Tips for a Strong Immune System
With the recent COVID-19 (Coronavirus) there has been a surge of people trying to build up their immune system. Your immune system consists of a complex collection of cells that constantly defend your body against invading viruses, toxins, and bacteria.
Making healthy lifestyle choices is the most important way to boost your immune system. What we put in our bodies on a daily basis is crucial for our overall health, wellbeing, and energy levels!
Here are just a few tips to boost up your immune system and help you fight off any flu and viruses.
Your choices do matter!
Add garlic to your daily diet. Garlic is one of the most powerful anti-viral foods around. It has strong antibacterial and anti-viral properties which stimulates your immune system. It contains allicin which fights infections and helps build up your immune system!
Consume foods with Vitamin C. For decades, vitamin C has been used to help prevent the common cold. As an antioxidant, vitamin C fights free radicals in the body which may help prevent or delay certain cancers and heart disease, and boost up your immune system. Our bodies don’t make vitamin C, but we need it for immune function, bone structure, iron absorption, and healthy skin. We get vitamin C from our diet, usually in citrus fruits, strawberries, green vegetables, red peppers and tomatoes.
Eat more green foods are packed full of phytochemicals, especially carotenes and chlorophyll and are especially helpful in boosting the immune system and flushing the body of toxins.
Any food that is dark green in color is considered a green food and is good for boosting the immune system. These foods include broccoli, spinach, kale, asparagus, Brussel sprouts, beet greens, collard greens, Swiss chard, dandelion, watercress and dark green lettuces like Romaine, green leaf and red leaf.
Eat more orange foods contain a compound called glutathione, an immune-system component that works to destroy antigens like flu viruses. Orange foods also contain the phytochemical called beta-carotene (which is responsible for their orange color), which converts in the body to vitamin A which is a POWERFUL ANTIOXIDANT. Orange foods include oranges, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, acorn squash, butternut squash, carrots, and cantaloupe
Exercise. Walking can help protect you during the cold and flu season. This simple activity that you’ve been doing since you were about a year old is now being touted as “the closest thing we have to a wonder drug,” in the words of Dr. Thomas Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A study of over 1,000 men and women found that those who walked at least 20 minutes a day, at least 5 days a week, had 43% fewer sick days than those who exercised once a week or less. And if they did get sick, it was for a shorter duration, and their symptoms were milder.
Get adequate sleep: Sleep is important for health in general, and as a bonus it may also benefit our immune function. Studies show that people who don’t get quality sleep or enough sleep are more likely to get sick after being exposed to a virus, such as a common cold virus. Lack of sleep can also affect how fast you recover if you do get sick.
Thank you good reminders