Mums are often coming to see me for solutions to their kids constantly being sick, especially over winter. If it was you, I would offer you a variety of solutions but most of all I want to talk to you about preventative care – how to prevent getting sick so often and how to minimise the time you are sick when you do happen to catch something. I also want to teach you how this can be something that you can incorporate it into your everyday lifestyle until it doesn’t feel like something extra and simply becomes part of your life. As you already know I take a holistic approach to any issue that is brought to me for a solution, so here goes my 4 pronged approach to improving immunity naturally.
Rest time for your body
You’ve probably heard of mindfulness in the last year or two at some stage. The reason it is becoming more and more popular is because as a society we are becoming increasingly busy and our bodies aren’t coping. Our bodies require some downtime as regularly as we can give it to them. This does not mean sleeping. Downtime or rest-time means some time (as little as a minute or two) where our mind and our bodies aren’t constantly on the go and thinking about a million different things. A simple example of how to do this is when you’re running late for an appointment and you get stuck at a red light and your heart starts racing and your mind feels like it’s about to explode with worry then you can take a minute to practice some mindfulness. The easiest way to do this is to simply think about your senses and what you can see, hear, feel, taste and smell while you’re sitting there at the traffic lights. This simple exercise will reduce your heart rate and give your mind a break from the constant thinking and worrying and both of these will result in your body having some time away from the ‘fight or flight response’ which gives it energy to focus on more important things, like digestion, cell repair and replication and immune defence.
Sleep
It’s no surprise that getting some extra sleep can improve your immune system. Sleep is the time when your body not only recharges but creates new cells and does running repairs on anything that needs it. So the better quality your sleep and the more of it you have, the more opportunity your body has to take care of itself. Therefore it will be better equiped to defend itself against any viral or bacterial invasions. So next time you’re worried about the latest bug going around at the office or coming home from daycare, just give your body some extra snooze time so that it can look after itself for you.
Nutrition
What you eat is digested and those nutrients are then sent to every cell in your body to help them make energy to do their job properly. If you don’t eat nutritious food, those cells can’t make much energy and can’t perform their job very well. If you don’t eat a variety of coloured fruits and vegetables then your body won’t be able to keep up with everything you want to do for the day, as well as having reserves for cell replication and repair once you’re asleep. It’s easy enough to boost your intake of key vitamins and minerals at times of stress (or a new sickness in the house). To boost your vitamin C levels add (or increase) your intake of things like oranges, red capsicums, strawberries, broccoli and kiwi fruit. To boost your zinc levels add (or increase) your consumption of things like oysters, chicken, grass-fed dairy products, cashews, almonds, spinach and asparagus.
Probiotics and prebiotics
Everyone knows about probiotics thanks to the multitude of times we’ve watched the Inner Health Plus ads, but few people still realise what probiotics are and why we need both for a healthy gut and a healthy body. Probiotics are the good bacteria that we need to make up the majority of the microflora living in our gut (mainly our small intestine) and prebiotics are the food that we need to eat to feed those good bacteria and keep their population thriving. So naturally, it’s more economical to first increase the population of good bacteria but then give the food the require to thrive instead of constantly having to repopulate it with probiotic capsules or similar. A variety of fermented food will help with adding probiotics to your gut including natural yoghurt, sourdough, kombucha, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi and pickled veggies. To naturally add prebiotics to your gut try to include more garlic, asparagus, bananas, onions/leeks and leafy greens.
If you need help in this or other areas of your life and you’re ready to take back control of your life, it might be the right time for you to start working with me on a closer level. You could start with my Mum’s Weekend Retreat in July which is always based around ways to naturally improve immunity for you and your family. My signature program Change My Life Mastermind opens only twice a year and members have the amazing opportunity to work with me for 4 months and learn how to make their lives easier and more enjoyable. If you’re not ready for that yet, I have plenty of coaching options so you are sure to find one that suits you. Book in a free call to have a chat with me to work out which option would be best for your success.