12 Tips to Boost Your Immune System and Get Healthier

Strengthening your immune system is the best way to guard your body against diseases. A healthy immune system protects you against seasonal and chronic disorders by curbing inflammation and controlling the onslaught of pathogens.

Read on to know how you can stimulate your immune system with changes in your lifestyle, your mindset and day-to-day habits.

1. Get enough shuteye. Research shows that not getting sufficient sleep can increase the body’s stress levels, leading to diminished immunity and increase in free radical damage, which leads to inflammation and disease. For a well-functioning immune system, make sleep a priority and get seven to eight hours of sleep every night.
2. Let go of pent-up emotions. Did you know that storing negative feelings and emotions in your body affects it at all levels? When you’re constantly in a state of negativity, stress and anxiety, your immune system remains in fighting mode, taking away from the natural repair and renewal processes of your body. Allow your body to build its defenses by learning to release unwanted emotions, fears and negative memories.
3. Practice happiness. If you don’t feel happy, follow the adage of “fake it till you make it.” Be in positive and cheerful situations, laugh more, and spend more time with people who make you happy. According to research, laughing reduces stress hormone levels in the body and promotes mental and physical well-being.
4. Fix nutritional deficiencies. Get blood-work done to know if you have any vitamin or mineral deficiencies, which plays a big role in the restoration and rebuilding mechanisms within your body. For instance, vitamin C is essential for fighting infections, zinc is essential for the growth of killer cells, and vitamin D is needed for a number of essential processes at the cellular level, including immune function. Supplements like IntraMax are really good for building immunity.
5. Build your natural defenses with probiotics. If you fall ill often or feel generally unwell or fatigued, start taking probiotics every day, either in the form of probiotic-rich foods (yogurt, buttermilk, cottage cheese) or in supplement form. This will give your immunity a much needed boost and help ward off frequent infections.
6. Maintain an active lifestyle. Nothing makes your body happier than movement and exercise, for which you need not go to the gymnasium. Just being agile and active through the day doing your everyday activities can give improve your immunity and make you less prone to sickness.
7. Meet a past life therapist. Lack of energy, frequent sickness, aches and pains, digestive issues, unexplained headaches—all of these and more can be manifestations of a past trauma buried deep in your subconscious mind. Even a chronic illness such as asthma can have roots in your deep past. A regression therapist can help you access past life trauma and release bottled-up emotions that may be causing you physical or emotional suffering.
8. Treat your body to something special. Healing exercises such as yoga, meditation and tai chi render an all-encompassing positive effect on the body, strengthening and rejuvenating the body, mind and spirit and repairing the damage caused by poor lifestyle choices.
9. Hydrate your body. Water is an elixir, a gift from nature that has the power to flush out toxins and disease-causing organisms from your body. Drinking plenty of water every day is all the more important if you fall sick often. Keeping your body systems well hydrated lowers the chances of seasonal infections and keeps your digestion in top shape.
10. Wash your hands more often. Washing your hands may not directly do anything to boost your immunity, but it will reduce the number of pathogens you introduce into your body with dirty hands, thereby decreasing your risk of infections. Especially if you’re a meat-eater, remember to wash your hands thoroughly both before and after handling meat.
11. Quit smoking. If you want to live a long, healthy life, you will need to quit smoking tobacco, which introduces over 400 different deadly chemicals into your body. In addition, both direct inhalation and second-hand smoke diminish your lungs’ ability to fight disease-causing organisms, increasing your risk of respiratory tract infections and allergies, among others.
12. Cultivate a hobby. Dig into your past and find something that used to give you joy. Invest your time and energy into a hobby and work dedicatedly to get better at your craft. Keeping yourself busy and engaged in meaningful activities releases happy hormones in the brain and diverts your mind from thinking about your health all the time.
13. Healing exercises such as yoga, meditation, and tai chi render an all-encompassing positive effect on the body, strengthening and rejuvenating the body, mind and spirit and repairing the damage caused by poor lifestyle choices.