How to boost your immunity and fight viruses?

Yes, it’s true — there is one virus at the moment that every­body is talk­ing about. It’s the coro­n­avirus – all the wash­ing of hands and avoid­ing those who are sick, etc. But, all virus­es, whichev­er one is around, can wreak hav­oc on your body. Your body needs to be in pret­ty good shape and pre­pared to fight back. Experts say that if you can boost your immune sys­tem and stay healthy, you are fight­ing a good fight!

How do you fight a good fight?

Some smart tips:

• Stay active: Research shows that when you exer­cise around five days a week, you half the risk of com­ing down with virus­es than those who are more sedentary.
• Watch your diet: For instance, if you focus on very healthy foods, for exam­ple, the Mediter­ranean way of eat­ing, you are going to feel the ben­e­fits in your body – try it, and see how more ener­getic and health­i­er you feel.
• Stay on top of stress: Did you know that there is a secure link between your men­tal health and your immune health? Peo­ple who are stressed all the time are sus­cep­ti­ble to devel­op­ing a virus. It’s because when you are stressed, your immune sys­tem takes a dip.  
• Get plen­ty of rest­ful sleep: Because look at it like this – your immune sys­tem is like a com­put­er; it needs rest so as not be become over­heat­ed. Sleep reboots your body and your whole system.

Other lifestyle habits that do the trick

There aren’t any mag­ic lotions and potions that you rub in or pop in that is mag­i­cal­ly going to secure your health against virus­es and the cold grip of win­ter. But still, we are going to look at some fan­tas­tic nat­ur­al solu­tions that are going to boost your body and your immune sys­tem and reduce your risk of catch­ing those nasty super­bugs. Let’s check them out:

• Herbs

  1- Echi­nacea: This herb has pow­er­ful stim­u­lants in it to pro­tect the immune sys­tem. One study in 2012 pub­lished in Evi­dence-Based Com­ple­men­tary and Alter­na­tive Med­i­cine says that Echi­nacea pro­duced max­i­mal effects on recur­ring infec­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those of the upper res­pi­ra­to­ry sys­tem. 2- Elder­ber­ry: Hip­pocrates, the great Father of Med­i­cine, knew that this plant was vital for boost­ing the immune sys­tem – he used it to treat his patients from colds, flu, inflam­ma­tion, and aller­gies. 3- Astra­galus Root: This herb comes from the bean and legume fam­i­ly, long known for its abil­i­ty to boost the immune sys­tem. Researchers have con­clud­ed that Astra­galus in extract form ben­e­fits the immune sys­tem and pro­tects peo­ple from gas­troin­testi­nal inflam­ma­tion and can­cer as well. 4- Gin­seng: Gin­seng is known for its abil­i­ty to fight infec­tion, boost the immune sys­tem and enhance resis­tance to infec­tion or ill­ness. Gin­seng is proven to have antimi­cro­bial com­pounds. These work at defend­ing your body against attacks from viral and bac­te­r­i­al infec­tions.

• Foods

1- Bone Broth: Bone broth is one healthy food – it sup­ports the immune func­tion because it pro­motes the health of the gut. That means that inflam­ma­tion is reduced, which is caused by a leaky gut syn­drome. It’s got plen­ty of amino acids and col­la­gen in it, which seals the open­ing of the gut lin­ing, sup­port­ing its integri­ty. Con­sum­ing bone broth is an excel­lent immune sys­tem boost­er food. 2- Gin­ger: We know how Ayurve­da med­i­cine prais­es gin­ger because of its strong action in strength­en­ing the immune sys­tem. Gin­ger is known to break down the accu­mu­la­tion of tox­ins in the body – it cleans­es the lym­phat­ic sys­tem by clear­ing your body of any unwant­ed waste. Gin­ger, from research, shows that it is effec­tive in pro­tect­ing the body from infec­tious dis­eases. 3- Green Tea: Stud­ies show that green tea works as an antivirus and anti­fun­gal agent, strength­en­ing the immune sys­tem with its health-pro­mot­ing antiox­i­dants and amino acids.   4- Foods with vit­a­min C: Vit­a­min C foods, like cit­rus fruits and red bell pep­pers, improve the health of the immune sys­tem because they have anti-inflam­ma­to­ry and antiox­i­dant prop­er­ties in them. Not only that, but they also have the all-impor­tant zinc to reduce the symp­toms of res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tions. 5- Foods with beta-carotene: Beta-carotene helps to reduce inflam­ma­tion and deal with oxida­tive stress. Beta carotene foods are pump­kin, car­rot juice, sweet pota­to, apri­cots, red bell pep­pers, kale, col­lard greens, and spinach.

• Supplements

1- Pro­bi­otics: Leaky gut caus­es an imbal­ance in the body. When this occurs, food sen­si­tiv­i­ties occur as well as an autoim­mune dis­ease. That is the result of a weak­ened immune sys­tem. It is vital to con­sume plen­ty of pro­bi­ot­ic foods and sup­ple­ments. 2- Vit­a­min D: A vit­a­min D defi­cien­cy is asso­ci­at­ed with increased autoim­mu­ni­ty and also being sus­cep­ti­ble to infec­tion. Vit­a­min D main­tains tol­er­ance and pro­motes pro­tec­tive immu­ni­ty. A study from the Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal showed that peo­ple with low vit­a­min D lev­els were the ones more like­ly to have upper res­pi­ra­to­ry tract infec­tions than those with suf­fi­cient lev­els of vit­a­min D. 3- Zinc: Many peo­ple know that zinc fights colds and oth­er ill­ness­es. And if you have ever expe­ri­enced bac­te­r­i­al build-up in your nose, it will fight that and help to clear it up.

• Essential Oils

1- Myrrh: Myrrh ranks as one of the most pop­u­lar essen­tial oils. From ancient times, it has been used for wound clean­ing and to even staunch bleed­ing. And those who use it know how effec­tive it is to boost the immune sys­tem because of its strong antibac­te­r­i­al, anti­sep­tic, and anti­fun­gal prop­er­ties. 2- Oregano: Oregano essen­tial oil has an excel­lent rep­u­ta­tion for its immune-boost­ing prop­er­ties and heal­ing effects. That is because it con­tains plen­ty of antibac­te­r­i­al, anti­fun­gal, antivi­ral, and anti-par­a­site com­pounds.

• Lifestyle

1- Exer­cise: When you incor­po­rate phys­i­cal activ­i­ty into your dai­ly and week­ly reg­i­men, you are most def­i­nite­ly strength­en­ing your immune sys­tem. 2- Reduce stress: As men­tioned above, stud­ies prove that when you have chron­ic stress, it can sup­press your pro­tec­tive immune respons­es and exac­er­bate patho­log­i­cal immune respons­es. For you to enjoy and pro­mote heal­ing and be healthy, you need to min­i­mize your stress lev­els. We all know how dif­fi­cult this can be in today’s world. But still, it is impor­tant. Less stress means bet­ter sleep, also men­tioned above. 3- Take pro­tec­tive mea­sures: When bugs and germs are doing the rounds, it’s imper­a­tive to pro­tect your­self and those around you. This means:

• Hand­wash­ing frequently.
• Not touch­ing your face and there­by spread­ing infection.
• Stay­ing at home when you are sick to elim­i­nate pass­ing the germs around.
• Cough­ing or sneez­ing into a tissue.
• Seek­ing med­ical atten­tion and treat­ment when needed.

4- Just a pre­cau­tion­ary note: Remem­ber to use herbs, sup­ple­ments, and essen­tial oils with care. Some of them can be pret­ty potent, and some should not even be tak­en for more than two weeks at a time. There needs to be a break in between long dos­es. Also, be cau­tious if you are preg­nant when you use essen­tial oils – check with your prac­ti­tion­er.

Final thoughts

Our immune sys­tems con­sist of an intri­cate bal­ance of organs, cells, and pro­teins. These all work togeth­er to pro­tect our bod­ies from virus­es and bac­te­ria that want to invade the body. That means when it’s not work­ing prop­er­ly, you might not even notice signs and symp­toms. But when the per­for­mance of your immune sys­tem is com­pro­mised, and you become ill, it is only then that you might real­ize your immune sys­tem is not well. Plants, herbs, min­er­als, foods and lifestyle changes can be used to pre­vent and fight infec­tions due to their antimi­cro­bial and immune-boost­ing prop­er­ties. On the Dr. Oz show this year, the Chief well­ness offi­cer at the Cleve­land Clin­ic, Dr. Michael Roizen, dis­cussed which foods to eat and which ones to avoid, pro­tect­ing the body.

What to Eat

It might sound pret­ty obvi­ous, but eat­ing clean and healthy is tru­ly your best bet. Feed­ing your body nutri­ent-rich foods keeps it in peak shape and health to fight off ill­ness – this is whether it’s the flu, the coro­n­avirus, or the com­mon cold. Dr. Roizen does rec­om­mend eat­ing plant-based foods and plen­ty of cit­rus fruits, cru­cif­er­ous veg­gies, toma­toes, and omega fats – foods like salmon, flax seeds, chia seeds, olive oil, almonds, and wal­nuts. Why so? All these types of foods decrease inflam­ma­tion in the body, an impor­tant defence against virus­es.  

What foods to avoid

Dr. Roizen advis­es peo­ple to avoid processed foods, added sug­ars, and red meat. These types of foods increase inflam­ma­tion in the body. It is also sug­gest­ed that peo­ple stay away from shell­fish and sushi, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the coro­n­avirus around. These foods often can car­ry par­a­sites or oth­er virus­es, which can weak­en the immune response. You know that say­ing – what you put in is what you get out, right? It makes sense, there­fore that the food we eat is what gives our bod­ies the mate­ri­als and “infor­ma­tion” it needs to func­tion prop­er­ly. With­out the right infor­ma­tion, our health and our meta­bol­ic process­es suf­fer, peri­od. “No doc­tor has ever healed any­one of any­thing in the his­to­ry of the world. The human immune sys­tem heals, and that’s the only thing that heals” – Bob Wright