Winter’s on its way and so is cold and flu season. To stay healthy, during the colder months, there are some easy, natural ways to boost your immunity and help protect you.
Food can be an immune booster
Enjoy plenty of fresh fruit, vegetables, wholegrains, legumes, nuts and seeds so that your body gets vital nutrients for building a strong immune system. Specific nutrients with potential immune boosting effects include:
Iron, which is found in green leafy vegetables, legumes, wholegrain bread, fortified breakfast cereals and lean red meat;
Antioxidants, including vitamin E, C and some of the phytochemicals found in fresh fruit and vegetables, legumes and wholegrains; and
Selenium, which is found in wholemeal flour, rice, almonds, Brazil nuts, egg, cheese and fish.
Whole foods are best
Protective compounds naturally found in plant foods — particularly antioxidants — are often more effective when eaten as part of the whole food rather than taken as supplements. Fresh, whole foods have a wide range of protective elements that interact with each other to make them beneficial.
Weight cycling
Significant fluctuations in body weight — such as those you get with fad dieting — may weaken your immune system. While more research is needed, this observation certainly reinforces that a balanced, long-term approach to weight loss is a far healthier option.
Exercise
Moderate physical activity boosts our immune system and can mean we are sick less often. Enjoying some form of activity for 30 minutes most days of the week is ideal. However, intense, strenuous physical activity (at the level of a professional athlete or serious “weekend athlete”), can depress your immunity in the short term, especially if you’re also stressed, malnourished and tired.
Rest and relaxation
High levels of stress and lack of sleep can weaken the immune system. To help improve the quality of sleep you’re getting, try to get your body into a routine of sleeping and waking by going to bed and rising at the same time — even on weekends. While a long sleep-in feels nice, it can often leave you feeling extra-tired.
Your say: Nobody likes getting the flu during winter, what are your best tips for keeping healthy during the cold seasons? Share with us.
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