How We Keep Our Immune System Strong All Year Long With 7 Simple Steps
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How We Keep Our Immune System Strong All Year Long
Our health and the strength of our immune system is something we often take for granted until it’s gone, and that is clearer at no time more so than now. Travelling so frequently and living in developing countries, it’s really important for us to keep our immune system strong all year long so that we never get sick in the first place! Plus, no one likes to feel like crap. Luckily for us, these simple measures we have in place seem to be working as neither of us has been sick in years. Read on to find out what we do to stay healthy every day:
Aim for 10 fruits and vegetables a day
Ten fruits and vegetables in your diet may seem like a daunting task to achieve but it’s actually easier than it seems, we do it by having 3 veg at lunch and dinner each and then 3 fruits at breakfast and 1 as a snack later in the day. For example, we have lemon in our morning tea and banana, raisins and berries in our breakfast.
Then, we have some dried fruit as a snack with some nuts in the afternoon and maybe an extra portion of fruit at lunch or dinner to bring us easily to 4. For the vegetables, if we’re not having something veg rich, such as a soup or curry, we simply make sure to add on some tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, peas and/or avocado onto the side of whatever it is we’re eating to get us up to our 3 per meal. We also try and aim for all the colours of the rainbow in a day, or as varied as possible, and keep it seasonal. Don’t forget about those super-boosting mushrooms! Having optimal nutrition is really key for ensuring your body is functioning at its best.
Loads of herbs, such as sage and rosemary, are also really beneficial to keep adding for immune strength with their antimicrobial properties (they say it’s part of why Italians and in particular the Blue Zone Sardinians live so long!). People who eat between 5-10 fruits and vegetables a day have been shown to drastically cut their risk of heart disease and stroke, among a myriad of other diseases.
We also add dark chocolate to our daily breakfast, mainly for the magnesium and yum factor, but it also contains antioxidants that help boost the immune system by protecting cells from free radicals.
You may have heard that all disease starts in the gut and research is proving more and more how true this is! We eat homemade kefir and apple cider vinegar for breakfast every day, and olives, pickles, sauerkraut, yoghurt, and miso a few times a week. Just before we travel, we also do a round of probiotics such as these ones to make sure we’ve built a colony of the good guys. They also need prebiotic food such as garlic (another immune system powerhouse), onion, leek and asparagus to feed them with too.
2. Get adequate sleep
Sleep is such an absolutely fundamental aspect of keeping a healthy immune system that is often too lightly disregarded. Did you know that sleeping for 4 hours for just one night can lower your natural killer cells (the ones that keep free radicals, tumours and cancer in check) to 72% capacity?! We know that we don’t perform our best when we don’t sleep well, and neither do our bodies. To try and ensure we get enough restorative deep sleep, we aim to keep a consistent sleep/wake schedule every day as much as possible, you can read more about our nighttime routine here! This is really important for ensuring our immune cells are able to do their job properly.
3. Manage stress levels
This is another one that is SO important and yet often overlooked! We manage ours with daily meditation, yoga and journalling. Meditation is one of those things where if you don’t do it, you’ve probably heard everyone else banging on about it and just wish they would shut the hell up haha. Or maybe you tried it a few times and it just isn’t for you and you don’t know what all the fuss is about.
For us, meditation drastically changed the way we process change and emotions and has been so instrumental in helping us navigate the sometimes tricky waters of travel and living/working in foreign countries. Even just a few conscious breaths a day, especially in the face of stress, can do wonders for your nervous system. There are so many different types of meditation out there, we recommend trying a few out for a while until they stick and become habit. You can read more about our meditation practice here.
Journalling is a new addition to our stress management repertoire and it has been crazy useful! I never realised just how cathartic writing down your feelings could be! As we know, gratitude is a mega mood-booster and can really help shift your perspective during stressful times. I do a weekly free-flow journal and gratitude journal and it’s really done wonder for my psyche, not to mention my immune response.
Mantras/affirmations are also particularly effective for dealing with stress and difficult emotions and always help to put us in a good mood first thing in the morning as well as grounding us through hardship. Plus, a positive attitude can in and of itself increase your immune system according to some studies!
Being positive is NOT just about being happy all the time, it’s about practicing acceptance and appreciation and always looking for a silver lining as well as honouring all emotions and allowing them the space to pass through us and give us the messages they need to. It increases resilience in the face of adversity and helps us to always look at the bigger picture (not simply suppressing anything other than happiness and forcing joy blindly where it’s not warranted).
Maybe you prefer to simply do some deep breathing techniques or talk it out with someone, the important thing is to find a way that works for you to lower those stress reactions in the first place and overcome them faster afterwards (A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle was also instrumental in reframing some of our stress-triggers!).
4. Supplement with elderberry, echinacea, oregano and propolis
When we feel something coming on, to nip it immediately in the bud we supplement with elderberry, echinacea and propolis, as well as the standard extra vitamin C and zinc of course. Propolis in particular is AMAZING for a sore throat. We also do 3 warm saltwater gargles a day (you can add in propolis, apple cider vinegar, coconut oil, honey, oregano oil and/or lemon too for an extra kick), and if you’re feeling particularly brave, you can whip out a neti pot as well (we haven’t got there yet but are trying haha).
Oregano oil has been shown to have strong antiviral properties so we make sure to pop a few of these whenever we’re under the weather too.
Adaptogens such as astragalus help boost the immune system so we do a couple of rounds of them yearly. They also have the added bonus of calming anxiety levels and increasing energy, woo! If you’re interested in learning more about these powerful herbs, check out my post on Which Are The Best Adaptogens?
If we ever get a stuffy nose or cough, we make sure to do a steam with antibacterial, anti-inflammatory essential oils such as tea tree too (click to read our comprehensive guide on the most effective essential oils here).
5. Tea, tea and more tea
We’re positively tea fiends and drink about 8 cups of the herbal stuff a day. When we’re feeling rundown, we make sure to add extra ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, honey, black pepper (to help the turmeric absorb better) and lemon to our green morning tea blend as well as some coconut oil for its antimicrobial properties. We also start each day with a glass of room temperature water and a dash of apple cider vinegar to kickstart our digestive system. Chamomile tea is an excellent immune booster by being antifungal and calming the nervous system. Mint, hibiscus and rooibos are also excellent choices for immune support due to their antiviral and antioxidant properties.
6. Spend time in Mother Nature
Sunlight and Mother Nature are really important for reducing our cortisol levels, increasing endorphins, calming our nervous system, lowering blood pressure and boosting our oxygen levels, all musts for a strong immune system! Vitamin D in particular is essential for a strong immune system, if your levels are low you’re at greater risk for autoimmune diseases and are more susceptible to infections so consider getting tested in the winter months and supplement accordingly. The associated deep breathing we often do when immersed in nature helps our lymph drainage system too as well as increasing oxygen levels, bonus points if you can do a couple of extra rounds throughout the day for the added mindfulness benefits!
7. Make sure to get enough daily exercise!
We know that exercise is extremely important for our health, but it’s also important to get your body moving daily, even if that’s just for a brief walk. We’re creatures that are made to move and our sedentary indoor lifestyle isn’t doing us any favours- sitting is the new smoking amirite? (It goes without saying that, of course, you shouldn’t be smoking either). For exercise, yoga is an especially excellent choice because it’s both a workout and stress manager, but whatever gets you moving is best!
At least 30 minutes of physical activity every day is ideal for getting the blood pumping along with all those nutrients and blood cells! It can also help flush out infectious diseases from your lungs and airways, which is highly important in times like these!
So there you have our full list of the 7 simple things we do daily to keep our immune system strong all year long! We really hope they can be of some use to you and your family, feel free to share this post with whoever you think could use a boost! We hope everyone is staying healthy and strong and send lots of love and hope to everyone :)
We’d love to know what else you would add to this list? We’re always looking to expand on it, let us know in the comments section below!
