Nurturing your immune system as the seasons change and colder weather sets in, coupled with the possibility of getting a cold, the flu, or worse, the Delta variant, is vital to prevent from getting sick. This is a challenging feat especially during November to February.
And to top it off, the decrease of daylight can disrupt the body’s internal clock and cause a shift in mood and energy levels with the drop in serotonin levels, yielding symptoms of depression and a lack in motivation. Better known as Seasonal Affective Disorder, it occurs during season changes and tends to reappear approximately the same times each year.
Nurturing Your Immune System- How can we take care of ourselves and boost our immune system? Here’s a few daily tune-ups that can help make a difference this winter.
Boost Your Fitness Routine
Boost your wellness by making sure you’ve incorporated fitness in your weekly schedule. Breaking a sweat on a consistent basis not only increases the blood flow and oxygen to the skin, but maintaining a healthy, good circulation in your body amps up your immunity as well as it detoxes your body, lowers stress levels, improves sleep, and one of the best benefits, too, is it elevates your mood.
Boost Your Self-care Routine
Having a wellness routine keeps your engine humming along and helps ward off toxins and potential viruses. We are creatures of habit that love routines. They make us feel safe, familiar, and relaxes us, which in turn, soothes our nervous system. It also helps us stay in ‘the present moment.’
It can be dark outside at nights, but by keeping things cozy such as burning tealights and/or candles, running a warm bubble bath, lighting some of our favorite incense-scents, listening to the sweet sounds of birds chirping or ocean waves hitting rocks softly–such as countless videos of just that are found on YouTube–aligns our body with the natural rhythms of nature and centers us holistically.
Boost Your Immune-Healthy Foods Intake
You can boost your Vitamin C by adding brussel sprouts and citrus fruits to your grocery list. Leave out the refined sugars since they work to repress your immune system and can adversely affect your nutrient assimilation. Replace that with naturally sweet whole foods and sweeteners like maple syrup, raw honey, or agave. To find out more on what the principle sweeteners and their cause and effects, this article on five natural sweeteners that are healthy for you breaks it down nicely.
“Earth is very clever and provides us with the exact foods we need for proper nourishment and protection through a season,” Holistic nutritionist Meryl Pritchard says. “Focus on foods that have roots and are grown underground, containing grounding qualities to help root you during this erratic season: squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, ginger, and beets. (Also) foods that are oily like ghee, eggs, nuts, seeds, whole grains, fish, and olives will help bring more moisture to your system to combat the dryness. Stews are also favored during this season since they’re hearty, full of root vegetables, and have a liquid broth. In general, you’ll want to reduce the number of raw vegetables and cold or frozen foods.”
Boost Your Hydration
Another way for nurturing your immune system is staying hydrated. The role of water for the human body is two-fold: a) it carries oxygen to our cells, and b) it flushes out bacteria and infection-carrying toxins. When consuming 8-10 glasses of water each day, it keeps our body hydrated as well as helps our skin and hair be less dry. Some added pros? It plumps up our skin, lips, and helps with less-breakage of hair.
“By drinking your recommended 8 cups, you’re hydrating your hair follicles and simultaneously preventing unwanted breakage. Just like a dry noodle snaps in half with the slightest touch, when your hair is dehydrated, it is more likely to break.”
Boost Your Hangouts with Friends
Whether in-person or via zoom, research points out that socializing has a balancing effect on us hormonally, which helps stabilize our immune system.
“As human beings, we dream, learn, grow, and work as part of society. The society that we’re born into and the societies that we navigate throughout our lives shape our personal identities. And, so keen are we to communicate with each other — even beyond geographical limitations — that we’ve developed a plethora of tools to help us achieve that, including pen and paper, telegraph, telephone, and the Internet,” says Medical News Today. “Even the most introverted among us crave social contact from time to time.”
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