An apple a day
I hate being ill. What a waste of life it is. Having a cold for a few days and not being able to run or even take the dog for a decent walk because I feel rubbish makes me feel even worse than the lurgy itself does! And time is flying by. Where the heck did 2019 go? I don’t want to waste even a second feeling sub-par, I want to feel full of energy and positivity, get stuff done and make the most of life.
Not only this, but we all know that antibiotics are becoming more resistant to bacteria as time goes on. Yes, we are researching new ones and the scientists are doing all they can to find a way forward, but I don’t want to be that person who gets a bug which the antibiotics can’t fight. I don’t want my body to be so weak that it can’t fight off a small infection on its own. And I don’t want to be the reason that antibiotics can’t work for people less fortunate than me simply because I didn’t try to look after myself. One day that person could be someone I love.
The fact is that stress, lack of sleep and poor diet will seriously impact your immune system. I spoke in my blog ‘To HRT or not to HRT’ about how stress impacts our reproductive function and mentioned it reduces our immunity, but I thought now, with flu, upper respiratory viruses, chicken pox and hand foot and mouth, as well as the common cold, all being rife, was a good time to go a little deeper into how we can boost our immunity, improve our everyday health and perhaps get through the winter without getting sick.
The lurgy got me about 6 weeks ago. I know exactly why – I had completely missed a night’s sleep when my dog had pups, and then had 8 weeks of late nights and early mornings, was working my normal hours, with my bootcamps at 6:30am now taking place in twilight, mist and drizzle, and I was stressed, being a first time ‘Mum’ to 6 puppies and worrying if they would all remain healthy and sell. Lack of sleep and stress. Two huge impacts on the immune system…
Stress, the fight or flight mechanism, takes all the body’s focus away from reproduction, digestion and immunity in order to ensure we can escape from the physical threat in front of us. In the 21st century, the stresses of everyday life mean that we are suffering from IBS, bloating, indigestion and acid reflux, and more serious digestive issues are also on the rise because of this redirection of effort away from the digestive system. I’ll be talking more about this in another blog, but right now, our immunity is being hit because our immunity is in part governed by the health of our gut.
In a stressed body, digestion is slowed, meaning that toxins lurk for longer than they should in the gut, damaging the flora or microbiome within it. The myriad microbes which live in our gut need a healthy environment to thrive, but if the movement of food and waste products through the gut is slowed, then that environment becomes toxic to the good bacteria, and other microbes, which are damaging to our health can thrive.
Ordinarily, in a healthy body, good bacteria line the gut wall and provide a secondary barrier to anything which might be able to damage or pass through the gut wall. Not only do they prevent the microbes, toxins and damaging molecules etc from passing through, they identify them and send an early warning to the immune cells in the bloodstream that something nasty is in the gut, causing the immune system to prepare for battle, ready in case anything slips through the net. But where the microbiome is weakened or out of balance, this protection is reduced and the early warning system doesn’t work, so the viruses and bacteria can get through unannounced and start replicating before the immune system can get up and running and before we know it, we are in bed and feeling rotten.
Stress, as well as a poor diet, makes our body more acidic. If our skin becomes more acidic, then the microbes living on it suffer. The same goes for the lining of our mouth and nose, where the microbiome is again in part responsible for preventing ingress of viruses and bacteria and as such forms part of our immune system. If the microbiome in these areas is compromised, then infection by the common cold or flu virus becomes much more likely. Although use of antibacterial hand washes and gels will likely kill any harmful microbes on our hands, they will also kill the good microbes and ultimately cause damage to this sensitive balance, disrupting our immunity in the long term.
When I had 6 pups in the house, I was washing my hands and bleaching floors regularly. I don’t use antibacterial soaps and gels, but the bleach I was using would have reduced the flora on my skin and I have no doubt this contributed to my falling ill with a chest infection soon after the pups left to their new homes.
Lack of sleep increases stress in the body by preventing the body from re-balancing the levels of the stress hormone Cortisol through the night and so adds to the problem of a poor microbiome. Alongside this, adequate deep sleep is required for repair. Without enough deep sleep, the body can’t repair any damage to the gut from the previous day, and so again, immunity is impaired. It isn’t surprising then that the body induces lethargy when it is under attack from viruses or bacteria, in order for it to fight off the infection and repair damage, but in our wisdom, we fight this too, by taking medication with caffeine in to allow us to continue to function, go to work, deal with all the things on our to-do list, instead of giving in to what the body is telling us it needs. And so our body and immune system can’t recover and we become more susceptible to anything the world throws at us.
So the first thing you should surely do to allow your body to heal and to optimise the health of the gut, is to get more than 7.5 hours of sleep each night! However, there are other things you can do to improve your immune system, by improving the health of your gut and microbiome.
Eat plenty of fibre to keep the gut moving. Keep the environment in the gut healthy and free of toxins by keeping the bowel motile, and the healthy microbes can thrive. Increase your intake of onions, garlic, celery and artichokes. Cut down on processed carbs and eat brown rice and wholegrain cereals. Reduce fruit juices and eat the whole fruit with the skin where it is edible.
Reduce sugar intake which encourages the growth of fungus in the gut rather than healthy bacteria and which then ‘drowns’ the good bacteria, as well as sending signals to the brain that it needs more sugar to survive. Not only will this reduction in sugar improve your immunity, by helping to provide a better environment for the good bacteria it will also reduce sugar cravings and aid in weight loss.
Eat the rainbow to improve the nutrition not only for the microbiome, but for you. Growth and repair will be optimised. Energy production will be optimised. Metabolism will be optimised. The whole body system will work better and you will feel much better and fight of infection much more easily. The apple is one of these colourful food items, providing fibre for gut health and vitamin C as an antioxidant to aid repair and to improve immunity through involvement in various immune system processes.
Drink plenty of water to help flush the system through. Dehydration not only impedes optimum performance, both physical and mental, it slows the movement through the intestine. Like a slow river which drops its silt on the riverbed, a slow-moving bowel leaves waste along the way. Speed up motility and the waste is flushed away.
So this winter, eat well and sleep well to avoid getting sick. Spare an over-stretched NHS by looking after your own health and avoid using antibiotics which you or someone else may have a more serious need for in the future. Feel better (and sleep better) by remaining hydrated and getting much better nutrition through eating colourful and fibre-rich food.