A good resistance protects you against viruses
A healthy lifestyle ensures a stronger immune system. Good resistance is always important, but now in ‘corona time’ even more important. These rules of life will help you with this.
1. Go outside
In the fall and winter, the days get shorter and you may be more inclined to stay indoors. Get outside as much as possible and avoid getting a vitamin D deficiency. Walk, cycle or sit in the garden or on your balcony when the sun is shining. Try to be outside between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. every day for 15 to 30 minutes, with your face and hands uncovered. Your body makes vitamin D itself under the influence of sunlight.
2. Eat high fiber
In recent years, it has become increasingly clear how important the role of the gut is for good health. So take good care of you microbiome. Eat fiber-rich whole grain products, lots of vegetables, fruit and legumes. Your intestines also become ‘happy’ from fermented food. So regularly put products such as sauerkraut, olives, kefir and yogurt on your menu.
3. Avoid Stress
Make sure you have enough relaxation and rest, because stress deteriorates your immune system and therefore makes you more susceptible. Exercise is relaxing, but if you don’t like walking or yoga and do it reluctantly, it’s of little use. So find something that relaxes you. Listen to your favorite music, read a book or take a warm bath.
4. Sports and exercise
We can’t say it often enough: get enough exercise and exercise. It makes you fit and helps your immune system. Everyone knows it, but still many Dutch people exercise much, much too little. Especially now that a large part is working from home due to the corona crisis. Get daily exercise! You really don’t have to go to the gym six times a week for that. For example, do your shopping by bike, walk your children to school every day or walk up and down the stairs ten times. Don’t overdo it and don’t exhaust yourself. This is counterproductive and increases the risk of contracting an infection.
5. Good night’s sleep
Make sure you get enough sleep, about eight hours a night. Go to bed at set times and get up at the same time. Don’t sleep in too long on weekends and don’t go to bed too late. That disrupts your rhythm. Only go to bed when you are sleepy and avoid falling asleep on the couch too early or in the middle of the evening.
6. Take a cold shower
After a shower for a while cold shower boosts your immune system. The immune system of people can be compared to an army that keeps intruders out as much as possible or – if they do get in – makes a head smaller. There are all kinds of reasons why the immune system can do its job less well, such as stress and serious obesity. If you have a lot of stress for a long time, the stress hormone cortisol rises in the blood. Cortisol dampens your immune system, making you more susceptible to infections. Body fat affects your immune system. If you are overweight and obese, your body fat (especially the fat in your abdomen) becomes inflamed. Your immune system is then so busy with the inflammation in your fat that you are more susceptible to invaders from elsewhere. Cold causes different parts of your immune system to become active. And this is beneficial for fighting some types of infections. A large Dutch study has also shown that taking a cold shower for 30 days (up to 90 seconds) leads to 30 percent less reporting sick.
