As a wife and mom that runs a small website design shop from home, I have spent the past 14 years purposefully social distancing, for the sake of my autoimmune disease and always, always hand-washing. I have avoided eating lunches at school with our kids, avoided school field trips and most areas with high traffic. It has kept me from getting common colds, the flu and anything else being passed around. My kids are excellent and keeping a distance from me when they are starting to show symptoms of being ill.
However, now that the Coronavirus (COVID-19) has arrived and symptoms aren’t apparent right away, I know I need to do more than just social distance and wash my hands. In order to optimize and strengthen my already weak immune system, I am sharing some things I am doing to keep my immune system strong and ready.
9 Ways to Optimize and Strengthen your Immune System
#1: Sip hot tea throughout the day. As we have learned, heat can kill the virus. Should you get exposed, drinking something hot can help reduce the viral load. I love using tuermic, manuka honey and grated fresh ginger.
#2: Add Elderberry. If you are looking for natural cold remedies with a long history of medicinal use, elderberry should definitely be at the top of your list. Believe it or not, recipes for elderberry-based tonics date back to Ancient Egypt!
#3: Hot Toddy with Manuka honey, camu and turmeric. Turmeric has potent anti-viral and antibacterial properties.
#4: IMMUNOSILVER Spray. Just add a few sprays in your mouth and up your nose 3 times a day. Typically, we would caution you to be very safe using silver, but this one is safe and highly effective.
#5: Vitamin C with bioflavinoids. I take 500mg every 3 hours because any stress can rapidly deplete vitamin C and as we know, vitamin c is ESSENTIAL for maintaining a health immune system. We also use Camu in our smoothies everyday for an extra boost.
#6: Get outside every single day for at least 20 minutes (in the sunshine). Grab your lunch and sit on the patio, take the dog for a walk, play basketball with your kids. Do something outside every day. I have boosted this to 1 hour on the days that the warmer temperatures have arrived. It feels so good to be outside.
#7: Moderate exercise. It’s not only important to do some movement each day, but also to not overdo it. I would suggest gentle yoga, resistance bands or a stationery bike. It’s important to keep blood moving in your system in order to strengthen your immune system.
#8: SLEEP!!! Now is not the time to over-exert, push through or make it happen. When your body needs rest, then you must rest. Set a bedtime reminder so you’re in bed at a reasonable time (I love 10pm!) and turn off your phone notifications and just sleep. Fatigue means a weaker immune system… so, sleep. Please!
#9: Garlic!! My family adds garlic to absolutely everything that we can think of and suggest you try to do the same. Some research suggests that garlic might slow the growth of some species of bacteria. As we know, COVID-19 is caused by a virus and although there is no evidence that garlic can protect us against the virus, it can help boost our immune systems.
What are you doing to help boost your immune system? Leave a comment to share with others some more ideas.
