12 Strange Things Affecting Your Immunity
Believe it or not, immunity isn’t only about the multivitamins that you take. If you consider that your immune system is weak, you should be keeping an eye out for the bad habits you may have that favor the weakening of the immune response.
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Things Affecting Your Immunity
1. Air Pollution
We all know that smog isn’t good for our health so logically it isn’t good for the lungs either. In order to clean the air around you, you might want to get an air purifier. There is no way for you to gain control over the quality of the air outside, but you should be able to make sure you have clean air in your home.
2. Beauty Products
Don’t forget that the makeup you apply doesn’t only sit on the surface of the skin since the skin absorbs its ingredients. Some of the ingredients may turn out to be toxic because your body is not naturally engineered to enjoy being in contact with ingredients of this kind. This is why the best thing you could do is to opt for natural products.
3. Working In An Office
If you are working in an office, most probably you are sitting all day. This slows down your metabolism and thus it takes more time for the body to absorb the nutrients that would boost your immunity. It would be a good idea to go outside every hour and a half. This way you can boost both your metabolism and your immune system.
4. Junk Food
One of the biggest temptations of the modern era is having junk food. Regardless of how good these foods smell, make sure you opt for healthy options and focus on whole grains, minerals, and vitamins to boost your immunity.(1)
5. Too Much Protein
Although protein is good for you, having too much of it is actually bad. This is because it speeds up the aging of the cells and it suppresses the immune system. The specialists claim that only 10% of the daily calorie intake should come from animal sources.
6. Not Enough Sleep
Melatonin is produced during sleep and if you don’t have enough rest, you won’t have enough white blood cells to protect your body. You should set a goal to have about seven to eight hours of sleep every night. Once you get used to your new schedule, it will become second nature.
7. Caffeine
You may have a lot of different reasons to have coffee, but don’t forget that caffeine increases blood pressure. In order to bring it down, your immune system will have to work extra hard. Take care of the problem by restricting your intake to not more than two cups a day.
8. Being Alone
As strange as it may seem, lonely people can’t cope with stress as well as others, and stress takes its toll on their immune system as well. To fix this, you should schedule outings with the people around you: friends, coworkers, or family. The people who are in good relationships are more resistant to infections.
9. Staying Away From Good Fats
Most people only know about saturated fats and Trans fats which are bad for them. Nonetheless, there are some good fats as well that can be found in avocados, nuts, and fish that boost the immune system and come with anti-inflammatory properties as well
10. Stress
Even if you think you can cope with stress, when the body is under a lot of stress it produces cortisol which leads to estrogen and testosterone production, a process which weakens the immune system. Stress can’t be avoided but stress management can be learned so you should seek help in case you cannot deal with it alone.
11. Disregarding Yoga
Apparently yoga is the kind of exercise that has the biggest effect on the body’s immunity. It boosts the digestive, circulatory, endocrine, and nervous systems which, in turn, boost the immune system. Which is why you should include yoga in your workout routine.
12. Electronics
Nobody looks at their cell phone and thinks of it as an evil device. . But the fact remains that all electronic devices have negative effects on your health and especially on your immune system. Which is why, you should avoid sleeping with the TV on or with your cell phone at your side.
Being aware of all these, you will find ways to improve your immune system without taking artificial multivitamins or any other immune system boosters.