In the article, discussing about the vital role of boosting your Immunity through these essential lifestyle choice components: strategic workouts (that focus on strength, flexibility, mobility, cardiovascular endurance), nutrition and meal patterns, sleep patterns and lower or eliminate alcohol and no drugs.
Key points to consider when seeking to boost Immunity are de-stressing by lowering cortisol levels and increasing endorphins. Exercise and consistent sleep and meal patterns are all conducive to reaching this state of being.
1. Strategic Workouts
Exercise helps minimize your chances of developing heart disease. It also keeps your bones strong and healthy. Exercise also makes a lot of changes in white blood cells and antibodies. White blood cells are the body’s immune system cells that fight disease.
These WBCs or antibodies circulate more rapidly, so they could detect illnesses earlier than they might have before. Exercise delays the release of stress hormones. Some stress increases the chance of illness. Lower stress hormones may protect against illness.
Exercise stimulates the production of endorphins and reduces stress hormones, which together help foster relaxation.
2. Nutrition and Meal Patterns For Boosting Immunity
Consume micro-nutrient-rich foods and high in zinc with a vast array of deep colors. Examples: sweet potatoes, almonds, grapefruit, kiwi fruit, mixed berries, asparagus, broccoli sprouts, purple onion, mushrooms, kale, spinach, lemons, sage, wheatgrass, rosemary, red bell peppers, garlic, turmeric, and ginger.
Focus on getting all key vitamins and minerals and especially zinc, selenium, iron, copper, folic acid, and vitamins A, B6, C, and E as it is linked to Immunity.
3. Sleep Patterns
Without sufficient sleep, your body makes fewer cytokines, a type of protein that targets infection and inflammation, effectively creating an immune response. Lack of sleep also increases your cortisol hormone (stress hormone) versus ideally having endorphins released, which occurs during exercise.
A goal to get 7-8 hours of sleep each night and going to bed and rising at the same time each day. It is also ideal to have a daily 20-25 nap about 6 hours into the day and then keep working, and it is not advisable to take a nap too late in the day.
Ideally, up 6 am nap 12:30 /1 pm and continue working 2 pm onward. This optimizes mental and physical functioning and leads to higher efficiency, better memory, and improved overall performance, including quickness and reaction time.
A study at NASA on sleepy military pilots and astronauts found that a 40-minute nap improved performance by 34% and alertness by 100%.
4. Eliminating Alcohol and No Drugs
Alcohol impacts the way health gut microbes interact with your immune system. Alcohol also unsettles the gut barrier, allowing more bacteria to pass into the blood. Excessive drinking decreases the number and function of three important kinds of cells in your immune system–macrophages, T, and C cells. Alcohol decreases the liver and the pancreas functioning, which can lead to immune system problems.
About the Author:
Carolyn Moos, Personal Trainer & Yoga Instructor
Carolyn Moos – a certified personal trainer with CEC’s. These include nutrition for various demographics, pre and post-natal fitness and nutrition, biomechanical analysis, athlete conditioning, and yoga. She provides live fitness and health services or virtual services offered online by FaceTime, Skype or Google Hangouts and pre-recorded content via www.fitforlivinglife.thinkific.com.
