How to Increase Your Body Defenses: 7 Tips

To learn How to increase defenses Of your body is essential to a good quality of life, to be productive and long-lived.

Poor nutrition, infections, wounds, lack of water or stress can be threats that activate the immune system and this will bring about a cost for which you will feel debilitated and grow older faster.

How to increase the defenses of your body

Ideally, your defensive system should react in a way that does not cause long-term damage and that can be achieved, although you will have to change certain habits with which you will learn to control the immune response (if you do not already have them).

This will mean that you will no longer be passive, but you will have an active attitude that will allow to raise the defenses of your body and avoid the excessive activation of your immune system.

What is the immune system used for?

The immune / immune system is responsible for combating disease-causing microorganisms and driving the recovery process. You can say that he is the defender of your body.

It is not a concrete structure, but complex interactions involving different organs, substances and structures; Bone marrow, lymphoid organs, white blood cells, specialized cells...

There are many signs that the immune system does not function properly: lack of energy, allergic reactions, fatigue, slow healing of wounds, constant colds...

What influences on the immune system?

There are several factors that can influence the defenses of our organism:

  • Endogenous (internal, organism): they include genetics, age (as you understand age less defenses), coping ability (while one thing is fun for you, for another it can be stressful).
  • Exogenous (external): environment (pollution), poor diet, social problems (family, loneliness, unemployment), habits, stressful events (loss of someone close, accident, loss of work),

The factors of poor diet, social, environmental or habits are those you can learn to control so that they have the most benefit for your defenses.

I am going to name the habits that I have researched and that influence the improvement of your immune system, thus improving your defenses:

1-Breathing

Poor, rapid, shallow breathing makes it more difficult to access oxygen carried in the blood and causes anxiety and excessive stress.

It can be said that there are three types of breathing:

1- Clavicular : Occurs with elevation of shoulders and clavicles and makes breathing difficult. It usually occurs in situations of stress or when there is respiratory failure.

2- Chest or chest breathing : Is the most normal and is produced by stress, although not extreme stress (as in the previous). The thorax is elevated and there is insufficient air entering the lungs, breathing too fast. To learn to control stress you can read this article .

The main problem with this breathing is that it is unconscious and you must be attentive to it in order to correct it.

Meditation or mindfulness can help you develop that awareness; Are psychological skills and, like playing tennis, the more you practice the more you will improve.

3- Abdominal breathing : By breathing from the abdomen you will be more relaxed and your breathing will be deeper, which indicates to your immune system that there is no stress or anxiety.

In this breath the abdomen is almost completely taken care of, although the thorax also rises a little. It is the abdominal breathing that you have to learn to perform.

Learn Here relaxation techniques .

2-Nutrition

Although this seems the simplest habit or common sense, it is not so simple to put it into practice.

Regarding nutrition, not only is the type of food you eat, but your eating, company, schedules, or eating pattern important. All this has an effect on your immune system.

Quantity

The more food you eat at one meal, the more effort your immune system has to make. The immune system of people who eat less but more times during the day has to make less effort.

It is likely that sometimes You eat without hunger , For emotional reasons or that you eat insane foods.

Avoid eating too much, overeating can make you gain weight and damage the immune system. Obesity prevents the body's defenses from functioning properly and increases the vulnerability to infection.

Type of power supply

Some foods and vitamins have been shown to improve defenses:

  • Garlic.
  • Legumes, whole grains, fruits and vegetables.
  • Vitamin C (citrus and broccoli).
  • Vitamin E.
  • Vitamin A.
  • Foods rich in Zinc.
  • Foods rich in Selenium.
  • Foods rich in carotenes.
  • Omega-3 fatty acids.
  • Plums : Contain almost all the vitamins of the B complex.
  • Prebiotics: garlic, onion, beet, kefir.

There are also some natural herbs, mushrooms And vegetables that improve the immune system: echinacea, ginseng, ginger , Ginkgo Biloba, Turmeric, Ganoderma or Astragalus.

To prevent infections, it is best to reduce the consumption of flours, refined sugars, dairy products and meats.

Other foods to complete a healthy diet: leeks, raspberries, blueberries, pears, grapes, apples, tomatoes, aubergines, salmon, sardines, walnuts, almonds, orange, lemon, hazelnuts, broccoli, cabbage, watermelon, melon, carrots, olives.

Other tips:

  • Chew until the bolus is almost liquid.
  • Eat peacefully, being aware of your sensations and enjoying the food.
  • Eat only when you are hungry. Are you hungry to eat an apple?
  • Try to eat at least once a day accompanied.

3-Dream

Deep sleep stimulates stimulates the immune system, as opposed to deprivation. Read this article if you want some tips for Learn to sleep better .

The average adult needs between 7 and 8 hours of sleep, although there are people who may need 5 and 10 others.

For better sleep, exercise 2 hours before going to bed, avoid caffeine 5 hours earlier and eliminate tobacco and alcohol from your diet.

4-Physical exercise (aerobic)

Data from many studies show that the exercise Reduces the likelihood of getting sick, with moderate exercise being better.

According to research, to improve your defenses, resistance sports that involve moderate physical activity such as swimming, cycling, skiing, jogging, hiking are more appropriate... These increase the number of antibodies if the exercise suits your needs and is practiced frequently.

For example, one hour of cycling increases the ability of neutrophils (a component of white blood cells) to destroy bacteria and jogging produces an increase in antibodies.

5-Stress

Negative stress causes an overactivation of the body and in the long run has very negative consequences for our body.

The stress hormone, Cortisol , Can increase the risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer and long-term weakens the immune system.

It can turn off white blood cells or can overactivate the immune system, which increases the chances of getting autoimmune diseases.

6-Relaxation / meditation

Some of the benefits of meditation are to decrease stress and anxiety, decrease the likelihood of heart attacks, improve blood pressure levels, reduce blood lactate, reduce muscle tension... Read more about the benefits of meditation here .

As for mindfulness, after only eight weeks of training, it strengthens the immune system. It also helps to cope with stress, obesity and Improve self-esteem . Read more about mindfulness here .

7-Have a Positive Mindset

Studies have shown that people who go through a heart operation are more likely to survive if they have a disposition Positive mental .

And what do you do to improve your defenses? You can comment below. I am interested! Thank you.

References


Loading ..

Recent Posts

Loading ..