You may think that getting sick is just something that comes along with the cooler months, but boosting your immunity can greatly reduce your chances of illness all year round. Staying up to date on vaccines, eating a healthy diet, properly hydrating, taking beneficial supplements, exercising regularly (even a little bit), and reducing stress can increase the function of your immune system. Find out how these simple actions can have a positive impact on your health.
- Staying Up to Date on Vaccines
One of the best ways boost immunity is staying up to date with vaccinations. The flu vaccine and the COVID-19 vaccine greatly reduce your chances of falling ill if you were to come in contact or had been exposed to someone carrying the virus. These vaccines stimulate the production of antibodies in your body, preparing your body to fight off any possible infections associated with a particular vaccine. This protection and boosting of immunity is why getting vaccinated and staying up to date with those vaccines is important.
- A Healthy Diet and Proper Hydration
Diet and proper hydration is another great way to boost immunity. Eating a high fiber diet with vitamin rich foods helps support the growth of microbes that are beneficial to improving your immunity. Many of these microbes perform useful functions such as breaking those fibers into short chain fatty acids (SCFA). These SCFAs in the body have been shown to stimulate the activity of immune cells. Proper hydration is simple. Just drinking plenty of water can tremendously benefit your immune system function. Water has been shown to help carry oxygen to cells within the body, so this means that staying hydrated keeps the body functioning properly and maintains the immune system to be ready to fight against infections and/or toxins that may enter your body and cause you to fall ill.
- Taking Nutritional Supplements to Supplement Your Diet
Supplements go hand in hand with diet and hydration. The body needs a lot of different vitamins and minerals to perform at tip top shape and it can be very hard to get the amount needed for healthy immune function. Supplements help by providing those missing vitamins and minerals in a small tablet or gummy. This allows you to get enough of the essential immune boosting vitamins and minerals you need to have a properly functioning immune system. Consistently taking the proper supplements can improve your immune system, but it’s still important to get the majority of these vitamins and minerals through your diet. Using supplements is just that, a supplement to your healthy diet.
- Getting Proper Exercise
There is no doubt that exercise has many positive effects for the body, including boosting immunity. Studies have shown that when you perform moderate to vigorous exercise, the circulation of immune cells in the body increases. When the circulation of immune cells speeds up, that means these same immune cells will be able to get to different areas of the body more quickly, meaning they will be able to detect the infections in those parts of the body quickly and can send over the antibodies faster to fight the infection.
- Keeping Your Stress In Check
Last, but not least, and one of the most overlooked ways to boost immunity is reducing stress. Everyone has stress and it is natural to have, but an excess of stress can be damaging in ways that you may not know about. When an excessive amount of stress is put on the body, the ability the body has to fight off immunity is drastically reduced. Corticosteroid, the main stress hormone released when people are under stress, has been shown to reduce the effectiveness of the immune system. That is why people tend to get sick more often when under stress. By practicing healthy habits of relieving said stress, your immune system is able to be properly maintained and able to fight off infections. This means your chances of getting sick are reduced as well.
No one wants to get sick, and it is up to us to maintain our own immune systems. There are many ways to maintain immunity this flu season. By following a few of these simple tips, you can ensure that your odds of falling ill are reduced and your body’s chances at successfully fighting off infections and toxins are increased.
