Top 7 Tips to Boost Your IMMUNITY

December through March tends to be the time when our neglect of caring for our immunity catches up with us. And it caught up with me! I?ve spent the last few weeks healing from pneumonia.

?Wait, Laurie Warren. What do you mean about that whole neglect thing? There are just more germs around in the winter, right??

Um, no. Even though that?s what the party line is, it?s just urban legend. It?s not like germs know what time of year it is, or have some beach hideaway that they hang out at from April through September. They?re around us all the time. The real question is: how is your immunity?

Keeping our immunity strong is one of our main jobs as the steward of this beautiful, miraculous body that we get to ride around in. Our immunity helps us do everything from healing a papercut?to giving the stiff-arm to pneumonia?to protecting our bodies from cancer. Therefore, today?s Body Sass? tip to help you Create Vibrant Health is?

The Top 7 Tips to Boost Your Immunity!

1. Limit your sugar intake.
   No more than 32 g of added sugar per day. Be mindful of sugar in your beverages!
2. Mindfully manage your stress.
   Unmanaged stress wreaks havoc with our immunity. Exercise, meditation, deep breathing, etc.
3. Get an adequate amount of restful sleep each night.
   Our body does important immune maintenance work at night. Studies show that our T-cells (important immune fighter-pilot) go down if we?re sleep deprived, and our cytokines (promote inflammation) go up.
4. Move your body.
   Our lymph system, which is one of our body?s main soldiers for immunity, only moves in response to muscle contraction. Some form of exercise, for even 10-15 minutes a day, can make a BIG difference in the responsiveness of your immune capabilities.
5. Drink 10-15 cups of water per day.
   We?re 70-ish % water, we excrete 10-15 cups of water each day, and we need to replace it so all our cells have what they need.
6. Get daily probiotics.
   Boost your beneficial bacteria by either eating fermented foods, or a taking a high-quality, multi-strain supplement. I love several products, including Custom Probiotics’ CP-1 Formula, Ther-Biotic Complete by Klaire Labs, and check out the great info and products outlined in THIS article on probiotics for women. All of these are high-quality, in an overwhelming sea of probiotic supplements?that contain inferior potency and strain variety.
7. Adopt a food lifestyle rich in veggies.
   Seek to have at least 80% of your foods be whole, nutrient-dense foods, including plenty of dark, leafy green vegetables & herbs (like fresh parsley), onions, and garlic.

Those first two are the Top Two. Sugar and unmanaged stress are the big kahunas of compromised immunity. Isn?t it interesting that ?cold & flu season? happens from the tail end of the holidays through March? This is right after we?ve been eating even more sugar than usual, starting at Halloween, and then amping up our stress and getting less sleep. Isn?t that a funny coincidence? (She said, with a wink.)

Another important note about immunity is this: notice that nowhere in here did I mention our ?immune system.? We don?t HAVE an immune system, we ARE an immune system. If you look up the word ?immune system? in the dictionary, you?ll get something like this:

Immune System: a host defense system comprising many biological structures and processes within an organism that protects against disease.

In that definition, we are ?the host.? But our whoooole BodyMindSpirit is part of our immunity, not just our white blood cells and thymus gland and lymph system. For example, about 75% of our immunity lives in our digestive tract and a big part of that immunity is the friendly bacteria that live there! Our skin is part of our immunity, as is our mucus, our nose hairs, our brain, our blood, our thoughts, our joy (or lack thereof), et cetra. Our entire being is set up to keep us immune to invaders, in an effort to preserve life and the species. We ARE an immune system.

I encourage you to set yourself up for success, and give your sweet BodyMindSpirit what it needs to stay vibrant and well. Boost that immunity, baby!

Create Vibrant Health: BodyMindSpirit?!

With love & healing tips,
Laurie