Your immune system is one of the most advantaged, complicated functions you could imagine. It protects you from anything from cancer to the common flue.
Just think about how the white blood cells process millions of cells every day and determine which ones are good and which ones are bad. They then go after the bad ones with vicious force and kill off anything that wants to harm you.
Then, there is the fact that in and on your body live around 10,000 types of foreign bacteria, viruses and other microbes. Some of them are extremely beneficial – you couldn’t live without them. Others would literally kill you in a few days if they were not kept at bay by your immune system. Still they are never completely erased.
And then you have the occasions where the immune system goes berserk and turns against your own system. This is the case with any kind of inflammatory related disease such as arthritis, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
So it’s no wonder that strengthening the immune system is considered one of the top priorities for anyone who wants to live a healthy life.
That’s why in today’s feature article I’m giving you the top 10 things you can do to boost your immune system.
I’m sure I’ll miss something, so make sure you check out the comment section below the article as well and of course make your comment.
1) Eat Healthy, Eat Raw
This may be the most obvious thing, but how many of us truly follow it every day?
Strike out all processed food, microwave food and other junk food. Strike out the soft drinks which are full of sugars and other chemicals. Strike out the candy bars, energy drinks (many are worse than sodas) and other junk foods.
Instead, fill your plate with vegetables (preferably raw and organic), fruits and nuts. If you eat meat, go for free-range, grass fed beef or free-range organic chicken. And of course include fish. Wild salmon filled with omega-3 fatty acids is some of the healthiest things you can eat.
Blueberries have been proven to include more anti-oxidizing and anti-inflammatory ingredients than any other type of food. Pretty much whatever disease (including common the flu) you’re fighting, a handful of blueberries every day will help.
Many immune system supplements are made of purified mushrooms such as shiitake, maitake and reishi because they enhance immune activity. But even better is to buy these and other mushrooms fresh and cook them up yourself.
In fact, repeated studies have shown that it’s almost always more beneficial to get ingredients from food than supplements (or drugs of course). So head over to your local health food store and look at the ingredients in the immune boosting supplements, then try to include those ingredients in your home cooked meals.
2) Reduce Stress
When you get sick, one of the things your immune system does is pep up your body’s stress level. It does this by telling the adrenaline gland to release adrenaline and cortisol. This gets the white blood cells alert and ready to fight.
If you are often stressed however, or temporarily under a great deal of stress, this has the opposite effect. Your body is robbed of energy and cortisol levels. The white blood cells get used to the elevated cortisol levels and ignore the symptoms. Or, even worse, they are hyper alerted and start attacking your own body (as with ant-immune diseases).
Chronic stress in one way or another is a major contributor to almost all diseases since it unarms our immune system so disease can grow unnoticed and is not dealt with. Therefore one of your main goals in staying healthy is to reduce stress.
Of course, not sweating the small stuff is easier said than done. Use your head and realize it’s all really small stuff in the big scene of the universe. When something gets on your nerves, count to 10 and breathe deeply.
Even more effective is to bring your stress level down for a little while. Chronic stress snowballs itself. By taking time to relax a little every day, you melt down parts of the snowball. Meditation, relaxation, and listening to relaxing music are great ways to alleviate stress.
The most common symptom of long lasting stress is high blood pressure (which also contributes to almost all diseases). And the best ways to deal with high blood pressure as well as eliminate stress are simple blood pressure exercises.
You can learn more about these blood pressure exercises here…
3) Get Moving
Probably the one thing that contributes most to how commonly the modern day person gets sick is how little we tend to move. We sit by the computer all day, watch TV, drive around in cars etc.
The fact that your body is made up as a whole is often overlooked. Most people think that the heart is the only thing that keeps our blood moving. WRONG! Every muscle in the body is designed to help the heart move oxygen and energy to the organs and eliminate waste.
When oxygen isn’t moved around enough, energy and bacteria-fighting-blood cells are not transferred around your body as they should be. Nor is waste brought back quickly to the liver for cleansing.
Our digestive system is also designed to work with the body moving. Do you really think our ancestors stuffed themselves up and then laid down for 12 hours to rest? No. They kept on moving around all the time just like any other animals in the wild do.
The list of the benefits of moving is too long for a short article like this one. However, a simple study reveals exactly how important exercises are.
In 2006, 115 obese women were either assigned 45 minutes of moderate-intensity-exercises five times a week or simple stretching exercises once a week. At the end of the year, the stretching group had three times the rate of catching colds as the exercising group had. So what’s better, 45 minutes of easy exercising or a month in bed with a cold?
4) Get Your Sleep Time In
Numerous studies on all kinds of sleep deprivation have revealed universally that not getting enough good quality sleep is a sure ticket to sickness.
Men and women who sleep less than 7 hours per night on average are three times more likely to develop a cold. Mothers with young babies get more colds on the average. Athletes suffer more sick days on the road than at home. Shift workers have all kinds of health problems that regular schedule workers don’t. The list goes on and on.
In addition to getting a good 8 hours of sleep, you should try to nap for about 20 minutes in the afternoon. It’s no wonder this is called beauty sleep. It’s been proven to keep people younger and healthier all their lives.
Insomnia is of course often caused by stress. But insomnia also contributes to long lasting chronic stress. So it’s kind of a chronic health circle. If you have trouble sleeping, you definitely want to check out our insomnia program that puts almost everyone to sleep in 24 minutes.
Find more information about our simple insomnia program here…
And if snoring is keeping you up, check out our Stop Snoring Exercise Program here…
5) Spend More Time Outside
One of the major problems with modern society is how much time we spend inside. Oh, it’s so comfortable! In the winter it’s so cold outside, in the summer it’s so hot outside. We work all day inside and then we watch TV inside.
Even if you are a good guy or gal and go to the gym daily, you’re depriving yourself of some of the great benefits you could be getting from working out outside.
There are two major substances you’re missing when you spend time inside:
a) Oxygen – no matter how good the air-conditioning or the office building’s air delivery system is, you’re only getting a fraction of the oxygen you get outside. And you’re inhaling the same air people around you are exhaling. Yuck!
Since your lungs treat the low oxygen air as pollution, they’ll begin minimizing the amount of air you actually inhale. This is similar to people who smoke. So now you’re inhaling less of the oxygen deprived air. You’re now getting even less oxygen than you normally would.
If you go outside for a brisk 30 minute walk in the park, you load your lungs and blood stream with fresh oxygen. This oxygen is used to fight off bacteria and viruses, making you healthy.
b) Vitamin D – you can eat all you want of vitamin D supplements but it will never do the same trick as spending time outside. Our system was designed to get most of our Vitamin D from the sun. And that’s what will benefit us the most.
Again, this article is too short to list all of the diseases caused by vitamin D deprivation and all the health benefits of getting enough vitamin D. To provide a quick summary, recent studies have linked vitamin D deprivation to contributing to almost ALL modern diseases. So if you get sick, assume an increased amount of vitamin D from the sun will help.
I personally think science hasn’t yet discovered the real health benefit of spending time in the sun. All I know is how great I feel after a day in the rays. Isn’t the sun that really keeps earth alive? Without it we would all die. Our ancestors worshipped the sun as a god. We don’t have to do that, but maybe we should acknowledge its power and beauty more.
The good news is that 15 minutes of about 25% exposed body in the sun per day seems to do the trick for most people. Another way to measure your benefit from the sun is to look at the color of your skin. Once you’ve reached the slight pink color (not burn) your body is not taking in any more nutrition from the sun. So it’s better to have less time daily outside than a long time once a week or so.
The traditional medical system has the approach of producing drugs that kill diseases or surgeries that remove the disease.
A natural approach is to strengthen our immune system to better deal with whatever disease may attack us. That is, in essence, the purpose of all articles published on this site as well as the health guides we publish.
So in association with this article you may want to check out:
Three step approach to completely reverse type 2 diabetes…
The 21 day plan to cure arthritis…
Simple exercises that drop blood pressure below 120/80 as soon as today…
But first, please leave your comment below.
Well done shelly! I never knew the importance of having a nap in the afternoon until now.
Your article is great and most of us know everything in it makes perfect sense, but needs to be reinforced and put into practise. Thanks for reminding us lifestyle beats drugs.
Two herbs which have a pretty good track record in supporting the immune system are Echinacea, which I guess most people have heard of and Astragalus Root which is possibly not so well known.
very well said,.
In addition to getting a good 8 hours of sleep, you should try to nap for about 20 minutes in the afternoon. It’s no wonder this is called beauty sleep. It’s been proven to keep people younger and healthier all their lives.. 🙂
Natural Health Tonic. Everybody should kwow its good effect to maintain a healthy body by following the above points.
I read each and every one of your articles and always learn something new (which is a good thing). Thank you for this one as well. It points out all we do to damage the one thing that keeps us up and going but I don’t think we really realize we are doing so until someone points it out to us! This is a good ‘reality check’.
I found a lot of this helpful. The problem I have is I have had numerous skin cancer removals so I am told to not sit in the sun at all and when I do have to go out cover my body with sunscreen and cover up from head to toe. I’m told to take the Vit D 1000 UI. Yet u say it isn’t enough. What else would u recommend then.
GREAT TRUTHS in this article, 5 things to boost your immune system. If one follows it, one will live a long time after happily.
Thanks much for this, and all the other great info from Blue Heron.
Oh I have been avoiding the sun all togegther as I have had Melamona. Now I realized that I should get some sun any ways. Thanks so much for this infoe.
I learned many beneficial tips from your article.
Many thanks
Thank you for this article – great advice.
1) Eat Healthy.
2) Reduce Stress.
3) Get Moving.
4) Get Your Sleep Time (20 minute nap).
5) Spend More Time Outside – gives "Vitamin D".
Also I am a firm believer in "quality supplements and anti-oxidants" — It seems to me that, if you are going to use supplementation, go for quality not price.
All the five factors are very very imp., priority to these factors will definately give good quality of life and need of doctors will be almost nullified.
Colloidal silver also helps to boost your immune system.
i always feel sleepy after lunch,but as much as possible i avoid napping coz i cant sleep at night? i am 54 now?
another great helpful article. I do try most of these things,My BP is under control with medication(1 pill a day)my doctor when I asked could I go off them she said it was only a low dosage and wont do any harm, I really would lo ve to stop having to take each morning.
Very hard to get a decent sleep when one has many hot flushes through the night, lack of sleep increases stress, increases muscle tension and bp. Its a never ending cycle and so frustrating!
good article.Fresh Aloe gell (juice)may also boost immune system
Good sweet summary of things we need to do to stay healthy.
I would add a daily dose o wheatgrass to start your day. The one with roots …
How about reducing sugar intake? I read somewhere that the glucose molecule structure is similar to that of Vitamin c which serves as food to white blood cells. According to that article when sugar is around, white blood cells mistakenly ingests glucose molecules, thinking they are eating their common food (vitamin c). Unfortunately, when this takes place, the cells are intoxicated and become inactive. According to that article the function of our immune system is compromised by more than 75% most of the time due to high levels of sugar we are ingesting.
Ohh yes- I fully agree to d afternoon power nap! and also d 30 minute morning walk at d park! its easy & yet I've always being so lazy to do it! after reading your article- I think I should start lifting my lazy body out of d house for just 30 mins! Thankyou!
I wonder if this oil “on guard” would work on my left glands under my left ear, I wake up with all swollen and the Dr told me it’s allrgies but a lot of times I end up sick after this!!
men’s activity
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