Boost your Immune System and Avoid Getting Sick!
Happy Wednesday Squadies! Today I will be talking about a super important topic! With a pandemic upon us, it is more important than ever to take care of ourselves. We need to find ways to keep our immune system strong and prevent getting sick as best as we can! In today’s blog, I will be giving you 5 ways to BOOST your immune system and protect yourself against coronavirus!
1. Stress reduction
Keeping your stress levels low are super important when trying to avoid getting sick. Stress can actually suppress your immune system, leaving you more susceptible to sickness. There are a couple key things you can do to help relieve some of your stress and overall, prevent getting sick and help boost your immune system.
Meditation - Taking some time to just sit down, forget your daily stresses, and focus on nothing but breathing can be very beneficial. It helps to calm your mind and all the thoughts constantly racing through it. Practicing deep breathing can also help strengthen your lungs.
Ashwagandha - Ashwagandha is an ancient medicinal herb. It has many benefits, its main benefit being its ability to help your body manage stress. If you are overstressed, Ashwagandha is definitely a great choice to help you relax and get into a calmer mindset!
2. Sleep
Getting a good long sleep is crucial in keeping your immune system strong and healthy! Our bodies use the time while we are sleeping to repair and relax the body. Lack of sleep can also affect our metabolism and weight as it can mess with our hormones and how our body stores carbs. Lack of sleep can also affect our moods which can lead to more stress throughout the day. Sleep is definitely something you do not want to mess around with! Try to get about 8 hours of sleep a night in order to boost your immune system, avoid getting sick, and to feel overall healthier!
3. Supplements
There are a ton of suppliments avilable that can help improve your health and keep your immune system strong. Amung all that is available, there are 3 I would highly recommend to help keep your immunesystem in tip top shape:
Vitamin C - Vitamin C is crucial to take because it helps keep our immune system strong. Our bodies do not naturally produce vitamin C so we must supplement it to ensure we are getting enough daily!
Vitamin D - Vitamin D is vital in many key areas of the body and is important in maintaining bone health, nervous system health and fighting depression. Again, vitamin D is something we rely on the sun to give us, so it is super important especially if you live in a cold place to supplement it!
Zinc - Zinc is another vital nutrient. It is crucial in many bodily functions including immune function! Our bodies do not naturally produce it, so we need to make sure we are getting enough in our diet or supplementing it!
To find out more about different types of suppliments and my recommendations, check out my blog post all about suppliments
4. Exercise
A very effective way to help boost immunity is by exercising. How can exercise help prevent you from getting sick?! Exercising in a regular basis will improve your overall fitness levels which in turn, boost your immunity. Some even say exercise can help cut down the amount of colds you typically get! Along with an immunity boost, exercise also improves the respiratory system, reduces stress and improves sleep.
Since many gyms, sports, classes and community centres are closed or canceled, there are a TON of leansane workouts you can do straight from your home! I have posted TONS of at home workouts on my youtube channel you can do with little to no equipment and space! This week, I am doing a 7 day quaran-lean challenge you can also follow along with on my youtube channel! You can even choose to get some fresh air and take a brisk walk around the block to get some exercise in!
5. Fasting
Practicing intermittent or long term fasting can actually help prevent you from getting sick and boost your immunity! How is this possible?! According to Dr. Eric Berg, there are 2 main reasons:
- Many viruses thrive in a glucose environment which means they feed off of the energy our body creates through sugar and carbs. When our bodies are in a fasted state, we are not eating any calories which means our bodies need to find another source of energy. That’s when we turn to fat! Our body then takes our stored fat and converts it into ketones, so we are no longer running off of glucose while in a fasted state!
- The second reason is because of autophagy! Not only does it help recycle damaged or dead cells, but autophagy also helps clean out any bad or unnecessary microbes, cells and viruses from the body!
Long term fasting can also help our bodies with immunity. Long term fasting helps our bodies to increase the amount of stem cells in the immune system which can help strengthen it!
