Building an Immune-Supportive Lifestyle: 7 Self-Care Habits You Can Start Today
Given the current environment, you are probably wondering about the best ways to make sure your immune system is functioning at its tip-top shape. Let’s acknowledge the increasing importance of maintaining consistent habits that keep our immune systems strong and resilient. Being proactive in staying healthy can help your body have an easier time fighting a pathogen in the event that you do get sick. And I know from personal experience that when we expand our wellness toolkit, we can experience a greatly accelerated healing process.
STRENGTHENING YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM: SELF-CARE HABITS
As a Chinese Medicine practitioner, my goal is always to strengthen the body and fortify it against future pain, illness, or other imbalance. Underlying every treatment—whether it be for pain management, fertility support, or anxiety relief—is an element of preventative medicine. Chinese Medicine is uniquely powerful because it has the capacity to boost our resilience.
For this reason, I’m a strong proponent of regular acupuncture treatments and any other habit we can engage in that supports our health in the short and long term. This article contains some practical tips you can follow at home to support your immune health. And remember that immune health is so intertwined with the rest of our health that supporting one supports the other.
1. GET A FULL NIGHT’S REST
What would it be like to get a full 8 or more hours of sleep on a regular basis? Adequate amounts of deep, restful sleep are very important for so many aspects of your health, especially immune health. When we are under-slept, would healing time is delayed and our bodies have a much harder time fighting viruses and bacteria. If you are interested in learning more about the powerful benefits of sleep, I recommend Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, by Matthew Walker PhD.
2. SPEND TIME IN NATURE
Did you know that going for a walk through the forest has a measurable impact on your stress hormones and the cells in your bloodstream related to immune activity? For example, it can increase the number and activity of natural killer cells in your body. This is incredible, because these cells help protect us from viruses and even cancer. Make time in your schedule to regularly go for a hike, walk in your favorite park, or sit by a lake. You can learn some of the scientific reasons that being in nature (and around trees, specifically), boosts your health and immune system in this book: The Secret Therapy of Trees: Harness the Healing Energy of Forest Bathing and Natural Landscapes, by Marco Mencagli and Marco Nieri.
3. DRINK LOTS OF HIGH QUALITY FILTERED WATER
Water is vital for the proper functioning of our cells, blood, organs, brain… really our whole body! Water is also important for immune health because it helps flush out toxins and cellular debris from our tissues. In Colorado, it’s so dry that we all have to make a concerted effort to stay adequately hydrated. As a general rule of thumb, I recommend drinking half your weight (measured in lbs.) in ounces. So, for every 100 lbs., you would drink 50 oz. of water. You may need to modify this equation to suit your personal body constitution, but it gives you somewhere to start. Rest assured, if you are drinking no water or only a tiny amount (say, 20 oz./day), that is way too little.
I recommend using a high quality filtration system. The best options are reverse osmosis and carbon filtration. In my home, I opted for carbon filtration because so much water is wasted in reverse osmosis systems. The carbon filtration system in my house is the Berkey Water Filter. There are several distributors online. The systems are a bit expensive, but the filtered water they produce is very pure. The tap water in my home is so chlorinated that it frequently smells like swimming pool water. After filtering through my Berkey system (about a 15-minute process), the chlorine taste and smell has fully disappeared.
If you are interested in purchasing a Berkey and would like to save a little money, look for the “Scratch and Dent” page on the BerkeyFilters.com website. (I’m not affiliated with this company or receiving royalties; I just love the product!)
4. LIGHTEN YOUR TOXIC LOAD
As part of your spring cleaning, I recommend that you inventory the harmful chemicals in your house and lighten your toxic load by banishing them from your life. Frequent or even occasional exposure to toxic chemicals creates a huge burden for your body and deeply weakens your immune system.
I’m primarily targeting endocrine disruptors here, which are sneaky chemicals that many of us are exposed to daily and that, unfortunately, can have devastating effects on our hormonal systems at incredibly low exposure levels. (BPA is one of the most well-known.)
Our hormones are so important to the function of our bodies, and they circulate at very low levels in the bloodstream—parts per million. What that means is that endocrine disrupting chemicals can hijack our hormone system at the same very low concentration. (For example, the minute concentrations of birth control pill chemicals that have made their way into our water system, are potent enough in streams and rivers to influence the sex of the fish populations within them.)
It’s springtime, so number one on the list is the ubiquitous weedkiller, Roundup. Roundup contains glyphosate, which is a highly toxic chemical that is also sprayed liberally on many conventional food crops. This chemical is not only an endocrine disruptor, but it’s also carcinogenic. So if Roundup or other herbicides and pesticides are part of your typical yard maintenance arsenal, I strongly encourage you to reconsider. Sure, it takes a few extra minutes to pull your dandelions rather than spraying them, but it’s well worth the effort to preserve your health. (And give some organic veggies a try while you’re at it.)
Secondly, mainstream body care products like lotions, shampoos, and perfumes are another common source of chemical exposure, containing endocrine disruptors like parabens and phthalates. I recommend either vetting your products very well using a resource like the Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org) or you can take the simpler route of shopping for these products at Natural Grocers (formerly Vitamin Cottage). I like Natural Grocers because the company maintains very strict standards for their products, and you won’t find harmful chemicals hiding on their shelves.
5. ADOPT A YOGA PRACTICE
A well-rounded yoga practice can do wonders for your immunity and overall health. By “well-rounded,” I mean a mix of standing poses, forward extensions, twists, inversions, and restorative poses. Inversions—poses in which your head is below your heart—are particularly beneficial for immunity. One very simple immune-boosting inverted pose you can do at home is called Viparita Karani. It can be as simple as lying on the floor with your legs up the wall, or you can elevate your pelvis under a pillow. See a visual in the post Self-Care: Yoga for Immunity.
6. CULTIVATE A GRATITUDE PRACTICE
There is a lot of research out now about the physiological benefits of gratitude and positive thinking. Stress, anxiety, and fear are intensely elevated right now, and it’s so easy to get caught up in negative thought loops. Be compassionate towards yourself. We are grappling with the serious medical and economic ramifications of COVID-19, and it’s important to hold space for that without letting it take you down. The folks at Heart Math recommend that we transform our fear into “managed concern,” which means that we acknowledge the severity of the situation while maintaining strict discipline over our mind and not permitting our thoughts to descend into despair, hopelessness, or paralyzing fear.
Alongside a “managed concern” practice, I encourage you to train your brain actively with a gratitude practice, because it can mitigate the negative health effects that unbridled levels of stress hormones would otherwise cause. There are different ways to build a gratitude practice. Many people like the idea of a gratitude journal: writing down three things they are grateful for every morning or evening. Others like to practice throughout the day.
Whatever your method, I encourage you to bring to mind something or someone that you are grateful for and then sit with those feelings for several long deep breaths. If you want to experience the physiological benefits of a gratitude practice, it’s not enough only to think about your gratitude intellectually. The changes in your body chemistry begin to take place when you conjure a feeling of gratitude in your heart and savor that feeling for several long breaths or, better yet, several minutes. If the idea of feeling the gratitude physically feels foreign at first, don’t worry. Just start practicing and it will come over time. One of my favorite books on this subject is Hardwiring Happiness, by Rick Hanson.
7. RELY ON THE POWER OF FOOD AND MEDICINAL HERBS
Eating a balanced diet that is rich in nourishing foods and whole fruits and vegetables is essential, because we need adequate nutritional intake of the many helpful vitamins and nutrients they have. Medicinal herbs go a step further, and you probably have access to some potent herbs that are hiding in your spice cabinet!
Common medicinal herbs include scallions, garlic, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom, licorice, thyme, and oregano, just to name a few. Together, the herbs in this short list boast potent anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, and anti-fungal effects, and they can increase circulation and alleviate nausea, gas, and bloating. Pretty wild when you think about it!
But you don’t need to know the specific medicinal actions of whole foods and culinary spices in order to benefit from them in a general way. When you cook a variety of foods using a variety of fresh spices, you are availing your body of a whole spectrum of health-promoting compounds. (And take note that dried herbs lose much of their medicinal potency (and taste) after 3 months, so if you have any ancient Spice Islands or McCormick’s jars languishing in the back of your cupboard, it’s time to replace them with a new set of fresh, organic dried herbs.)
If, on the other hand, you have a specific health issue you would like to solve with plant medicine, expert advice may be helpful for you. All but two of the herbs in the list above is featured in the Chinese herbal pharmacopoeia, which is a huge catalog of medicinal herbs that extends well beyond these common culinary ingredients. Chinese herbs range from mild (appropriate in common cooking) to highly potent (appropriate for specific medicinal purposes), and they can address a vast array of health challenges. If you are wondering if your condition or symptoms can be helped by Chinese Herbal Medicine, I recommend scheduling an herbal consultation with a trained Chinese Medicine practitioner. (In Colorado, the credential you want to see is MSOM.)
CONCLUSION
It’s empowering to remember that there is so much you can do daily to fortify your health. Take wonderful care of yourself and stay well!
