Good Ways to Stay Healthy this Winter

Ultimately it is the state of your immune system that determines whether or not you will get sick from being exposed to viral or bacterial organisms associated with infectious diseases like the flu.

The key to boosting your immune system, and therefore making your body strong and capable of fighting disease, lies in your lifestyle habits. Healthy food, stress relief, exercise, sleep, and safe exposure to sunlight, among other things are ways to keep your system running efficiently.

Artificially manipulating your immune system with a vaccine to try to stay healthy is not the same thing, nor does it produce the same kind of immunity and sought-after, disease-fighting result. It may actually make you less healthy in the long run.

Since numerous studies show that vitamin D boosts immunity, particularly vitamin D3 (not D2 which most doctors prescribe), the first thing you want to do is make sure you maintain your vitamin D levels at 50-70 ng/ml year-round. The only way you can be sure of what your levels is getting a simple test done.

While a high quality supplement like Shaklee’s Vita D3 is a great way to get your D intake, the ultimate way to get your vitamin D is with safe exposure to sunshine, or by using a safe tanning bed (one with electronic ballasts rather than magnetic ballasts, to avoid unnecessary exposure to Electro Magnetic Fields).

Other things that you can do include: eating healthy, avoiding sugars and artificial sweeteners, limiting or eliminating soda, washing your hands with non- antibacterial soap often (but not excessively because our bodies need to work), drinking more water, exercising, and getting enough sleep.

Other Supplements

Other supplements that can be used as an adjunct to healthy dietary and lifestyle measures are:

  • Vitamin C: A very potent antioxidant. C scavenges or destroys free radicals before they can reach and attack the fatty parts of the cell membrane. When the free radicals get into the cell membrane they can alter the DNA of that cell which is what causes the major health issues. You can take as much as 10,000mg a day, just spread it out. If you take too much at once you can develop loose stools.
  • Oregano Oil: The higher the carvacrol concentration, the more effective it is. Carvacrol is the most active antimicrobial agent in oregano oil.
  • Propolis: A bee resin and one of the most broad-spectrum antimicrobial compounds in the world; propolis is also the richest source of caffeic acid and apigenin, two very important compounds that aid in immune response.
  • A tea made from a combination of elderflower, yarrow, boneset, linden, peppermint and ginger; drink it hot and often for combating a cold or flu. It causes you to sweat, which is helpful for eradicating a virus from your system.
  • Olive leaf extract: Ancient Egyptians and Mediterranean cultures used it for a variety of health-promoting uses and it is widely known as a natural, non-toxic immune system builder.

 

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