We all want to be healthy; nobody wants to be sick. Avoiding illness is always going to be better than actually getting sick and the good news is this: An Immune System Boost with these top 5 hacks is simple, natural and inexpensive.
Once you’re ill you need to do something about it: Visit your doctor, take some meds, stay in bed. You’re going to be in for a rough few days at least.
Whatever you do one thing is certain: you’re going to hate how you feel. Your life will at best be made inconvenient for a few days. At worse, you could die.
Further, it’s more than likely that you’re going to find yourself spending a big slice of your earnings on medications or visits to specialists.
What we all need, what you need, is to take a lot more interest in how to not get sick in the first place.
Without a doubt, we all need to concentrate on prevention and treat this as our top priority.
There are, of course, numerous ways that we can get sick, and very often our illness or disease will have more than one cause.
However, here we are looking at the immune system, and the top five hacks that will help to strengthen it.
A stronger immune system is going to make sure you can be as healthy as possible.
Your immune system: The basics
The immune system is a collection of cells and proteins that will defend your body against infections caused by viruses or bacteria.
The system is made up of white blood cells, antibodies, the complement system, the lymphatic system, the spleen, the thymus and the bone marrow.
These are the parts of your immune system that actively fight infection. (1)
Further, once your immune system has successfully fought an infection it will remember the exact nature of that infection.
Should the same pathogen attempt to attack your body a second time, the immune system will remember it. In this way you’ll be able to fight the infection before it makes you feel sick.
Most of the time you won’t even be aware that this has happened.
White blood cells which include T-cells and killer cells patrol your body and hunt out any invaders. These include bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi.
However, its important to remember that some viruses – such as the flu virus – very often mutate.
Due to this, the body must launch a new attack on these mutations each time.
When your immune system is not functioning properly you are much more open to developing many serious infections or illnesses.
Immune System Boost with these top five hacks: 1 diet
If there is one single thing you can do to keep your immune system functioning correctly, it is eating a healthy diet.
A healthy diet should consist of nutritionally dense foods. Meats, fish, vegetables, and healthy oils, and no junk food.
Especially important is a healthy low carbohydrate diet. Low carb diets such as the keto diet offer multiple health benefits.
The keto diet and other low carb plans will also reduce dangerous chronic inflammation.
This over activity of the immune response will cause your body to be less able to fight infection or invaders.
It’s also important that you consider removing sugar from your diet altogether.
This substance has zero benefits for your body, and a very long list of harmful effects. Especially bad for you is high fructose corn syrup,
Read food labels carefully and try to make sure you never use this product.
For more about why you should step away from sugar read:
How to break a sugar addiction.
Equally important on the “avoid” list are seed oils.
There is now an overwhelming amount of research that demonstrates that these oils are extremely bad for your health.
Immune boosting foods
Turmeric is a great addition to a healthy diet, and has anti inflammatory properties. It’s often easiest to obtain this through a turmeric supplement.
Oily fish such as salmon, tuna and Mackeral are packed with omega 3 fatty acids. Try to include these at least twice each week.
Base your diet on whole foods and, when possible, avoid ready meals. Choose single ingredient foods, where you can see exactly what you’re getting.
For a full list of immune boosting foods see:
Which foods boost the immune system
Further, by following a healthy diet you will be maintaining a healthy body weight too. This is an important factor in making sure that you have a fully functioning immune system.
Hack 2: Get enough sleep
Getting enough sleep is vital for a healthy fully functioning immune system.
Generally, its underestimated just how important it is to get a good nights sleep.
When you spend a large part of each night awake you’ll be causing your body a lot of stress.
It has been proven that the length and quality of sleep is a factor in the risk of many health conditions.
These include:
- Heart Disease, stroke and total cardiovascular disease (2)
- Impaired glucose tolerance and an increased risk of diabetes (3) (4)
- Increased inflammation (5)
- Crohn’s disease (6)
- Reduced immune responses (7)
- Depression (8)
As a general rule you should be aiming for about 8 hours of peaceful sleep each night.
Immune system hack 3: Intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting can have amazing benefits for your health and your immune system.
When you practice intermittent fasting you will activate the health boosting process of Autophagy This is the body’s natural repair and renewal system.
Practice this along with a healthy diet for maximum effects.
If you can, try to do a 72 hour fast for a complete immune system reset.
However, even a short fast of 12 – 16 hours a day will improve your health.
As this includes sleep time, you could simply finish your evening meal at 8pm, skip breakfast and eat lunch at any time after 12 noon.
In this way you will have achieved a 16-hour fast with very little effort.
This is something that gets easier with practice, but the benefits far outweigh any temporary inconvenience.
Immune system boost Hack 4: Exercise
Without a doubt, your immune system is not going to be at its best if you do zero exercise.
You don’t have to train for a marathon if that’s not your thing, but you do need to get yourself off the sofa from time to time.
It’s normally considered that approximately and hour and a half of exercise at least three times a week should be your minimum aim.
Exercise has been proven to trigger autophagy.
Great forms of exercise include resistance training and any activity that raises your heart rate.
However, make sure you choose an activity that you actually like. There’s few of us that will keep up an exercise routine that we find boring.
It’s also a great idea if you can do your exercise outside.
In that way you can double the immune system benefits by getting a big dose of sunlight. It is from this sunlight that you’ll be getting vitamin D.
Vitamin D has been having a lot of press attention. It’s seen as a major player in your ability to fight off infections, including viruses.
There is growing evidence that vitamin D will also help you to suffer a less serious illness if you do become the victim of an unpleasant virus.
The trick seems to be to make sure you get a little sunlight often. At least 15 minutes per day although this is going to depend on exactly where you live.
Immune hack 5: Minimize stress
Take some time to work out where any stress in your life is coming from. It’s important to keep your stress levels as low as possible.
Any stress will flood your body with stress hormones that can make you susceptible to illness and will damage your immune system.
A healthy diet that controls your blood/glucose levels can help you to maintain an even mood throughout the day. If rising and falling blood/glucose levels are an issue for you, consider the keto diet which is well-known for balancing your glucose levels.
There are a few activities that are especially helpful if stress is an issue for you. These include:
- Yoga
- Tai Chi
- Exercise
- Meditation
Don’t underestimate the healthy benefits of enjoying some fun time with your friends. Social interaction can be both healthy and relaxing.
An immune system boost with these 5 top hacks will help you to make sure that your immune system is in great shape.
Your general health and ability to fight infection will be as good as it can be, and you’ll feel the difference.
There is no need to do everything right from the start. Change what you can, and work towards the rest. This is a journey that normally takes some time to get right.
A good way of achieving a great immune system is to aim to add in a few more healthy habits each day.
As you begin to feel the benefits you’ll be more inclined to make the other changes that are important.
Some changes are going to be easier than others.
Taking a turmeric supplement and vitamin D are both fairly easy even for the laziest among us. For this reason, you should make sure you’re at least doing this.
A big diet change obviously takes a bit more work, but generally people find that losing weight and feeling good makes this more than worthwhile.
An immune system boost with these top 5 hacks is not difficult at all. It just takes a little determination and practise.
A healthy immune system is going to be more than worth the effort. You’ll be feeling the amazing benefits in just a few short weeks.
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