7 Steps to Boost Your Immune System

As chilly, winter-like weather lingers in New England, patients often come into the office looking for advice on how to shake the flu or a cold. If you do get sick and your body's fighting something, what can you do?

1. No Sugar – It cripples your immune system. Your body uses Vitamin C in your immune system to fuel your white blood cells.

2. Drink Water – It helps to regular temperature during a fever and it’s critical for all cell functions. Dehydration promotes the production of Histamines, which are the mucus promoters in your body. So dehydration causes mucus, inflammation, and swelling. The best practice for daily requirements of water is to divide your weight in half and drink that number in ounces of water per day.

3. Get Plenty of Rest – The immune system requires a lot of energy to work. When you notice that you’re tired, your appetite is suppressed, and you’re low on energy, your body is diverting energy to your immune system.

4. Eat Simply – Your energy needs to go to your immune system, not your digestive system, when you’re fighting something.

5. Boost Your Supplements – Supplements are supplemental, not a replacement. They should not replace healthy foods. However, they help because our lives are fast, stress is greater than ever, and it’s hard to get all the foods we need in our diet every day. Some to consider: multivitamin, probiotic, Omega 3 Fatty Acid and Vitamin D.

6. Let Your Body Fight – Your immune system will get stronger and smarter if you let your body fight. If you interfere and suppress it with drugs because it’s more important for you to be comfortable rather than healthy, your body will get weaker and dumber.

7. Chiropractic Adjustments – Nerve irritation suppresses your immune function. Specific Chiropractic adjustments decrease nerve irritation, restore balance in your body, and restore your parasympathetic (rest and repair) state.
Adjustments increase your white blood cell count; it’s measurable. Chiropractic
patients have been shown to have a 200% greater immune competence than people not under chiropractic care. Getting adjusted boosts your immune system.

What kind of body are you building? How you live your life, the choices that
you make every day, will determine the health and vitality of your systems,
including your immune system. Every single decision we make in our life will
either move us closer towards health or move us closer towards sickness,
disease, and death. What choices will you make to boost your immune function
AND your health?