Nothing is scarier than a global pandemic that no one has a remedy for or a vaccine. However, this is exactly how the year 2020 started. For a whopping six months, the world has been held together by funny enough, staying apart. Well, of course, you can throw in the bottles of sanitizers and face masks. Horrifying, I know.
Other than bringing the world to a standstill, what is the pandemic teaching us about immunity?
A lot of people consider health practitioners as the first line of defense against the coronavirus, but really, how true is that? However, when you think about it, you are the first line of defense or your immune system.
This is an extensive network of cells, organs, and proteins that protect you from infections by fighting harmful viruses and infections. Therefore, it is crucial to safeguard your immunity, but how exactly do you do it?
How Does Your Immune System Function?
Generally, antibodies work to fight viruses and bacteria. It’s a product which the immune system produces antibodies in response to foreign substances or proteins in the body. Under normal circumstances, your immune system should be able to identify and ignore normal body cells.
Antibodies protect your body from pathogens by binding to them (neutralization), coating the pathogen to stimulate removal by macrophages (opsonization), or triggering destruction through activating other immune responses.
Boosting Your Immunity
Your immune system can fight viruses in such circumstances, so it’s crucial to keep your immunity in top-tier conditions. What are some of the ways you can achieve this?
Exercise
The relationship between the immune system and exercise cannot be ignored or taken for granted. By staying active, the immune cells multiply much faster while reducing bodily inflammations. If you have an unstable immunity, exercise of moderate-intensity tends to significantly improve your vaccines’ effectiveness.
Nevertheless, don’t wear yourself out with exercise since it will only increase stress levels. Stress weakens your immune system. What’s more, regular exercise strengthens your bones, improves your mood, and is great for cardiovascular health.
Fix Your Circadian Rhythm
According to research, your sleep patterns directly influence how strong or weak your immunity is. Practicing a healthy sleep routine reduces your chance of getting sick. For instance, adults who sleep for less than six hours have a higher chance of contracting a common cold than those getting seven or more hours.
Try creating a sleep cycle by sleeping and waking at the same time every day. Also, avoid screens an hour before designated sleep hour, and ensure your bedroom is entirely dark.
Be Keen On What You Feed Your Body
For the longest time, people have been advised to cut back on the amount of processed food they consume. Instead, they should focus on healthier, greener, and whole foods.
Other than helping in weight loss and maintaining a healthy cardiovascular system, feeding on particular foods decreases inflammation in the body. This is achieved by the antioxidants that get rid of the free radicals that weaken your immunity.
In addition, plant fiber feeds your gut microbiome, and this has a direct effect on your body resistance. You can maintain a healthy immune system and gut health by feeding more on fermented foods, including kefir and yogurt.
These foods contain probiotics, which is a bacterium that aids the immune system in identifying harmful cells from the normal ones.
Take Tea. Drink Lots Of It
Don’t try to deny it. Tea is an excellent stress reliever, and it can be quite the perfect ending to any sort of day. However, research classifies tea as an immune booster due to its effect of rebalancing gut bacteria.
What’s more, this immune-boosting effect of tea is not limited to green or herbal teas only. Black tea, which is prominent in the UK, has similar effects. Regarding the immune system tea has proved to have substantial positive effects on the body, including decreased inflammation and improving gut bacteria.
To this end, the market is saturated with tea premixes that offer immunity-boosting effects. Therefore, this would be the perfect time to get your best tea kettle and get brewing. Such teas come with special herb additives such as ashwagandha, mulethi, kadha, tulsi, giloy, and cardamom, making them the best immune system natural boosters.
Conclusion
There is definitely a lot more to the immune system, and it is an individual responsibility to take care of your immunity. However, older people become more susceptible to infection since immunity responses tend to decrease with an increase in years. Thus, they are advised to take dietary supplements.
At such a time, be very vigilant about what you consume and how you interact with people. In addition, don’t forget to wash your hands often.
Which of these immune-boosting activities have you tried before?
