Coronavirus cases are rising rapidly the world over, and even though there is no need for
us to panic, in the middle of any virus pandemic like this, it is a good time to look at optimizing
your body’s defence system, also known as your immune system. It is this system that
hunts down and destroys viruses that have entered your body.
Some people have weaker immune systems than others naturally, but most are weakened due
to lifestyle choices we make without realising. But there are ways we can optimise your immune
system to give you the best chance of fighting off any form of virus you could potentially
get. So here are the top 9 ways to optimise your
immune system.
1. Microbiome Your body has more bacteria cells than human
cells, and these live everywhere, on your skin, in your nose but mostly in your gut,
with over 100 trillion bacteria cells living there. We have a symbiotic relationship with
our gut bacteria, and having a diverse and correct amount of good bacteria actually programmes
an effective immune system response.
To feed your gut flora, you should aim for a for a varied diet with lots of high-fibre
food, The fibre goes through your body undigested but feeds friendly bacteria along the way.
The easiest way to get this is through pulses, seeds, grains, vegetables and fruits. Oh and
popcorn!
Fermented food with live bacteria like coconut yoghurts, miso soup and sourghdough bread
can also play a part, but the verdict is out on whether probiotic supplements work as the
bacteria might not survive the digestive tract, so best to stick to your diet here. More about
diet later on.
2. Sleep The duration of your Sleep is important. And
the quality of sleep even more so. Studies show you are more likely to get ill when exposed
to a virus if you have not had enough quality sleep, and it can also lengthen the duration
of being sick. Your body creates and releases proteins called
cytokines during sleep and a lack of them compromises your immunity response. Cytokines
promote cell to cell communication and they direct cells towards problem areas to tackle
infections and viruses. If you don’t have enough of these in your body, you will find
it harder to fight back against a virus and heighten your chances of getting seriously
sick from an infection.
Teenagers are recommended to get 9-10 hours sleep and adults normally 7-8 hours.
Less than 60% of people are thought to actually get the correct amount of quality sleep, with
a lot of problems coming from chronic stress, staying up late even though our bodies our
tired and the fact we use electronics that emit blue light after the sun has gone down.
3. Stress reduction Stress, dubbed the “Health Epidemic of the
21st Century” by the World Health Organization, and for good reason. This is because of the
ever growing amounts of micro stress we are exposing ourselves to and the impacts it is
having on our bodies, mind and immune system. Stress releases the steroid hormone cortisol.
This hormone acts to reduce inflammation in short term stress situations, and when a dose
of stress dies down, cortisol will too. But when you are under more stress or constant
stress, cortisol continues to produce, and starts to wreak havoc in your body, causing
health issues such as obesity, anxiety, depression and actually increasing inflammation, all
issues that strain and weaken your immune system.
So make sure you are giving yourself enough stress free moments in the day, especially
before bed. Consider things like meditation and yoga as they are shown to reduce stress.
We also made a video on meditation and how it changes your brain, find that in the description
below. Oh and does anybody want to see a full series
on the modern day stress pandemic? Lets discuss in the comments!
4. Regular moderate exercise The key here is moderation. You should not
go from being a couch potato to a marathon runner in a week to improve your immune system,
this would actually have the opposite affect and increase inflammation and lower your immune
system, as you would be over stressing your body.
You should aim to do regular lower to middle intensity exercise in line with your fitness,
this will lower stress hormones, blood pressure and improve blood circulation, which allows
virus fighting cells to move through the body easier, and do their job at getting to and
tackling problem areas with more ease.
5.Diet Malnourishment from lack of nutrients in your
diet can cause major issues. Obesity and lack of nutrients used to be classed as separate
things, but with the ever-rising diet of processed foods they now are commonly part of the same
problem. So much of the processed food we eat is high
in fat, sugar and salt, making it easy for us to grow our bellies but offering us little
in key nutrients our body craves. It can also have long term implications on the microbiome
mentioned earlier. You should aim to eat a varied diet of brightly
coloured fruit and vegetables, like berries, citrus fruits, bananas, spinach and carrots
for example, which will have a wide range of micronutrients to fuel a healthy body.
6. Garlic One of the best things you can eat is garlic.
As well as fighting off vampires, it also has compounds that fuel the immune system.
Garlic contains a compound called alliin, and when this is crushed or chewed it turns
into allicin, the main active ingredient in garlic. This then converts to over 100 types
sulphur compounds in your body. It is these sulphur compounds that have been shown to
boost the fighting response of some types of white blood cells, the cells that aim to
ingest and destroy virus cells. It can reduce the chances of you getting sick
in the first place and if you get ill can lessen symptoms and lower the duration of
overall sickness. You get the most benefits when garlic is eaten
raw. Cooking can deactivate a lot of the active ingredients, but you can just try adding a
decent bit more if you are cooking with it.
7. Vitamin C And onto vitamins. Eating a variety of fruit
and vegetables will give you most of the vitamins and minerals your body needs, but keeping
on top of vitamin C, also known as ‘the immunity vitamin’ is key to fuelling the
immune response.
Vitamin C is ascorbic acid, which supports a wealth of immune responses, including promoting
the production and optimizing response function of lymphocytes and phagocytes, types of white
blood cells that fight disease. Your body cannot produce Vitamin C so you
can get from foods like oranges, grapefruit, strawberries, bell peppers, spinach and broccoli.
It is recommended to get it from your diet but you can also top this up with vitamin
C supplements.
8. Vitamin D Vitamin D is known as the sunshine vitamin,
as your skin produces it naturally when exposed to the sun. This is an important immune facilitator
and can improve your resistance to viruses and diseases. It is no surprise that cold
and flu viruses are most prevalent in the winter months, when we are getting less sun
and producing less vitamin D. Many people become deficient in it, making them more suspectable
to a virus. If possible, try to make sure you are making
time everyday for some time outdoors in the daylight and hopefully with the sun if the
might weather gods are in your favour. This will top up your levels of vitamin D. If that
is not possible or the weather is not good enough you can get it from certain foods.
If you eat meat you can get it from Salmon, yoghurt and eggs. But I always recommend trying
to get it from high quality non-animal sources though, as food from of animals is far more
likely to cause problematic inflammation in the gut. And of course eating animals and
their by products is not cool people
The best options here are mushrooms, but you can also try vegan food that has been fortified
with vitamins, like soy and almond milk, orange juice and fortified cereals.
Supplements are also advisable to take in peak virus times and winter months.
9. Alcohol And finally, if all this information is making
you want a stiff drink, well best not to. Alcohol lowers the quality of your sleep,
can upset your stomach and gut, as well as the microbiome balance, both problems we covered
earlier. It also weakens and distracts your immune system from doing its job of protecting
you from disease and viruses, until alcohol has been removed from the body.
It is recommended to cut out all binge drinking and trying to stick to no more than one drink
a day when you do drink. Oh and of cause stop smoking, not hard, not cool, will kill you.
So what do you think? How is your immunity right now? And do you have any other top tips
for boosting immunity that you can share? We want to hear from you, so leave a comment
and we will reply to you, Lets discuss how we can improve our health and immunity to
ward off any impending virus outbreak.
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have a nice virus free day!