How to boost your immunity
And how to stop getting sick!
Listen to the episode here on the Healthyish + Happy podcast, or read below.
This winter (and autumn) has been a dooz-ay of people falling sick left, right and center.
- Whether it’s our lack of exposure to bugs…
- Or super-hero hygiene during the c🦠 era…
- Or whether there’s a new branch of super bugs floating through the air…
No matter the reason, if you’re fed up of fighting the stuffy nose, ignoring your scratchy throat, feeling run down, and throwing back vitamin C and cold and flu tablets like they’re lollies, then, oh boy, you are going to loveeee the latest Healthyish + Happy podcast episode.
The time has come where you can finally stop falling sick (and tired, grouchy, achy, icky) every winter (or all the time).
AND what’s even more amazing, is the answer is super simple:
✨ boost your immunity ✨
I don’t meant generic boosting like chugging on Armaforce, swigging back Echinacea or surviving off cold and flu tablets. These help boost your immunity short term or reduce your symptoms when you are sick, but they’re not always going to stop you from getting sick the next time a bug floats your way.
What will stop those bugs from causing a flu, cold, cough, achy bod, or diarrhoea party is building your immune system up at the root cause.
Once you do, your chances of falling sick in the first place dramatically reduce. Meaning no sicknesses, even when someone coughs or sneezes a snot rocket in your face. 🤧🦠
Wanna know what I mean and how to do it? Let’s jump in!
What’s depleting my immune system?
There are 3 main root causes you’ll want to nourish:
#1. NUTRIENT DEFICIENCIES
The top 3 are vitamin C, zinc and vitamin D.
Boosting vitamin C and zinc are your first point of call because they’re needed to build up your white blood cells which protect you and they’re very easily depleted when you’re sick or stressed.
Vitamin D is third but just as important. It’s crucial to balance your immune system, especially if you have autoimmune conditions. 1 in 3 Aussies are vitamin D deficient (despite all the sun we see) so it’s super important to get it checked with your Doctor and check out episode 46 to see if you have enough or need to supplement.
#2. GUT INTEGRITY
The gut is crucial for many things, and your immune system is one of them. Because 70-80% of your immune cells are located in your gut and your gut bacteria influence your immune system, too. So the gut is a crucial place you want to direct your eyeballs to boost your immune system back up.
While certain probiotics can have a short lived effect on your gut and immunity, it’s more beneficial to support and influence the gut bugs you already have in your gut for long-term results. This means using prebiotics instead of probiotics – so we actually feed the good guys in your gut that do all the important work.
How do you do this? Start off with by aiming for lots of fibre, veggies all colours of the rainbow and bone broth to help heal the gut. I’ll go into more detail in another post on all the gut healing goodies.
#3. BALANCE YOUR ON-THE-FRITZ NERVOUS SYSTEM
Long term stress (when you’re go go go, juggling a million and two things, inflamed, life stress, etc) depletes your immune system.
After constant exposure to stress, you’ll no longer have an uber strong immunity protecting you. This means every bacteria, virus and Frank will shoot up your nose or down your throat and have a very high chance of making you sick.
The solution? Rebalance your nervous system. This might involve more downtime, less working late, more fun in your life, better boundaries (aka. less time spent with those energy destroying people in your life). A great place to start is choosing one simple thing you enjoy and purposefully finding a time to do it each day. Doesn’t have to be much – simply standing outside in the sunshine and taking 3 deep breaths is fab.
