How to boost your immune system
How to boost your immune system
Whether you’re someone who rarely gets sick or someone who succumbs every flu season, the concept of improving your immune system to keep yourself healthy and happy has obvious appeal.
For people with underlying health conditions or those who are in any way immunocompromised, this can be more complicated and should be done with advice from a medical professional. But if that’s not you and you simply want to reduce your chances of catching illnesses when out and about, there are things you can do to boost your immune system. Keep reading to learn more.
How to strengthen your immune system
For the majority of people, strengthening the immune system is as simple as leading a healthy, balanced lifestyle. This helps to keep your body in good condition, meaning that when infectious minor illnesses come knocking, your immune system is in a better position to fight them off quickly and reduce the likelihood of you experiencing prolonged symptoms.[1]
Below, we explore three key tenets you can follow to ensure you’re not impeding your immune system accidentally.
Don’t smoke
It’s a well known fact that smoking is harmful for your health, so one of the first things to do in order to lead a healthy lifestyle is to stop smoking. Many people believe that smoking only occasionally – sometimes referred to as being a ‘social smoker’ – is okay, but even light smoking can have an impact on your likelihood of contracting respiratory illnesses, as well as many other areas of your overall health.
You can also expose yourself to these health risks by consistently spending time around others who are smoking, also known as passive smoking. This puts you at risk of inhaling ‘secondhand smoke’, which can have many similar health impacts to light smoking. And, of course, the more you smoke, passively or actively, the higher your risk becomes.
Another thing to consider is that smoking is believed to put you at a higher risk of developing certain long-term respiratory conditions, such as asthma.[3] Having these conditions can make you susceptible to suffering worse when contracting otherwise minor illnesses such as colds and the flu.[4]
Eat well, exercise regularly, sleep better
If you’ve ever been advised to improve your lifestyle for health reasons, then it’s likely you were told to improve your diet, exercise and/or sleep. These are three key areas we have strong control over within our lives that can make a big difference to how we feel from day to day. For this reason, keeping up with a healthy lifestyle in these areas can help to keep your immune system strong.[1]
What does that mean in practice? Well, you can always discuss this with a pharmacist if you want to know what specific changes you should be making to your own lifestyle, but in general it means eating a balanced diet with lots of fruit and vegetables, getting around 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week and getting roughly eight hours of quality sleep every night.[1,5,6]
Stay up to date with your vaccines
Last but not least, one sure way to help keep your immune system strong is to get all of your recommended vaccinations. You can also go the extra mile and have additional vaccinations such as the flu vaccine (if you don’t already get it for free). And if you’re travelling abroad, don’t forget to check if you need to be vaccinated for any ailments before you travel.[1]
Already have a sore throat? Strengthening your immune system may help you to recover quicker, or reduce the likelihood of falling ill again, but in the meantime, you can use over-the-counter treatments such as Ultra Chloraseptic’s blackcurrant flavour throat spray, which contains a local anaesthetic to numb your sore throat so you can focus on getting better.
Resources:
[1] – https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/how-to-boost-your-immune-system
[3] – https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/asthma/causes/
[4] – https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/asthma/
[5] – https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/physical-activity-guidelines-for-adults-aged-19-to-64/