how to boost your immune system, naturally.
The cooler weather has well and truely set in and so have the colds and illnesses that come with it. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you catch a cold this winter, it is a part of life; the important difference here is how your body will respond and recover.
The best strategy is preventative immune care.
Inside this blog I am going to be sharing with you:
What increases your likelihood of being unwell
Foods to focus on this winter
My favourite herbs, nutrients and probiotics for immune health
What my family and I are taking this winter
Let’s dive in!
What increases your likelihood of being unwell
There are the obvious things like hygiene and keeping your body physically warm, the two big factors that directly down regulate your body’s immune function and increase your likelihood of catching a bug is 1) your gut health, and 2) stress.
Gut Health: Your digestive tract runs from your mouth, through your stomach, intestines to our anus. It acts as a first-line defender creating a physical barrier between the outside world and your body (blood steam, organs etc). We need this barrier to be healthy and functioning to physically prevent bacteria and virus’s entering our blood stream.
A healthy gut is generally symptom-free, and you would generally do a 1-3 sausage-shaped stools every day.
Signs your gut needs some healing include:
If you do 1 stool a day or skip a day here/there, you are mildly constipated. The goal is 2-3 formed stools every day.
Regular bouts of diarrhoea
Bloating
Abdominal pain and discomfort
Foul-smelling wind and/or burping
Undigested food in your stools regularly
You are reactive to food
Some lesser known signs include:
Hay fever and seasonal allergies
Skin conditions like eczema/dermatitis
If you have an autoimmune disease, its highly likely your gut needs healing
Keep reading to learn about foods to heal your gut at home
Stress
Managing stress is a non-negotiable for staying well this winter. Your white blood cells are your second-line defenders; when a bacteria/virus enters your blood stream, these specialist white blood cells mount and attack to ‘kill’ the bug. Ongoing stress reduces and high stress hormones directly surpasses your immune function. Stress also has a direct impact on your gut, so you end up in a state where you are more susceptible for virus’s to enter your blood stream (because your gut function isn’t great) and on top of this your immune system isn’t functioning well so you can’t fight off the bug efficiently.
Stress is something we can’t hide from; there are some stressors we can remove and there are some we can’t. Focus on what you can change, schedule time for relaxation, exercise, do the things that make you feel good.
Foods to focus on this winter
Winter is the most yin time of year, the energy if yin is slowing down and hibernation. The days become shorter as the sun rises later and sets earlier. As a result we naturally we tend to sleep longer and choose more restful activities. Humans are mammals so naturally we (should) move with the seasons; I encourage you to honour this natural cycle, instead of fighting it! You can honour the cycle through slowing down without resistance, rugging up and eating seasonally!
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), people should maintain the balance of yin and yang energies within their body.. so when winter brings more yin, we need to focus on bringing more yang energy into the body! We do this by eating thoroughly cooked foods that are easy to digest and warming, like soups, stews, broths, roasted vegetables and using warming spices.
Some ways to heal your gut at home include:
Glutamine-rich foods such as bone broth, soups cooked with bones, grass-fed meat, eggs, organ meat
High zinc goods like pepitas
Fibres that increase short-chain-fatty-acids in your gut; fibres such as fruit, vegetables, legumes, ground flaxseeds
Probiotic foods like kraut, Kim chi, kefir
My favourite herbs, nutrients and probiotics for immune health
This winter my family and I will be taking my Winter Wellness Kit (see below) to stay well; we will take this daily as a preventative and then increase the dose if we do become unwell. Catching a bug is a normal part of life, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It tests your immune function and feeds it data so it knows how to respond next time. What matters is how your body responds and how quickly you recover.
My favourite herbs and supplements for the whole family:
Vitamin C and zinc powder - this is great for adults and my 19 month old loves it too
Probiotic to enhance immunity and reduce the occurrence of common colds - there are now specific probiotic strains that directly enhance the immune system.
Cold Liver Oil + D
A herbal tonic or herbal tablet containing immune herbs and mushrooms
I hope this email has been helpful, and has given you some tools to consider using this winter. The packs are available under my ‘shop’ or if you want to have a chat about it, feel free to email me (click here) or message me on instagram (click here)
With love,
Xo Ell
