It’s a good time of year to think about some strategies to support your immune health. I know many are concerned about getting sick right now. I understand that concern, especially if you are in a more vulnerable group, or have dealt with a chronic illness in your life and know about the long-term fatigue that can develop from a viral infection.
Thankfully, there are many things you can do to improve the functioning of your immune system. In doing so, you potentially improve the response mounted by your body in the event of illness. Below I share my top four general suggestions for enhancing your body’s natural resiliency:
Food & Fluids
I can’t overstate the importance of diet. However there is so much conflicting advice around what constitutes an ideal or healthy diet. Someone who feels cold easily, often experiences loose stools, and struggles with low energy has different dietary needs from the person who is always hungry and seems to have boundless energy. This type of dietary assessment and prescription needs to be developed in the clinic. However there are some general guidelines that many find helpful for maintaining a robust immune system.
At least one meal a day should be a soup or stew, steamed or braised protein with grain and vegetable, or a porridge. Eating wet foods boosts hydration; most people are dehydrated in the winter and early spring due to central heating and the natural reduction in thirst levels that comes naturally with colder weather.
But dehydration dramatically reduces the healthy function of your immune system. When you’re dehydrated your skin and mucous membranes aren’t able to act as effectively as your physical barrier to viral infections, your lymph and blood do not circulate as efficiently and therefore you are less able to mount a quick immune response.
Besides adding hydration through food you should also reduce consumption of dehydrating foods. Some quick examples of dehydrating foods and beverages that are popular include: alcohol, coffee, black tea, baked goods, sugar, toast, crackers, popcorn, pizza, very spicy (hot spicy) food, and heavy use of garlic and bulb onions. Obviously, there are many more...
Plenty of warm water or herbal tea/infusions throughout the day also helps to flush your system. This is less hydrating than eating wet foods but also an important component to helping your body get rid of pathogens you may have come into contact with.
Vitamin D
In the northern hemisphere the flu and cold season usually reaches its peak in the late winter and early spring. This is due to a variety of reasons, but one of the largest contributing factors is that this is also the time of year most people’s Vitamin D levels are at their lowest.
To be clear: I’m not recommending that everyone start taking Vitamin D. What I do recommend is checking your vitamin D levels 1-2 times per year. If your levels are below the reference range (or on the lower end of the normal range) you should probably consider taking a good quality sub-lingual Vitamin D. If you live over 37 degrees of latitude you aren’t getting much if any Vitamin D during the winter months, and healthy levels of Vitamin D are integral to the function of your immune system.
Movement
Movement that you enjoy and are inclined to engage in is what I recommend. If you don’t have something already that you enjoy then, if walking is an option for you, that is a good place to start. If you feel an internal resistance to movement sometimes just giving yourself permission to do it for 5 minutes is enough to overcome that initial step.
Movement helps your immune system in a variety of ways. Exercise increases the efficiency of your metabolism; your immune system relies on your metabolism to function well. Movement also stimulates the circulation of lymph; the lymphatic system, unlike your circulatory system, does not have its own pump to move lymph through your body. Therefore it relies on movement from your muscles to circulate. Since many of our immune cells reside in the lymphatic system it is important to get it moving! Regular, not too strenuous, movement is optimal. And if you can combine it with being outside and breathing fresh air, even better!
Sleep & Stress Reduction
Stress reduction is easy to recommend and difficult for most folks to implement. We all respond to stress differently and we all have our own unique collection of stressors: some within our control, and many that are not. A deep exploration about how to identify stressors that you do have control over, and techniques for eliminating or reducing them, is a far bigger topic than can be tackled here. But I can say that staying hydrated and nourished, having energy from regular movement, and getting enough sleep will give you more resources to better cope with the stressors you can’t control.
If you are someone that finds themselves frequently on the brink of a flight/fight/freeze response then I would suggest doing 3-5 minutes of alternate nostril breathing first thing in the morning and anytime during the day when you have a few minutes. This ~6 minute video demonstrates and explains the practice.
With sleep the main points I wish to make here are that you need to be asleep no later than 11:00 pm to gain the most benefit from it, and you should get up around sunrise to receive the natural boost in energy it affords. Avoiding food within 3 hours of bedtime will also improve the various “metabolic clean up” processes you go through while asleep.
If you have trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep these should become your top priority to address with a health care provider, as adequate sleep is necessary for health and immunity.
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Photos via Unsplash: tea ball image by Marissa Harris, morning sun by Dennis Bertuch (thanks to both for generously sharing their beautiful work)
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