The Better Homemaking Network

Is your immune system prepared to fight off a Swine Flu pandemic? If you are like me (and my family) you can’t or won’t get any flu shots. We have to be extra vigilant in preventing the spread of illness and keeping our immune systems in top shape.

The biggest factors that make your immune system stronger are: exercising regularly, eating nutritious foods, getting enough sleep, and maintaining proper weight. I’m sure you’ve heard those phrases a million times, but they are very true. I’d like to share some specific tips that have helped my family.

1. Maintain your proper weight. Determine what you need to lose (or gain), discuss your ideas with your doctor, and get started on a program right away. The Better Homemaking Network is currently developing a meal plan that can be used for weight loss and is Weight Watchers compatible. Stay tuned! In the meantime, these tips for your immune system are all ideal beginnings for weight management.

2. Walk 30 minutes a day. More activity is always good, but this the threshold where the benefits really start to kick in. Try wearing a pedometer and get yourself over the 10,000 mark every day.

3. Vitamins – take a good multi or do some research and put together your own regimen. 500mg Vitamin C every 12 hours is a great place to start. I keep a bottle of chewables in my nightstand and munch on one when I get up and when I go to bed.

4. Eat fruits and veggies! At least five servings, but seven to nine is preferred. Be sure to wash them really well – just think about how many times they have been handled before getting into your kitchen! Wash all of it, even the items that you peel. Dry them off with a paper towel instead of letting them air dry. There are more things in fresh food that prevent disease, many of which we haven’t discovered yet, that we just can’t reproduce in a pill. (Or juice!)

5. Drink water! It helps flush out body waste and anything else that shouldn’t be there. Here are some tips to get the most out of your water.

6. Wash your hands frequently, and avoid touching your face. Sanitizing wipes are a big help. Keep some in the car, and every time you come out of a store or doctor’s office, wipe down your hands, the door handle, the gearshift, and the steering wheel. Remember after pumping gas, too. I try to wipe the baby’s hands since they usually end up touching the floor somewhere!

7. Get enough sleep; an average of 7 hours a day. Your body needs sleep to regenerate itself. Another very interesting thing that happens while you sleep, is the replenishment of certain chemicals in your brain. If you don’t get enough sleep, your brain doesn’t get enough of these chemicals, and it wants them so badly it will trigger hunger cravings! Food can only provide cheap substitutes for these chemicals, however, so it can become a vicious cycle if you do not catch enough of those zzz’s.

8. Chiropractic Care – this can be a controversial option, although I can say that I have personally documented improvement in my own immune system since I started getting adjusted regularly. Imagine your spine as a huge switchboard, relaying all the information your body needs from your brain. So when you are out of alignment, nerves get pinched, switches turn off, and those organs can’t get all their messages back and forth, which impedes healing.

I’d like to note that I used to get sick all of the time.  Since I started doing these things I have only been sick two or three times a year, and I recover very rapidly; usually in less than twelve hours!