20 Ways To Strengthen Your Immune System

20 Ways To Strengthen Your Immune System

Some of the best ways to strengthen your immune system include eating more vegetables, reducing your stress levels, eating more protein, taking short walks every day, adding larch to your diet, changing your vegetable oil choices, using oregano oil, and many more.

Our immune system is one of the most important elements of our mental and physical health (some might say the most important part), but many people fail to take proper care of their immune system, which makes them far more susceptible to all sorts of dangerous diseases that will attack other parts of their body. Unfortunately, there are also a number of diseases that specifically attack the immune system, including auto-immune diseases, which are often the most deadly and incurable diseases. In other words, maintaining your immune system health is essential for a number of reasons.

People know a lot about traditional methods of boosting the immune system (drinking orange juice for its high vitamin C content), but there are dozens of new methods that can boost your immunity, many of which are not public knowledge. By changing certain lifestyle habits and dietary choices, it is possible to significantly protect this essential system. Let’s take a closer look at some of the specific ways that you can improve and strengthen your immune system.

20 Ways To Strengthen Your Immune System

1) Consume Friendly Bacteria – There are certain foods that are very beneficial for your immune system, especially yogurt, which has high levels of prebiotic and probiotic bacteria. This type of bacteria is “good” for our digestive system and helps to protect the body from different illnesses contracted through food. By adding yogurt to your diet, you can significantly boost your immune system efficiency.

2) Add Larch to Your Diet – According to recent research, adding larch to your diet can be very helpful for strengthening your immune system. This small budding plant can reduce colds significantly. You can get a hold of larch supplements at most health food stores, but make sure that it is a legitimate larch source; check to make sure that it says “larch resistant-aid”.

3) Eat More Protein – It’s important to increase your protein levels if you regularly suffer from illness or sickness. Protein is what antibodies are made of, so making sure that you have sufficient levels of protein in your body is an essential part of your immune system functioning.

4) Lower Your Stress Levels – Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are produced when we’re stressed, but this is only beneficial in very short bursts, like training a muscle. However, if you suffer from chronic stress and your hormonal response is constantly in high gear, it can be very detrimental to your immune system health. People that suffer from chronic anxiety tend to be ill far more often, because their immune response simply can’t be as strong as a result of hormonal overload.

5) Take Regular Walks -It has been shown that regular exercise, like short walks a few times a day, is very good for preventing serious diseases. Maintaining a somewhat active lifestyle gets antiobodies and white blood cells moving around the body more often, which means that they can begin fighting diseases or pathogens sooner. Furthermore, changing from a sedentary lifestyle also benefits you in terms of obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and a wide range of other health benefits.

6) Go Out and Socialize – Making new friends and reconnecting with old ones has been shown to increase the strength of our immune system. The pleasure receptors of reminiscing, the cognitive stimulation of socialization, and a handful of other factors all positively impact the immune system response, so go out there and meet someone!

7) Change Your Vegetable Oil Intake – Some of the most common vegetable oils, such as soybean oil, has almost three times as much “bad” cholesterol as other healthier options for vegetable oils, such as olive oil and canola oil. Research has shown that having a better balance of HDL cholesterol (good) and LDL cholesterol (bad) can significantly reduce inflammation and protect your immune system health in a number of ways.

8) Clear Your Lungs – Certain essential oils, when inhaled, act as expectorants. This means that your body will be able to clear out any mucus in your respiratory tract, which is where a large amount of bacteria can get stuck and develop into an illness. Sage extract is a particularly good way to ease coughs and clear out your respiratory tract.

9) Eat More Vegetables – Adding some extra vegetables into your diet is a wise choice if you’re trying to boost the strength of your immune system. The fiber in vegetables, as well as the protein present in many vegetables makes them good alternatives to meats, particularly for vegetarians who want to keep their protein content up. Mushrooms are a particularly delicious and healthy choice that is versatile in any meals for improving complex carbohydrates and other important nutrients that cam improve immune system function.

10) Make Love – In terms of stress release and positive hormonal release, making love is particularly good, as extensive research has shown. Some of the results have also pointed to the fact that people have more salivary antibodies if they regularly have sex as compared to people who don’t.(For married people please…)

11) Don’t Overdo the Exercise – While regular exercise is a good choice for stimulating the immune system, excessive exercise can actually lower your white blood cell count. This is why extreme athletes like mountain climbers and marathon runners need to take extra precautions to counter their weakened immune system with other tactics like those in this article!

12) Try Oregano Oil – Oregano oil is not a well known essential oil, but it can be a powerful tool for improving the strength of your immune system. It basically cleans out your digestive tract, eliminating harmful bacteria that may be growing there out of reach of the rest of your immune system. Small doses of this essential oil under medical supervision or advisement is always recommended.

13) Get Your Immunizations – In some parts of the world, getting immunizations can be very difficult, and in others, controversial based on religion or cultural tradition. To ensure that your immune system is in top form, it is important to get recommended immunizations, some of which can be acquired as an adult to increase your protection.

14) Limit Alcohol Consumption – There have been recent research connections between excessive alcohol consumption and a lowered functional ability of dendritic cells in the immune system, which are essential for seeking out dangerous microbes in the body. Therefore, having any more than 2 or 3 drinks can severely impair your body’s ability to eliminate infections, as well as cold and flu viruses.

15) Improve Your Skin Health – Antioxidants are very important in protecting the skin from the effects of free radicals, which are natural toxins that are the result of cellular metabolism. The antioxidants in pomegranate juice can improve the acid balance in the skin and protect against that oxidative stress. Eating pomegranates can be a very powerful way of protecting your body.

16) Green, Leafy Vegetables – One of the specific vegetable recommendations is cruciferous vegetables, which include kale, broccoli, spinach, and cabbage. These green, leafy vegetables are packed with beneficial nutrients, and are particularly good for detoxifying the liver and keeping the body clean of toxins so the immune system is not overloaded.

17) Add Some Ginger – According to traditional medicine in numerous countries, ginger has been shown to be a beneficial food for your immune systems. Ginger can stimulate the lymphatic system, which helps to clean toxins from your body. Also, it is known to warm the body and help to clear your sinuses, which also helps to eliminate toxins from accumulating there.

18) Get Your Vitamin D Fix – Although most people associate getting a tan with an unhealthy activity, sunlight is actually a key source of vitamin D, which is important for immune system function. Vitamin D is found in very few foods, but vitamin D can help to improve the immune response. Making sure to grab some extra sunshine or even taking vitamin D supplements is a good way to increase immune health.

19) Get Enough Sleep – When we are resting at night, that is the best chance our body has to heal up and recover the health of the body through natural immune system function. Denying your body that time to heal can break down the immune system and increase your chances of contracting viruses and other diseases.

20) Manage Your Mineral Intake – Managing a healthy balance of minerals in your body is important, particularly having too much of certain vitamins. Excessive vitamin A is actually dangerous for your immune system. Speaking to a dietitian can be a great way to properly manage your mineral intake to optimize your immune system.