Tired of getting sick every flu season? Can’t afford to miss any more work? In this article, we’ll talk about what you can do this cold and flu season to not get sick.
The reason I put “ever” in the title with parenthesis is that the ideal goal is to not get sick ever again. Though you may not be able to avoid getting sick 100% of the time, you can strive to limit how affected you are when you do get sick. If you haven’t been working towards not getting sick before reading this article, it will take some time to start seeing results. As the popular (and probably overused) phrase goes, rome wasn’t built in a day. Be patient and stick with it.
Now, let’s get to how not to get sick…
If you prefer to listen to this article instead, here is the podcast episode I did on it:
What You Can Do to Not Get Sick
There are two main factors that can affect whether you get sick or not. One, limit your exposure to viruses and bacteria. Two, maximize your immune system.
We talked about how to limit your exposure to viruses and bacteria in this article. In this article, we will focus on how to maximize your immune system.
To maximize your immunity, you have to…
- Provide what your body needs to work
- Boost your immunity (exercise, fermented foods, probiotics)
- Reduce/remove what’s blocking your immune system
Providing What Your Body Needs
The body is made up of complex organs that work together to enable you to function well. To function well, the body needs fuel to complete its tasks. Fuel comes from not only nutrients from food, but also sleep.
As for nutrients, you can think of them as ingredients needed to bake your favorite cookies. If you leave out an ingredient or two, your cookies won’t turn out right. Your cookies also won’t turn out right if you add the ingredients in wrong amounts.
Just as every ingredient in its right amount is needed to bake the perfect cookies, so every nutrient in its right amount is needed for the body to work as it’s designed.
Therefore, if one nutrient is left out, the body has to work around not having that nutrient. If there’s not enough of a nutrient available in the body, some tasks will be put on hold until there is enough. Both of these situations can cause imbalances in the body that make the body vulnerable to illnesses and disease.
To further this point, if you’re having problems with your digestion, your whole body is affected. If you’re having problems with falling asleep, your whole body is affected. And if you’re having problems with pain in one area, your whole body is affected.
The body works as a whole unit and every part of the body needs fuel to complete its tasks to keep you healthy. This means that if you want to maximize your immune system, you have to take care of every part of your body.
Eating Nutrient-Rich Foods
One of the best ways to fuel your body is to eat nutrient-rich foods. The more natural nutrients are in a food item, the more nutrient-rich it is.
Here are some nutrient-rich foods:
- Vegetables (surprise!)
- Fruits
- Beans
- Salmon or other cold-water fish
- Nuts
- Seeds
- Spices
- Herbs
- Grains*
- Dairy*
- Eggs*
- Meats*
*Some don’t believe grains, dairy, eggs, and/or meats are good for you. However, they, too, provide nutrients that your body needs.
A good rule with food is this… The more processed a food item is the less natural nutrients it has in it.
Side-note: You can find minimally processed foods around the perimeter of the grocery store. Processed foods are typically found in the middle of a grocery store. (More on convenience foods here.) Beans, grains, nuts, seeds, and dried spices and herbs are also found in the middle shelves of a grocery store. However, they are often minimally processed.
Getting Enough Sleep
Think it’s impressive to be able to work off 4-5 hours of sleep? Well, don’t. Getting 4-5 hours of sleep each night is actually not healthy. Your body needs closer to 8-10 hours of sleep each night.
According to the Sleep Foundation, your body focuses on repairing muscles, resting your immune system, and regulating hormones during sleep. These are things that your body doesn’t do when you’re awake.
So, getting around 8-10 hours of sleep most nights allows your body to get important stuff done to keep you healthy. Like resting your immune system. (If you need help sleeping, check out my post on healthy sleep habits here.)
Now, on to ways you can boost your immune system to not get sick…
Boosting Your Immune System
Boosting your immune system is actually quite simple. You can do this by eating fermented foods or taking probiotics. Exercise is also great for boosting your immune system.
Both fermented foods and probiotics are full of good bacteria, yeast, and fungi that are good for your gut. If you didn’t know this before, your gut is incredibly important in keeping you healthy. Your gut health is actually intricately connected to the health of your immune system.
Here are fermented foods you can buy. Here are recipes for fermented food you can make at home. If you’re not big on fermented foods, probiotic supplements are another way to get good bacteria in your gut. Check out this article on probiotics. You can find guidance on what to look for in a probiotic supplement towards the bottom of the article.
As for exercise, we’ll talk more about that in the section below.
Reducing Immune-Blockers
There are many things that can be in the way of our immune system doing what it needs to do. Some of the most common immune-blockers are inflammation, stress, and toxins.
Minimizing Inflammation
Inflammation is well-known as an immune-blocker. Thankfully, it can be reduced through diet. Studies are now showing that an imbalanced ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 fats in different foods can lead to inflammation. If you want to learn more about this, check out organic versus regular chicken here or farmed versus wild-caught salmon here.
There is also a theory that inflammation may be caused by foods that have been forcefully modified. Forceful modification of food is done because there is a gene of one plant that is desired in another but the transfer of the desired gene does not happen naturally. So, the plant is subjected to gamma rays or x-rays, selective breeding, genetic modification, or a combination of the three to force the gene to transfer. Wheat, corn, soy, and sugar beets are examples of foods that have been forcefully modified.
Supposedly, modifying foods cause the food to produce proteins that cannot be identified by the body. If the body doesn’t recognize the proteins, the immune system sees the proteins as threats. This causes the immune system to attack the proteins, thus causing inflammation.
This may explain the growth of gluten sensitivities, perhaps in response to modified wheat. There’s a growth of sugar sensitivities over the years as well (i.e. diabetes). Interestingly, the main sources of sugar in processed foods comes from corn (i.e. corn syrup) or sugar cane and sugar beets. Both corn and sugar beets have been largely modified in the United States.
Modified foods and imbalanced fat ratios in food are not the only potential causes of inflammation in the body. Other causes include certain medications, antibiotics, and toxic chemicals. You can read more about the causes of inflammation here.
Limiting Stress
Stress is another common obstacle to the immune system working. Health symptoms often start or flare up when a stressful event happens.
Now, that isn’t to say that stress causes illness or disease. But, stress can block your immune system from working. If your immune system isn’t working, you are vulnerable to getting sick. Check out ways to reduce stress and anxiety here.
Removing Toxins
Toxins are dangerous materials that can cause a lot of damage to organs if not removed quickly. The body can make these dangerous materials or obtain them from outside sources. Outside sources include synthetic chemicals and heavy metals. These toxins are difficult to get out of the body quickly, especially if the body is not fueled correctly.
Unfortunately, there are many ways you can be exposed to toxins. One way is by eating fruits or vegetables that have been sprayed with pesticides and/or grown in soils that are contaminated with heavy metals. Eating foods with synthetic additives is another way. One way that you may not be aware of is using shampoo, conditioner, body wash, or household cleaners (etc.) with synthetic ingredients in them.
A good rule of thumb is that if it’s not found in nature, it’s going to be harder for your body to break down and get rid of. If it’s harder for your body to get rid of, then it’s more likely to be stored in your body. If it’s stored in your body, then it can cause health problems.
So, to help your body get rid of toxins, you can exercise and give your body the nutrients it needs to get the toxins out (AKA detox).
Exercise gets your blood pumping and body working, which gives your immune system a little boost. It also helps your body gets rid of toxins through sweat. Also, saunas are also a great way to sweat out toxins.
(Here are ways to fit in exercise when you have a busy schedule.)
Side-note: deodorant prevents your body from sweating, thus it prevents your body from getting toxins out. If your body can’t sweat out toxins, your liver has to remove all toxins inside the body on its own, which can cause problems in the future. Fatty liver can be a sign that the body is having trouble removing toxins.
As for giving your body nutrients it needs to detox, that is a topic I’ll be covering in my membership site.
More info on that once I have finished beta-testing it!