“The first line of defence against any infection is a healthy lifestyle”

How to Boost Immunity: A healthy living or a healthy lifestyle can be a good way to positively affect your immune system. Remember you must boost immunity in the healthiest possible way, not the other way around.

The immune system is not a single entity. It is rather a system that functions precisely, harmoniously with immense balance and coordination among immune cells. Still, researchers and immunologists, molecular biologists don’t know much about the reciprocal connections and intricacies of the immune response.

Researchers are working on the lifestyle factors like stress, diet, sleep, activity levels, habits, emotions, exercise, and other factors and their role in immunity and immune response.

The Elderly and Immune Response

As we age our immune response capabilities diminish. This shows why the elderly are prone to more infections and get life-threatening diseases more often compared to young people. Owing to this reason, influenza, pneumonia and even COVID-19 infections become serious in the elderly.

Even vaccination is less effective in elderly people. Though the vaccination efficacy is low, yet it lowers the rates of sickness, complications, and death. However, aging gracefully can minimize the effects of weakening the immune system.

Remember – Your Lifestyle is the key to your overall health and well-being.

How to boost immunity: To boost immunity, make changes to your lifestyle including the following:

Minimize Stress

Some stress is good for you as it prepares you for accepting challenges and completing tasks. Persistent stress or stress lasting too long is bad for your health. It can even weaken your immune system.

• Take intermittent breaks from work and relax
• Build your social networks
• Remove bad thoughts and allow good thoughts in (look on the brighter side)
• Have a laugh (it triggers the secretion of feel-good hormones in the body)

Exercise Regularly

It is a well-known fact that regular exercise keeps you healthy. It is in fact the main pillar of health. There are reasons to substantiate this claim – exercise keeps you healthy by reducing weight, improving blood circulation, boosting feel-good hormonal levels, lowering blood pressure and heart disease risk significantly. It is quite natural that if all good changes are happening in the body, the immune system will also become better. You can bet on exercise for this reason as well: regular exercise improves blood circulation and allows blood and immune cells and the substances involved in the immune system to move through the blood freely and do their job efficiently. Ensure that you are moving as any kind of movement works – let it just be a walk, yoga, jogging, swimming, cycling, or playing golf.

Wash Your Hands

Hands are the superhighway for infections. Frequently washing hands with soap and water will wash away germs that our hands have acquired through contaminated water, food, and tainted surfaces. It is a do-it-yourself self-vaccine that prevents infections and saves lives. It is quite effective against COVID-19 as well.

How to Boost Immunity by Foods

Feed your body the right kind of food to keep your immune system strong and allow it to do its job efficiently.

Vitamin C-rich fruits are known to boost immunity. Citrus fruits such as oranges, lemon, and limes are rich sources of vitamin C. Grapefruit has huge amounts of vitamin C – far better than citrus fruits.

Read: Health Benefits of Vitamin C

How to Boost Immune System Naturally?

Add garlic to your food as it has strong immunity-boosting properties. Its immunity-boosting capabilities can be attributed to a high concentration of a sulfur-containing compound called allicin.

Add ginger to your foods as it helps lower inflammation, nausea, and chronic pain.

Almonds are packed with vitamin E – a powerful antioxidant.

Turmeric is both anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial. The active ingredient curcumin has anti-microbial properties.

Green tea has both antioxidant and immune-boosting properties. It is rich in plant flavonoid – epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) – a powerful antioxidant and L-theanine amino acid – which offers immunity-boosting anti-microbial properties.

Eat colorful fruits and vegetables – leafy greens, broccoli, green pepper, carrots, oranges, apples, kiwi, strawberries, papaya, pomegranate, watermelon, guava, etc.

Limit Added Sugars

Refined and added sugars can drastically contribute to more calories intake and obesity – which in turn leads to increased blood sugar levels and increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. Sugar, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease – all these conditions can weaken your immune system. Therefore, limit your sugar intake to less than 25% of your daily calories intake.

Vitamin D

A nutritional tool for boosting immunity and overall health

What research has found so far about vitamin D, let us have a look:

• Vitamin D is very important for immune system health (proper functioning of the immune system).
• Offers protection against respiratory illnesses in general.
• Boosts the functions of immune cells.
• Reduces the risk of developing the acute respiratory illness.
• Vitamin D deficiency can augment cytokine storm – which is responsible for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and multiple organ failure in cases of COVID-19.
• Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to decreased lung function.

The main excerpts from vitamin D research – deficiency of vitamin D or low levels of vitamin D are associated with reduced immunity and increased susceptibility to infections (viral and bacterial) and diseases. Individuals who are deficient in vitamin D are prone to viral and bacterial infections and lung diseases. They are at increased risk of viral and bacterial infections (respiratory tract infections), tuberculosis, chronic pulmonary obstructive disease (COPD) and asthma.

Many people especially women are becoming prone to vitamin D deficiency. The easiest way to get the daily dose of vitamin D is sunlight exposure. If your lifestyle is not letting you get that then the alternative is supplementation. Virgin Cod Liver Oil is the richest known source of vitamin D.

Eat More Healthy Fats

Inflammation is a normal immunological response to injury or stress when it is low-level, whereas chronic inflammation decreases immune response. Healthy fats like omega-3 fatty acids found in certain foods (fish) boost the body’s immune response and fights inflammation. Olive oil, which is rich in mono-unsaturated fatty acids can help in reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. It is highly anti-inflammatory. It helps in augmenting immunity by fighting off pathogenic bacteria and viruses in the body.

When you want to have healthy fats, then go for Cod fish (salmon) and olive oil – both these foods improve immune response against pathogens and decrease inflammation.

Eat more fermented foods or take a probiotic supplement

Flourishing gut bacteria help in boosting your immune system. Probiotics are fermented foods rich in beneficial bacteria. Probiotics increase the numbers of beneficial bacteria that populate the large intestine. Yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, and natto are the best fermented foods.

It has been observed in a 3-month study that children who drank fermented milk daily had a lesser number (20% fewer) of childhood-related infections compared with a control group.

Another study done on a small group of people indicates the role of probiotics in augmenting immunity and immune response. The group infected with rhinovirus when supplemented with a probiotic containing Bifidobacterium had shown a strong immune response and reduced viral load in their nasal secretions.

Read: Gut Health is Essential for Overall Health

Build Your Social Network

Those who socialize frequently are less likely to feel alone or depressed. Even those who have friends and strong ties with them live healthy and purposeful lives. A healthy relationship is important for improving health and immunity. Therefore, if you want to live a healthy life, broaden your social ties – do social work, volunteer, join a group, and nurture bonds.

If you stay positive and laugh quite often you not only feel better, but your immunity also boosts.

Get Adequate Sleep

Several research studies show that lack of sleep can make you sick. For instance, those who don’t get enough sleep or individuals who are sleep deprived are prone to get viral infections – such as the common cold after being exposed to a cold virus.

During sleep, your immune system releases protective proteins which work against bacteria and viruses. Sleep deprivation results in decreased production of these proteins, antibodies, and immune cells. Long-term sleep deprivation can also lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. For adults at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep, each night is enough to boost immune system functions.

Read: Home Remedies for Insomnia