Ensuring your body’s immune health is in tip top shape is more important than it ever was before. Maintaining proper immune system health allows for you to be able to fight off different illnesses that would otherwise cause you harm. So how can you optimize your immune system while not giving up everything good in life? There are some simple lifestyle and diet changes you can add in or supplement for your current habits.
Change in Diet
While it’s not the end all be all. Little changes to your diet can go a long way. Specifically ones meant to provide your body with the vitamins, minerals, and overall nutrients it needs. Think about it, after scarfing down your favorite fast food meal, do you not feel like a bloated hot mess? Ever stop to think how much of that meal was just processed chemicals?
Granted it’s not to say you can’t eat fast food a few times a month. It’s just to say that knowing what you’re putting in your body is the key to keeping your immune health boosted and in tip top shape. So what can you do?
Plant Life
For starters, let’s take a look at your plant foods you’ve been eating or potentially lacking. Whole plant foods such as fruits and vegetables or even nuts, seeds, and legumes are great for your body. They supply it with some of the antioxidants needed to keep your immune health kicking in high gear.
The antioxidants often found in these plant foods tend to fight inflammation by taking care of things called free radicals. Free radicals are sometimes the reason you experience inflammation within your body and therefore, taking them out via antioxidants is a must.
Still need more convincing on why adding plants to your diet is a must? How about we talk about our guts. That age old saying of “we are what we eat” rings true time and time again. The more unhealthy varieties of foods we put in our bodies, the more we are going to feel the negatives. However, when we take care of our guts by giving our bodies healthy foods and providing it with what it needs, we are less likely to deal with gut related issues.
Healthy Fats
Yes, there are such things as healthy fats. Often these kinds of fats can be found in things like olive or avocado oils and fish like salmon. Much like the plant varieties of foods, these healthy fats work to reduce inflammation in your body. To put it plainly, your body will let you know something is wrong. You just have to listen to it and understand that any form of inflammation is it telling you to evaluate what you’re giving to it.
Keep in mind that any low amount of inflammation can be normal and is often due to stress or injury. The inflammation we’re talking about is of the chronic variety and is not deemed “normal”.
Probiotics & Prebiotics
Before we can get into the benefits of probiotics and prebiotics for your immune health, we need to take a look at what they are. For starters, probiotics are living bacteria that improve your gut flora and keep the good and bad bacteria balanced in your body. Yes, we have both and yes we need a healthy mix of the two to maintain good health. Oftentimes, these different probiotics can be found in things like yogurt. However, if you’re lactose intolerant or have other dairy related allergies then you may want to take a look at other options in pill form. Many now come in “vegan capsules” and are dairy and gluten free.
Prebiotics are similar to probiotics in that they can originate in foods. They induce the growth and activities of certain microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi that can then benefit your gut health. Again, these can be found in pill form and in many cases are gluten and dairy free.
Lifestyle Changes
Of course, immune health isn’t just “fixed” by changing your diet. A lot of other components make up your immune health and some lifestyle changes may be necessary. This could mean changes in your sleep patterns, exercise, water intake, and so many other things.
More Sleep
It’s an easy concept to understand but probably one of the hardest to implement in today’s fast-paced world. What is it? Getting better, more restful sleep that’s not crunched into 4 hours. On average, an adult should get between 6 to 8 hours of restful sleep a night. This is proving to be difficult for many as our phones, tablets, and smart tvs seem to suck us into the newest thing. In doing so, our minds and bodies become overstimulated leaving us feeling exhausted the next day.
What does that mean for us and work? It means mountains of coffee, energy drinks, or any other thing that will keep us awake. Which then adds to our inability to sleep properly at night because we’re still hyped up by bedtime.
So, what can we do to reduce these problems and get better, more restful sleep? One option is to reduce screen time one to two hours before bed and turn on the blue light filter on our phones. By reducing screen time, you’re reducing the chances of overstimulation for your mind and body.
Something else you can implement is to drink one cup of coffee per day. However, this can prove to be a challenge. Especially if you’re used to drinking three or more cups in a day. If that sounds like you then reduce the amount of caffeine slowly so you’re less likely to experience caffeine withdrawal symptoms. Or, if giving up any ounce of caffeine sounds dreadful, you could limit your caffeine consumption for any time before 3:00 or 4:00pm. By doing this, you give your body time to burn off the caffeine before bed.
Exercise
When you think about exercising and working out, it can be pretty intimidating. Especially if you’ve been procrastinating it and using the excuse “I just don’t have time”. But you don’t have to do heavy in depth workouts for your body’s immune health to benefit from it. In fact, doing overly strenuous exercise can actually decrease your body’s immune health. That’s why most people recommend moderate exercise. This includes things like jogging, brisk walking, and even swimming. Not only does it boost your immune health, it boosts your cardiovascular health as well.
Water Drinking Habits
Another thing that can seem easy but can turn out to be a lot harder than it sounds is drinking more water. The daily average for adults is to drink 64oz or 8-8oz glasses of water per day. However, if you’re more interested in your personal water intake calculation there is an equation for that. You’ll want to take your weight and multiply it by 67%. So, for example a person that weighs 165lbs and has a more sedentary lifestyle would need to drink roughly 111oz of water per day. Keep in mind that if you perform exercises on any given day you’ll want to increase your water intake for that day by 12oz for every half hour of exercise you do.
Supplements for Immune Health
There are dozens of supplements that you can take as a way to boost your immune health. This includes things like vitamin C and D among other vitamins and minerals. But have you heard of peptides? No, well let’s learn more about them, shall we. Peptides are amino acid chains that consist of 50 or less aminos. Once they exceed that number they’re considered to be a protein. These peptides are typically created within the body naturally. However, as we age those that are created start to dwindle. This is where synthetic peptides take their place.
When it comes to immune health, the best peptide for giving it a boost hands down would be ipamorelin. Not only is it able to boost immune health, but it also helps with your cardiovascular health and can even reduce the aging process within your body. What can you expect from it? How about an improvement in your energy, stamina, and overall strength?
But now you’re probably wondering where you can get said peptide and how to know if it is a legit product. We can help with that.
Ipamorelin at Paradigm Peptides
Who are we? We are Paradigm Peptides, a peptide, SARM, and research chemical manufacturer based out of the Midwestern United States. How do you know what you’re getting from us is a top quality product? We test our products for efficacy, purity, and potency. This ensures you’re getting the best bang for your buck. Ready to get your immune system kicking the right way? Click here to order your peptides today!