Boosting Your Body’s Ability to Fight Disease, Naturally

Boosting Your Body’s Ability to Fight Disease, Naturally

While the human body has a truly remarkable defense against diseases, it’s equally impressive how many natural (and easily accessible) ways there are to boost our bodies’ ability to fight diseases right here at home.

With communities re-opening and going about the “new normal” of daily routines, it’s more important now than ever before to implement regular practices of natural immune-boosting techniques into our daily routines. Here are four simple ways to jump-start your practice:

Make sure you’re getting enough sleep.

A healthy amount of sleep and allowing your body to rest can have a significant impact on fueling your body’s immune system (among other things like stabilizing your mood and energizing your body).

Most modern sleep studies state that our bodies need an average of eight hours of quality sleep to keep our immune systems healthy. According to UC Health, when we sleep, “our bodies produce a protein called cytokines, which target infection and inflammation, creating an immune response.” While getting better sleep is easier said than done, here are a few tips on maintaining better sleep habits:

• Stay consistent. Having a routine of going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day helps your body create a method to promote better sleep. It can also be helpful to designate an area in your house that is just for sleeping, which encourages consistency in routine and quality sleep.

• Manage your sleep environment. We tend to have a more restful sleep in a quiet, dark, and cool room. For those of you living in cities or areas with more noise and light pollution, try blackout curtains, sleep masks, earplugs, or a fan to manage these factors.

• Limit your exposure to blue light at night. Blue light is the light emitted from our device screens (phones, computers, and TVs), many of which we tend to look at right up until we try to fall asleep. It keeps our brain awake and prevents melatonin production, so try to give yourself an hour or more of screen-free time before bed.

• Exercise consistently. Regular movement is said to not just help you fall asleep faster, but also improve the quality of your deep sleep. The deep sleep stage of the sleep cycle helps to boost immune function and aids in controlling stress and anxiety.
Maintain a healthy (and diverse) diet!

Understanding the impact that your diet can have directly on your immune system can be a game-changer for fighting off infection. According to UC Health, our body “absorbs nutrients more efficiently when they come from whole food sources like fruits and vegetables rather than processed foods or supplements.”

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With this in mind, consider adding immune-boosting foods into your diet consistently:

• Kale, grapefruits, oranges, tangerines, and sweet red pepper are high in vitamin C.
• Cantaloupe, carrots, spinach, sweet potato, apricots, squash, and cantaloupe are excellent sources of beta-carotene.
• Avocado, nuts, and seeds are high in Vitamin E.

Eating any and all of the foods above are great ways to strengthen your immune system, but there’s a simple rule that can help when choosing produce at the store: the more colorful your assortment is, the better!

Get regular exposure to sunlight

Getting natural sunlight is another low effort-high impact way to boost our immune systems daily. While a daily dose of sunlight won’t fend off or cure today’s infectious diseases, scientists have found that exposure to the sun has numerous benefits including strengthening the body’s defenses. The benefits of daily doses of sunlight are interwoven with other immune-boosting practices, as well. For example, exposure to regular sunlight can help maintain our internal clock, which regulates sleep.

(Helpful tip: Dr. Michael Holick, a professor of medicine at Boston University, developed D Minder Pro, a free app that “tracks the amount of vitamin D that your body is getting from exposure to the sun.” It also warns you when you are staying outdoors too long. Enjoy!)

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Manage your stress levels

Have you ever considered how day-to-day stress can weaken our bodies’ abilities to fight off disease? According to the Sunshine Clinic, when we experience stress, it “creates a hormone in our bodies called cortisol,” which can “suppress our immune system’s effectiveness in fighting off invaders of your body by lowering the number of lymphocytes present in the blood.”

Managing your stress response can be a very powerful tool, but it may take some time to test out different practices to see which one works best for you.

Here are a few helpful tips to start:

• Designate a private place where you can sit comfortably and quietly.
• Don’t try too hard; this practice should be for you alone.
• Try to practice once a day for 10–20 minutes.

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