration, or intensity that the
systems like your immune system will start to break down.
I've said in other videos that the biggest stresses in our lives are humans, are people,
people that we associate with closely, the people that we love and care about, or the
people that we work with.
Think right now, who in your life is stressing you out a lot, is someone stressing you out.
Deal with it.
Deal with that person.
Try to work out what it is.
Because it could be causing you a lot more grief than anything could.
Number three.
Minimize any unnecessary stress in your life right now.
What is one of the biggest things causing you stress right now?
Maybe you're a worrier.
Do you panic over your weight, your job, your health or the health of your family or friends?
Try concentrating on resolving the problem rather than focusing on it by completing small
action steps a few times each day until you've resolved the issue.
This will give you a sense of empowerment and lead you onto the resolution of bigger
stresses in your life.
It is easier for you to concentrate for shorter, rather than longer periods of time, initially,
and with experience, you'll be much more able to tackle the bigger stresses in your life.
So they say if you want to eat an elephant, you take one small bite every day.
And after a year, you've eaten the whole elephant.
So if you've got a problem, try to tackle it in small steps and break that big problem
down to small problems.
And break the small problem down to tiny little things that you can fix up.
And the thing, also, is don't procrastinate; just do what you need to do now.
Small problems solved now will prevent bigger problems from happening in the future, which
is going to give you way more anxiety than you've got today.
Number four.
Reverse negative stress by walking each day.
One of the best stress busting exercises is to simply go for a 10 to 15 minute walk every
day.
Walking would have to be one of the easiest and cheapest ways to reduce the impact of
any stress in your life.
Did you know that just by walking for 20 minutes a day, three times a week, you can lower your
cholesterol levels by 15 to 20 percent?
Isn't that amazing?
Walking has a particularly favorable effect on balancing many of your body's hormones,
especially your stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol.
And has proven to be a great stress disruptor, which helps you to think about other things
apart from what your mind generally focuses on.
Why don't you try it because you might be surprised how uplifting a walk can be?
And with experience, you can go for a brisk walk and you can walk in different areas.
It can really change your life by going on a regular walking program.
Number five.
Look at your diet.
Each and every day look at what you're putting into your mouth.
Did you know that foods can have an effect on the way your body will react to a stressful
event in your life?
Your body can react to a diet high in sugars and refined foods like white flour, white
sugar, soda drinks, and processed foods, for example.
The same way it will react when you worry about your mortgage payment, your waistline,
or your job security.
Food can have a major effect on your body in terms of inducing inflammation, reducing
immune function, killing beneficial bacteria, putting toxic residues in your body, so it's
very important for you to eat good foods on a very regular basis.
Because otherwise if you eat a bad diet with shocking foods, that's also a big nutritional
stress on your body.
Number six.
The art of relaxation.
Are you getting enough relaxation?
It is important to balance work and play.
Make sure you take time out to relax every day and ensure you get lots of sleep.
Since studying stress and adrenal fatigue, I now recommend that all my patients have
a little restful period for about 15 to 20 minutes in the afternoon, so they can powerfully
build up their adrenal response.
Can't manage every day?
Then start by doing this on the weekends and at least one day during the week.
Some folks manage this really well in their offices.
Others in their cars.
If you improvise, you'll find a way to have this afternoon chill out session, which can
be a great aid in boosting your ability to withstand stress to a much higher degree.
Resting in the afternoon, taking it easy, will also allow a deeper sleep cycle at night.
Number seven.
Reducing stress and anxiety through self-observation.
You may be surprised to know just how quickly you run to the phone, eat your meal, take
a shower, drive your car, buy your groceries, or engage in any one of a hundred other activities.
Are you the person who runs to the phone when the phone rings?
Do you run to the door when the doorbell rings?
Are you panicking when you go shopping?
These are little things that we subconsciously do to ourselves to stress ourselves out.
Have you ever given yourself permission to slow down a little bit?
Too many patients I see lead hurried and worried lives, and have become obsessed at completing
one task before launching into several others without even coming up for fresh air.
Pretend you're watching over your own shoulder and see how you next respond to any demand
placed on you.
This may come as a complete surprise to you.
Relax when you walk to the phone.
Eat more slowly and chew each mouthful many more times than you normally would.
Allow plenty of time to get to those meetings and arrive five minutes early and not ten
minutes late, apologizing to everybody when you get there.
By all means, have a task list, but prioritize your tasks and be sure to place relaxation
sessions, spending time with loved ones, and walking as priorities on your list.
Does it make sense?
Number eight.
Look at increasing the parasympathetic dominators in your life.
Let me explain.
In another section of my book, I explain a lot more about what the nervous system's regulation
of the body is.
It sounds more complicated than it is, but I'm certain that I can explain this concept
to you quite easily.
If you can grasp the message here and balance your autonomic nervous system, your sympathetic
or stressed out, and parasympathetic or chilled out nervous system, then you'll be light years
ahead of other people who think they can beat any kind of problem in their body with diet
and supplements alone.
This information is priceless for you.
If you can really understand how to idle your system and let it relax, as well as power
it up, you're going to be in a very good position to balance work and play.
You're going to be in a great position to help boost your immune system and to improve
your endocrine or hormonal response.
This will give you a lot more energy, more brainpower, better mood control, you're just
going to feel awesome when you understand that concept.
It's a bit like you don't sit there with your car at the traffic lights and have your foot
half down on the throttle with the hand brake on, ready and raring to go.
That's how some people are in their life all the time.
They never have down time.
They never relax themselves enough.
They never idle their engine.
They're always sitting there ready to take off, and you can see why the body gets stressed
out.
Number nine.
Do you have adrenal fatigue?
Have you completed the self-help questionnaire?
Because I put some questionnaires on line on adrenal fatigue on how to assess if you've
got adrenal fatigue or not.
By rebuilding your tired and worn out adrenal glands, you'll be in a much better position
to help beat many different acute or chronic conditions that you've got.
I've written many articles on adrenal fatigue.
You can have a look at EricBakker.com and you can read more of the articles I've written.
But suffice it to say; with a poor functioning pituitary and adrenal response, you're going
to be a person who is going to have an acute infectious disease, a lot of hypersensitivities
or allergies.
You're going to have problems with your digestion, with your sleep; many different issues will
happen if you haven't got a balanced stress response.
Maybe you're constantly relapsing, getting well and then sick again.
All too often, practitioners will treat just your problems with supplements and diet.
And this, in my experience, happens often, but they often overlook the fact that people
have suffered from stressful events in their lives or don't learn to relax enough.
So it's very important that you understand the concept of increasing this parasympathetic
dominator.
Learning downtime, learning to relax, and to restore your body again.
Number ten.
Learn the links.
I'd like to mention how important it is to remember the link between your chronic condition,
your immune system, and more particularly, how stress and poor adrenal function can dramatically
hinder your full recovery.
Knowledge only becomes power when it's applied knowledge, so applying your understanding
of your level of adrenal health right now and how it relates to your health problems.
Get treatment if appropriate and be amazed at the power of your immune system.
You still with me on this?
We're talking about the 12 ways you can boost immune function in your life.
Number eleven, boosting glandular function.
Don't forget that you may need to boost your glandular function, but be sure to get expert
advice before you proceed down this path.
If you can recognize adrenal fatigue or thyroid malfunction and, in addition, to the condition
that you've got, I would not recommend home treatments when it comes to glandular therapy
unless you're a qualified doctor.
But rather seek out the experience of a natural health professional, preferably, who has worked
with glandular medicines.
You're bound to get the best possible treatment and results in the long run if you do that.
Number twelve, the last point.
Learn the art of relaxation.
Relax and slow down each day until it becomes an ingrained habit.
Stressful and anxious people are much more prone to immune system problems, and they
easily fall victim to a whole lot of different conditions.
I hope you've learned a little bit from this video on different ways to boost immune function.
Boosting immune function doesn't mean taking antibiotics.
It doesn't mean taking all these different drugs that help to kill bacteria.
You don't need to kill things to get good health.
You need to balance things.
You need to boost your body's own natural innate ability to do this.
It's all common sense.
And as I keep telling people in my videos, common sense isn't very common today.
We live in this crazy technological age.
We're always looking for magic this and magic that.
Something to make us feel better.
But the funny thing is all of these systems are built into our body to allow us to feel
like that without any other action on your part apart from understanding how the body
really works.
And that's what my videos are aimed for, to teach you these sorts of concepts.
To enable you to really improve your health.
I hope you gained some good information from my video today.
Thanks for tuning in.