Amp Up Your Immune System

Welcome to cold and flu season! Since we’ve been dealing with COVID, have you become just a little bit more heightened and aware about your immune system and staying healthy? 

Today, I want to talk about what you can do to amp up your immune system. You probably have echinacea, zinc and vitamin C ready to go in your medicine cabinet. Which is great! But what are you doing physically to amp up your immune system? 

1. Exercise.  
   1. When we exercise, the physical activity can help flush bacteria out of our lungs and out of our airways. Makes perfect sense, right? 
   2. Exercise can also make changes in our antibodies and our white blood cells. Exercise can increase the rate that antibodies and WBCs travel through the body. This means they can find bacteria or viruses before they would if you didn’t exercise. 
   3. Exercise also increases your body temperature. The elevated body temperature can kill off bacteria in your body. 
   4. Exercise can decrease your stress, which decreases the release of stress hormones. Stress hormones are notorious for suppressing our immune system. 
2. Reduce stress. 
   1. Higher levels of stress means more cortisol is released into our body. That suppresses the immune system. 
   2. Stress can reduce the number of killer cells we have in our body. These killer cells are also known as lymphocytes. We need lymphocytes to fight off infection in our body. Stress lowers lymphocyte numbers. So stay calm and be healthy. 
3. Sleep. 
   1. Good quality sleep boosts immunity immunity several ways. It helps reduce stress. 
   2. Sleep can bolster T-cells. T-cells are little fighter cells go out and kill off infections. 
   3. They have discovered that sleep may actually strengthen immune memory. What does this mean? It means your body can more quickly recognize a previous foreign foe and the body sorts out the best way to attack it. 
4. Sunshine. 
   1. 15 minutes of sunshine in the morning, boosts your vitamin D levels and that’s going to help you sleep better in at night. 
   2. Sunshine helps energize infection fighting T-cells. 

Peace & Love!