Boosting Your Natural Immunity this Season

Avoiding illness has taken on a new level of awareness since the pandemic. It is a silver lining positive that came out of that situation as I believe many of us have taken for granted our health and what it means to prevent illness. Before, it was common to push through a cold under the guise of just being a little bit sick or having allergies as to not scare anyone near us. Colds and other illnesses would pass freely among our co-workers and kids at school without too much guilt. These days we are all aware of the need to stay away when we are ill and take care of ourselves more. We all relearned singing “Happy Birthday” when washing our hands. No one wants to be the person who was responsible for making the entire office sick.

Each year when a new school year begins it is common to see a large number of children get sick a few weeks later. A stomach bug will wipe out a classroom or a cold will come through the office. These viruses and bugs then get passed through the family until everyone has a turn at it. These situations can easily take over a month to get through the household and get everyone feeling back to normal again.

All of these illnesses can be traced to our own immunity systems response when we encounter germs, bacteria and viruses. These are not things to be eradicated necessarily as we actually need them to strengthen our immunity. In fact, over doing it with toxic cleaners, sprays and other methods to kill germs can cause a reverse effect of weakening our immune system leaving us exposed to illness. Using germs to our advantage can be key to building health strength. It is when our defenses are low that we often run into problems immediately avoiding exposure that leads to us feeling under the weather.

Typically, common illnesses result from being unprepared for close encounters with others and closed environments that limit our outside time with the changes in season. Preparing our immunity for these situation is the best way to prevent illness and ensure our body is best positioned for a speedy recovery if we do encounter something.

Why Digestion is Key to Immunity Health

Over 70% of our health is derived from the digestive process. The immune response is directly tied to the digestive system. It is the first system to respond when there is a problem in an attempt to protect the body until homeostasis is restored. Homeostasis is the delicate balance of our body’s internal environment that works to cancel out threats to how it functions. It responds quickly to trigger responses through the body’s nervous system to signal where help is needed. When it reaches our immune system it too quickly puts into place the activities needed to respond to any form of threat to our health.

All of our cells rely on the digestive system for support to their functions. Energy comes into our body through foods we eat and are processed through our digestion to extract what the body needs. When our diets lack these nutrients our body shifts to a survival mode making due with what it has and alerting you for help. Over time if these nutrients are not received the body will being to weaken and further signals for help will get louder, usually in the form of illness.