7 Ways to Boost Your Immune System

Boosting your immune system can help you fight off ailments, but how do you strengthen your body’s natural defences?

While bolstering immunity is easier said than done, dietary and lifestyle changes can strengthen your body's defences and help you fight harmful pathogens or disease-causing organisms.

Effective Ways to Strengthen Immune System Naturally

Here's a look at seven things you can do to boost your immune system and keep your body strong:

1) Keep Your Body Nourished

Sugar makes your immune system weak and increases the likelihood of weight gain, Type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, chronic inflammation and cognitive decline.

Not only that, but eating too much sugar causes you to crave for more sugar. It also destroys essential bacteria in your gut. As a result, almost half the American adult population have one or more diet-related chronic diseases.

A diet rich in vitamin C, such as fruits, vegetables like dark leafy greens, sweet potatoes and spices such as ginger and turmeric, can boost your immune system and reduce inflammation.

Eating whole foods is one of the best ways to improve your health. If you want orange juice, buy oranges and squeeze them. If you like granola, buy oats, nuts, raisins and spices of choice, and make it yourself.

2) Regular Workout

Regular physical workout is essential for overall health. (Image via Pexels / Leon Ardho)

You should exercise regularly, but only 5% of people in the United States do any kind of physical activity every day.

Studies show that it increases the immune system’s competence and lowers the risk of infection. Eating fibre can reduce the risk of inflammation, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders. You have to find something you enjoy doing, though.

Go dancing, swimming, rollerblading; ride a bike; schedule walks with friends; there are lots of ways to get moving

3) Get Enough Sleep

Getting 7-8 hours everyday sleep keeps your immune function strong. (Image via Unsplash / Lux Graves)

Not getting enough sleep lowers your immune system’s ability to fight off infection. If you don’t sleep enough, your body produces fewer cytokines — proteins that interact with the immune system to keep disease at bay.

To produce enough cytokines, you should get between seven and eight hours of sleep per night. If your schedule doesn't allow you to sleep for a full eight hours, take two 30-minute naps during the day.

4) Unwinding Routine

Find different activities to lower stress levels in your body. (Image via Unsplash / Content Pixie)

When a person is stressed, their body produces a hormone called cortisol. When the body produces too much cortisol, over time an inflammatory response is triggered. That leaves the immune system overworked, reducing the body’s lymphocytes - white blood cells that fight off illness.

To reduce stress, do exercise and spend time with your loved ones, and get a pet. If you have a high-stress job, you should realise that multitasking is an illusion. Take a walk during your lunch break while listening to music or a podcast. Establish boundaries by not checking your work email from home, if possible.

5) Stay Hydrated

Drinking enough water throughout the day keeps bodily function healthy. (Image via Pexels / Pixabay)

Dehydration, which causes headaches and swollen hands and feet, impacts digestion, concentration, physical performance and mood. Drinking hydrating fluids throughout the day (not including coffee or alcohol) helps your heart pump blood more easily. Don't wait till you feel thirsty to drink water; by then, you could be dehydrated.

You can make drinking water more appealing by adding fruit and vegetables to your meals and including them as snacks. These foods are high in water, such as watermelon, cucumber, citrus fruit and celery.

6) Incorporate Garlic in your diet

Garlic can help boost the immune system, and it's been used as an ancient remedy to prevent illness.

The active compound in garlic allicin has antibacterial properties that help fight off infections. Garlic's benefits are eventually in its anti-inflammatory properties, which keep the immune system working at its best.

7) Good Gut Health

Most of the body's immune cells are in the digestive system, so good gut health is critical to healthy bodily function.

The digestive system helps break down toxins as part of our natural detoxifying system. People who increase their fibre and roughage can help keep toxins moving through the gut quickly. It's also important to take a good quality pre- and probiotic supplement in your diet.

Takeaway

Overall, immune boosting is very important. Apart from the air we breathe, the food we eat and our regular exercise routines, there is a lot of pressure on us to keep our immune systems strong.

Too much sugar and too little sleep hurt simmune function. Moreover, no matter how much water we drink or how well we condition our heart, simple physical inactivity robs our body the chance to build an effective defence against disease-causing agents.

By taking some simple steps to boost our immunity, we can be better prepared to ward off any infections that may come our way.