5 Unique Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Immune System

5 Unique Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Immune System

Your immune system is the first thing that helps your body fight off infections, viruses, and long-term diseases. Advice to consume fruits, get some exercise, and get sufficient rest is familiar, but there are several other, lesser-known ways to improve immunity.

Here, we will explore five different tips that scientists say can help your immune system stay strong and healthy. They surpass basic knowledge to give new ideas on how to keep the immune system healthy.

1. Associating prebiotics and probiotics in your diet is a good way to look after your gut.

Most people recognize that probiotics are helpful for the gut, yet prebiotics provide the necessary food for these bacteria in equal measure. 

How to Enhance Gut-Immune Connection:

• Consume Prebiotic-Rich Foods: Consuming garlic, onions, leeks, asparagus, bananas, or oats can nourish the healthy bacteria in your intestines.
• Fermented Probiotic Foods: All of these foods are sources of beneficial bacteria.
• Polyphenol Power: You can increase the number of helpful bacteria in your gut by eating green tea, dark chocolate, and berries.

Science-Backed Insight: In 2021, a study in Nature determined that people with a variety of bacteria in their gut were able to respond better to pathogens.

2. Expose yourself to cold temperatures safely (by using Controlled Thermogenesis).

When you are cold, your body activates brown fat, lessens inflammation, and boosts your immune cells. 

Ways to Incorporate Cold Exposure:

• Cold Showers (2-3 minutes)
•     Ice Baths (5-10 minutes): Lowers muscle inflammation and improves the supply of blood to the muscles.
• Winter Swimming (for experienced individuals): Helps your body to burn more calories and become stronger.

Research Insight: A study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation demonstrated that exposing the body to low temperatures led to increased activity of T-cells, which are important in defending us against infections.

3. Do Nasal Breathing and Mouth Taping every time you go to bed.

Simply breathing through the nose instead of the mouth eliminates harmful germs, raises nitric oxide, and helps your lungs take in more oxygen, all leading to a tougher natural defense system.

Benefits of Nasal Breathing:

• Nitric Oxide Boost: It destroys viruses and helps the lungs to work better.
• Better Sleep Quality: Helps to reduce snoring and sleep apnea, which are bad for your immunity.
• Filters Airborne Pathogens: Bacteria are caught by nose hairs and mucus.

How to Implement It:

• Mouth Taping at Night: Use tapes that are designed especially for nasal breathing.
• Conscious Breathing Exercises: Practice diaphragmatic breathing daily.
• Scientific Support: Nasal breathing was found in a study in Free Radical Biology and Medicine to play a key role in furtering the antiviral immune reaction.

4. Take Adaptogens to Support Both Your Stress and Immune Systems

The herbs ashwagandha, reishi mushroom, and astragalus help in dealing with stress and boost the immune system.

Top Adaptogens for Immunity:

Ashwagandha: Helps bring down cortisol and raises the number of white blood cells.

Reishi Mushroom: Supports the activities of natural killer cells.

Astragalus Root: Increases the production of T cells and their ability to fight viruses.

How to Use Them:

Use either teas, tinctures, or supplements (the right amount should be advised by a doctor).

• Research Insight: In Phytotherapy Research in 2020, it was shown that taking adaptogens helps to reduce inflammation and improve the body’s immune response.

5. Focus on having good-quality sleep at the appropriate time.

Repair and rebuilding of the immune system take place during sleep. Not getting adequate sleep interferes with the release of cytokines and decreases protection against disease.

Sleep Optimization Strategies:

• Align with Natural Light: Being in the sun first thing in the morning helps control melatonin.
• Avoid Blue Light at Night: Reduces sleep-disrupting cortisol.
• Sleep in a Cool Room (65°F/18°C): Enhances deep sleep phases.

Science Says: Sleepers who slept 7-9 hours each night were almost twice as likely to mount an antibody response to vaccines compared to sleep-deprived people, according to Sleep Medicine Reviews.

Conclusion: Considering Different Factors That Help the Immune System

Apart from basic recommendations, taking care of the gut, getting cold, breathing through the nose, using adaptogens, and improving sleep can make your immune system stronger.

Final Takeaways:

1. Make sure to provide prebiotics and probiotics to the microorganisms in your gut.
2. Once in a while, keep your body cool to encourage brown fat to help your immunity.
3. Try to breathe in and out using your nose as much as you can.
4. Adaptogens can work against the lowering of your immune system brought by stress.
5. Aim to improve your sleep so that immune cells can be renewed.

Helping your immune system grow stronger by adding these lesser-known ways can be done fully naturally.

A strong immune system depends on deep sleep.

A lot of people appreciate the role of sleep in health, but not many have realized how much it affects your immunity. The production of cytokines, which help with immunity, is increased during deep sleep (also called slow-wave sleep). 

Getting Sleep to Protect Your Immune System:

Follow a Sleep Schedule: When you keep the same bedtime and wake-up time, it supports your internal clock.Limit Evening Stimulants: High caffeine and alcohol levels can reduce deep sleep, during which the immune cells repair.

Try Magnesium or Glycine: As a result, they lead to better sleep and a feeling of relaxation.