How to toughen up and make immunity stronger?

How to raise immu­ni­ty in autumn? Judg­ing by the num­ber of requests on the Inter­net, this is prob­a­bly the most com­mon ques­tion dur­ing the cold sea­son. But the truth is that it is impos­si­ble to raise immu­ni­ty! Why? And what should be done to get sick as rarely as pos­si­ble?

The body’s abil­i­ty to resist dis­ease-caus­ing fac­tors is estab­lished at birth. That is, we can­not sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve it. And we can only main­tain it in nor­mal con­di­tion. And the sim­plest things cope best with this task: phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, fre­quent walks, hard­en­ing, full sleep and prop­er nutri­tion.

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What to eat so as not to get sick?

Dur­ing the cold sea­son, peo­ple rely on gar­lic, lemons, apples and oth­er prod­ucts “for immu­ni­ty”. But this is not enough. To “invig­o­rate” the body’s defens­es, eat foods con­tain­ing vit­a­mins A and D. With a lack of the first, the immune defense of the mucous mem­branes is dis­turbed, and the sec­ond is respon­si­ble for the pres­ence of macrophages — cells that catch and digest path­o­gen­ic microor­gan­isms.

Sources of vit­a­mins A and D:

• dairy prod­ucts,
• fish,
• veg­eta­bles and fruits of red and orange col­ors.

Oth­er com­po­nents of the diet are pro­teins and fats. Pro­teins are the basis of build­ing mate­r­i­al for cells (includ­ing those respon­si­ble for immu­ni­ty), and fats are a source of ener­gy nec­es­sary for meta­bol­ic process­es.

Simple cold prevention

Try to be in the fresh air every day and walk for at least 30 min­utes. That’s how much time the body needs to acti­vate the immune sys­tem. In addi­tion, walk­ing in the fresh air is the most effec­tive way to relieve stress.

With fre­quent stress, an excess of cor­ti­sol is pro­duced in the body, which weak­ens the body’s defens­es. That is why depressed peo­ple get sick more often.

Reg­u­lar­ly ven­ti­late the apart­ment and main­tain a suf­fi­cient lev­el of humid­i­ty in it (espe­cial­ly impor­tant dur­ing the heat­ing sea­son). After trav­el­ing in pub­lic trans­port, wash the mucous mem­brane of the nose, clean­ing it of bac­te­ria and virus­es.

IMPORTANTLY! Do not pre­scribe your­self med­i­cine “to raise immu­ni­ty”. Uncon­trolled stim­u­la­tion of the body with real­ly active drugs threat­ens the devel­op­ment of autoim­mune dis­eases.

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Hardening as a way to raise immunity

Con­trast pro­ce­dures help to accus­tom the body to eas­i­ly adapt to tem­per­a­ture changes. Plus, they train blood ves­sels and improve blood flow to inter­nal organs.

How to start hardening

If your body does not dif­fer in hero­ic health, start small — get used to wash­ing with cold water. Do it grad­u­al­ly — let the water be at room tem­per­a­ture at first, then every day low­er it by about one degree. As soon as you get used to wash­ing, you can pro­ceed to wip­ing.

Wiping: how to do it right

The pro­ce­dure con­sists in vig­or­ous­ly rub­bing the body with a tow­el soaked in water. For 2 min­utes, the neck, chest, back, hips, and legs are rubbed with a wet tow­el until red­ness and heat flow. Then the body is wiped dry.

Benefits of dousing for health

Dous­ing also helps to strength­en health. The effec­tive­ness of this pro­ce­dure increas­es as the con­trast between body tem­per­a­ture and water tem­per­a­ture increas­es. Every 10 days, low­er the water tem­per­a­ture by 5 degrees. Make sure that the tem­per­a­ture in the room is not low­er than 20 degrees — this way you will avoid hypother­mia. And when tak­ing a con­trast show­er, keep in mind that the dif­fer­ence between hot and cold water should be increased grad­u­al­ly.

And in order not to pro­voke insom­nia, do such dous­ing in the morn­ing.

A few more ways to toughen up

Anoth­er proven method: pour cold water into the bath so that it cov­ers only the bot­tom. Walk in such water (step­ping from foot to foot) for 20–30 sec­onds. Every day, increase the water lev­el by about 1–2 cm until it reach­es the ankles. And be patient — the result of hard­en­ing does not appear imme­di­ate­ly. Hard­en­ing can also cause a run­ny nose, but this is not a rea­son to stop the pro­ce­dures. An excep­tion may be an increase in tem­per­a­ture.

And do not for­get about baths and saunas — one of the most pleas­ant ways to increase the body’s resis­tance to infec­tions. It is proven: bath lovers are less prone to colds.

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Interesting facts about immunity

Only 10% of peo­ple in the world can boast of strong immu­ni­ty. It pro­tects them from almost all dis­eases. Anoth­er 10% have con­gen­i­tal immun­od­e­fi­cien­cy. Its main fea­ture is fre­quent, recur­ring and severe dis­eases: pneu­mo­nia, puru­lent oti­tis, sinusi­tis, abscess­es, and so on. And in 80% of peo­ple, immu­ni­ty depends on lifestyle.

Fre­quent colds are not an indi­ca­tor of “weak” immu­ni­ty. If you get SARS no more than 5 times a year and at the same time recov­er quick­ly, then you have no prob­lems with immu­ni­ty. For chil­dren, the “norm” of colds is even more — up to 8 times a year.

There are peri­ods in life when immu­ni­ty works worse. They are called phys­i­o­log­i­cal immun­od­e­fi­cien­cy. The first peri­od lasts from birth to 6 years (immu­ni­ty is formed). The sec­ond occurs in ado­les­cence (the body’s defens­es weak­en due to hor­mones). The third appears in women dur­ing preg­nan­cy, and the fourth — at the age of 65.

Are you improv­ing the pro­tec­tive fea­tures of your immu­ni­ty in autumn?