I’ve recorded this email as a video as well. You can find it on Facebook or Instagram.
As we start to hurtle towards the winter, and cold season, I thought it would be a good idea to write about boosting your immune system.
The two biggest areas to focus your attention on in order to boost your immune system are gut health, and stress management.
Over 70% of your immune system is located in your gut. So, keep your gut happy by keeping junky food or things which don’t agree with you to a minimum, and instead make sure to eat food which keep your gut bacteria happy and healthy – lots of lots of types of veggies, some fermented food like kefir, sauerkraut or kombucha, and perhaps some probiotic supplements too. People who take a regular probiotic supplement get less colds than people who don’t.
Stress has a big effect on your gut health and your immune system too. Keeping stress levels low allows your body to focus fully on keeping bugs at bay. Remember that stress can come from the external sources you’d immediately think of AND internal sources you might overlook like poor sleep, poor diet, excessive exercise, injuries etc.
When you have been exposed to a bug or if you think you might be coming down with something, take a big dose of vitamin C as soon as you can. Don’t wait until you feel like you have the bug as its too late for vitamin C to work its magic by then!
Zinc, especially lozenges, can apparently bind to bugs and eliminate them as they float around your upper respiratory tract.
Elderberry is also well researched and reduces the severity and duration of a cold.
You can use eucalyptus oil in an oil burner to kill airborne viruses.
Garlic, coconut and chia can provide antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral effects.
Maintaining general daily movement keeps your lymphatic system moving and allows it to clear toxins more easily, and to help immune supplements get where they need to go.
Eating well is a little different for everyone, and so keeping your immune system operating at its best is different for everyone too. The immune system is sometimes described as a fingerprint – each one is unique.
If you’d like some guidance on working out the best diet for you, get in touch with me and we’ll get you on the right path.