Supporting your immune system is useful coming into the cooler weather. To help make sure you're prepared here are my 5 top tips to boost your immune health.

Tip 1 - personal hygiene

Maintaining good personal hygiene involves a number of things. Mostly in this case, it is about washing hands, especially after touching your face (including blowing your nose), going to the toilet and before touching food (preparation and eating).

Cleaning your teeth regularly is also helpful as it reduces the bacteria build up in your mouth that can potentially travel through to your gastrointestinal and respiratory systems.

Tip 2 - eat well

This is not about eating your favourite food all the time, or eating vast quantities of food. Its about putting good quality, nutritious food in your body at all times. Ensuring you have whole, fresh, plant based foods at every meal incorporates many of the vitamins and minerals you need to keep your body healthy. Some fresh produce you should pay particular attention to are berries, apricots, guava, and peaches. Also capsicum, especially red and yellow, citrus fruit, carrots, avocado and tomato.

Whole proteins such as egg, lean meats, and oily fish (such as mackerel, salmon, tuna, sardines and anchovies), beans and legumes also provide a range of essential fats, vitamins and minerals to support your immune system.

Tip 3 - fresh air and exercise

Keeping active and getting fresh air (including opening up the house and office on those warmer days) also help improve both your mood and immune health. Physical exercise helps us to breath deeply into our lungs, increase oxygen and other nutrient flow to our whole body and helps to remove toxins and waste products. Exercise also helps our body’s innate immune system to do it’s job properly and keep us well.

Tip 4 - drink plenty of water

Water, whether hot or cold or as part of a herbal tea helps flush toxins from our body and keep our cells lovely and hydrated. It also keeps our blood flowing and facilitates our immune system working properly. Herbal teas such as peppermint, yarrow, echinacea, turmeric and ginger all help provide nutrient support for the immune system to function better. Drinking any or a combination of these teas can help through providing both a herbal therapeutic effect and keeping you hydrated. Remember to steep the tea in boiling water for at least 10 minutes (ideally covered with a lid or in a teapot) before drinking.

Tip 5 - eat mushrooms

Say what you like about mushrooms, many different forms have great immune boosting properties and probably deserve a whole post on their own. Serve them in stir-fry, soups, stews or on a salad! Mushrooms to look out for include shiitake, reishi, turkey tail, and cordyceps. These are special mushrooms so may not be available at your local supermarket - you might be better to talk to your friendly greengrocer or specialty store and see what they can get for you either fresh or dried.

Mushrooms have a huge amount of use in traditional medicines, and include polysaccharides that increase white blood cell activation, improve antibody production and reduce inflammation.

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The information given here is general in nature. For information and support specifically tailored to your needs, book an appointment today

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Main image by Mojca JJ from Pixabay

Mushroom image by adege from Pixabay

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