Boosting our Immunity

Winter is well and truly here.
If that were not motivation enough for us to invest in boosting our immunity, the presence of Covid19 this Winter surely seals the deal.

Due to Covid19, all our personal hygiene practices should have reached new heights of thoroughness. Wellness basics like washing our hands regularly with soap and water and sneezing into the crook of our elbows is working wonders as a preventative for colds, flu and your garden variety viral infections.

Fancy stepping up your health and wellbeing now with some easy immunity boosting strategies?

Three simple ways of boosting our immunity:

1- Sleep

When we are well rested – having enjoyed sufficient quality sleep – nothing can touch us!

New research shows that more than half of adult Australians are suffering from at least one chronic sleep symptom that is affecting their ability to live a healthy, happy life.

Even more scary than this statistic, is that only half the respondents of this study reported “regular space in their daily routine for adequate sleep”.
WHAT??!

Have work, family, social and lifestyle pressures of modern life become so great that half of us don’t have/make time for sleep?!

Sleep people! Sleep!
It does not get more fundamental to life than sleep folks.

We heal when we sleep.
When we sleep, our bodies regenerate and rejuvenate at a cellular level.
So in order to fight infection, we need sleep to fortify our castle walls against marauding microscopic intruders – like Covid19.

We need sleep to maintain our health and wellbeing.
And not just the health and wellbeing of our physical body either.

Sleep is an essential component of good mental health. We need sleep to balance and restore our hormone, stress and energy levels overnight so we feel good and positive in the morning, instead of like a water-logged ball that noone wants to kick around anymore ~ Heavy Heart by YOU AM I.

 

 

Never in our lives has it been more important to give our bodies the time each night to properly rest, recuperate and regenerate. Giving our bodies time to sleep means we are giving our bodies time to restore vital function and energy levels, boosting our immunity.

 

My hottest tips for getting a good night’s sleep:

• Make your bedroom a haven from the world outside!
• Ensure the room is dark and well ventilated at night and let cleansing sunshine in during the day.
• Remove LED and fluorescent lighting and replace with soft, warm lighting.
• Keep the space clean and tidy.
  • Our unconscious minds notice everything, even if we don’t!
    Piles of books on the side tables and clothes on the floor are disturbing to a mind looking for peace.
• Invest in a quality mattress, pillows and linen and make sure your bed linen is season appropriate because getting hot or cold will wake you up.
• Limit alcohol.
  • Alcohol may have you initially feeling drowsy, but it actually prevents deep sleep patterns and will disturb your sleep at around 2am-3am when your body heats up as it burns off the alcohol in your system.
• Limit caffeine intake and make your intake as far from your sleep time as possible.
• Remove ALL devices!
  • That means TVs, plug-in alarm clocks, iPads, laptops and phones!
    Between the stimuli of the content spewing forth from these devices, their EMF (ElectoMagneticFrequency) and the subtle strobing of their light source (look at your screens in slow motion video and you’ll never want them in bed with you again!), devices are disturbing our sleep in a huge way.

 

2- Stress

Stress makes everything worse, including our immunity.
Think of it this way, when we are stressing our energy is disappearing into a big, black hole that gives us absolutely nothing back. Stress is an anti-investment in our health and wellbeing and robs our bodies of the energy and space for healing. And because we are busy stressing, we often don’t notice the physical symptoms and behaviour changes caused by the stress we are doing.

This lack of awareness about our unhealthy and unconscious responses to our world can be fatal if left unchecked or unchanged for prolonged periods.

There are plenty of ways in which we can manage incoming stressors in a healthy way.
Here’s a few:

• Getting regular physical activity
• Practicing relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, meditation, yoga, tai chi or massage
• Keeping a sense of humour
• Spending time with family and friends
• Setting aside time for hobbies, such as reading a book or listening to music
• Creating new perspectives and learning about ourselves – especially about how our minds work
• Enjoying food and drink that is low in sugar to avoid the spikes and inevitable lows
• Limit our caffeine intake to one serve per day
• Set clear boundaries

3- Input

When thinking about boosting our immunity, consideration must go to what we are putting into our bodies to feed, nourish and build them. How can we expect them to thrive and be strong enough to fight illness and infection otherwise?

A balanced diet is essential!

Making our diet consist of mostly fresh whole foods, as opposed to anything that comes in a packet, is an easy rule of thumb. So too is incorporating as much colour as possible into your diet. Winter is a super easy time to do that, with the purple of beetroot, orange of pumpkin, yellow of lemons, green of broccoli, red of capsicum…

The addition of nourishing food traditions, like fermenting and the slow cooking of meat and bones, will take us to the next level when boosting our immunity. Introducing beneficial bacteria from fermented foods has a positive effect on gut health and since about 80% of our Immune System resides in our guts, making our guts a happy place makes a lot of sense doesn’t it?

I find the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon a constant source of simple, food-as-medicine recipes and we are truly blessed because the whole book is available FOR FREE online here:

 

 

Go nuts!
I especially LOVE the recipes for Beet Kvass (p. 595), Kombucha (p. 596) and Chicken Rice Soup (p.212).

* Some Simple and Helpful Supplements:

Even with yummy, rainbow coloured fresh foods and nourishing fermented foods, I also supplement my diet over Autumn and Winter with some basic, immunity boosting goodies:

• Antioxidant, Cell Repair – Vitamin C and Zinc
  I like Meta Zinc with Vitamin C powder by Metagenics.
• White Blood Cell Production
  I like Echinacea and Andrographis and choose a great product called Armaforce for inputing both.
• Antioxidant, Gastroprotective, Neuroprotective, Antimicrobial
  I like Comvita Olive Leaf Extract in the unflavoured liquid form.

Meta ZInc with Vitamin C and Armaforce are practitioner prescribed brands of very high quality and you will find many Chiropractors, Naturopaths and Integrative Doctors stock them. My local health food store sells them over the counter because there’s always a Naturopath on duty. Yours may do too.

Adding these three supplements to our diet is a simple way of boosting our immunity. Along with being totally natural and effective, they don’t cost the Earth and they’re quick and easy to take.

Reach out if you’ve got any questions won’t you?
And remember to get some sleep!
Sweet dreams.

LOVE
Rachel x
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