#1 Absolute Best Way To Optimize Your Immune System Is...

Hello, all champions. Today we're going to talk about the number one way to boost your immune system. And first of all, what is an immune system? Well, it's everything that your body does to keep separate everything that is self from non-self. Everything that is your body's own cells look a certain way and we have to keep everything else out. So basically it's to keep every non-cell, every foreign toxin, every molecule that doesn't belong to keep it out of your body outside of that precious inside territory that is your physiology. And there are four different ways that your body does this. The first is barriers. And you have physical barriers such as your skin and mucus and silia. And the skin obviously is a barrier because things just can't get through that randomly. But you also have mucus which is secreted in your airways, in your lungs and airways. And it's a little sticky. So it traps bacteria and pathogens and particles. And then you have these little silia which are like little fingers that constantly beat and move and transport that mucus out away from the lungs and to your mouth and know so you can breathe it out and if necessary, cough it or sneeze it out. And then you also have chemical barriers. The first one is your stomach acid which first of all helps you digest food but it has another purpose in killing bacteria. Because it's such a strong acid that most bacteria won't survive. So most of the stuff that you ingest gets killed off in that stomach. And one interesting example is vultures. So these are birds that eat dead animals that have already started decaying and where they have maybe an excessive growth bacteria already when they eat it. So vultures have the strongest stomach acid of any animal. It's right up there with battery acid. And also interestingly our own stomach acid would eat straight through that tissue in the stomach if it wasn't for a lining, for a barrier of mucus inside your stomach. Another chemical defense is called lysosymes and lysos or lysos means to break apart and zhymes is from enzymes. So these are enzymes that basically digest foreign substances, foreign pathogens and break them apart. And we can find these in tears saliva and in mucus. Then on the skin we have what's called sebum and sweat and sebum is a waxy substance that you secrete from your hair follicles. And these have antimicrobial properties and one more example is called defensins which are proteins with antibacterial properties. Number two is your innate immunity and this is a cell-based immunity where it's very quick but it is non-specific. And that means you can act very fast but it hasn't had time to learn anything about that pathogen. And these are phagocytes. There are cells that engulf things and these are natural killer cells that one thing they can do is to find out which of your own cells have become cancerous or mutated and engulf those and clean those out. And then we have adaptive immunity which is kind of the evolved version of innate immunity if you will. It is learned so it takes a little bit of time. It's not immediate like the innate immunity but when we get a pathogen your body goes out and samples it and then brings it back so that the body can make specific defenses toward it. And this specificity is very effective in developing long lasting immunity to things. And part of this adaptive immunity are lymphocytes and antibodies. So when we're talking about immunoglobulins, IgA, IgE, IgG, etc. These are examples of antibodies that go and tag specific cells, specific bacteria, specific viruses. And this is where a baby gets a lot of its immunity before it has developed its own because mother's milk will contain a lot of these immunoglobulins. And the fourth part of this is your support system. So all of the debris has to be cleaned out. So you have your lymphatic system which is a separate circulatory system that carries all the dead tissues, the dead pathogens that you have fought off. And it carries it and it filters it out through the lymph nodes, through the spleen and through the thymus. And thymus is a little more specialized but the simplest way of thinking about this is like your car's oil filter. And another important support system is your microbiome because here you have trillions and trillions of bacteria that complement your immune system and also has its own way of fighting off. Intruder's by competing with them. And I want to mention something I find rather funny because around this time of year we always talk about the cold and flu season. Well interestingly, it seems like it always coincides with the holiday season, doesn't it? And it coincides another name for that would be the sugar, stress and alcohol season. So is it really the season or are there certain things that we do during that time that makes us more vulnerable to these colds and flu? So the way that we improve our immunity is to support all the things in the body that help us strengthen these four systems, the four parts of the immunity that we talked about. And all of these systems require resources and they have stress source that interfere with their function. So as long as we have more resources than we have stressors, then we can fight off these intruders and these pathogens and these challenges. But if we see that our resources are going down because we're not supporting them, we're not eating right or whatever we're doing and we're adding stressors like sugar or holiday stress or lack of sleep. And if the resources are going down and the stressors are going up and there comes a point where the stressors are higher than our ability to deal with them, that is where the system breaks down. Have you noticed how some people tend to get sick all the time and others tend to never get sick? Well here's the reason. The people who get sick, they have more stressors and less resources and the people who stay healthy are the other way around. And when it comes to these resources and stressors, we have to understand that there's a chemical aspect of both resources and stressors. There's also a structural or mechanical or physical aspect of all these. And there is an emotional aspect of these resources and stressors. And we're going to go through all this so that you can understand how to best support yourself. And for everything that we go through and talk about here, every item, I want you to think about whether this factor will improve, whether it strengthens and supports the body or whether it interferes and detracts if it zaps the strength from your body. And we're going to create a little grid system and we're just going to think about chemical, structural or emotional. And then for each item, basically what you want to do is you want to create as much as possible on the top side, things that strengthen and support. And you want to minimize everything that interferes. So the first part of chemical is nutrition. And this is where you put in the stuff that your body needs. So here obviously you want to eat real food, whole food, the highest quality food that you can come by. So things like meat, fish and chicken or poultry will provide the foundation in terms of protein. But then you also want to eat low-carb vegetables, non-starchive vegetables, leafy greens, et cetera, as big a variety as possible. And you want to eat healthy fats and proteins from nuts and seeds, which also have a lot of fiber. And you can supplement or complement with healthy fats that are in the meat, fish and poultry, but also from extra virgin olive oil or butter or coconut oil or other natural sources. So here you want to get as much as possible of the things that support. These are the things that build your body and provide the resources. And then you want to obviously minimize the stuff that doesn't support you very well, such as processed foods that are high in sugar and white flour and man-made fats and seed oils and harshly processed fats. As well as chemicals and food additives. They don't do anything for you. They interfere. They are a burden that the body has to clean out. So everything on the top half of the page would support your body and raise your stomach. strength raise your ability to defend yourself, whereas everything on the bottom half is a burden that would interfere and make you more vulnerable. And if you're going into a period where you think you might be vulnerable, then you might put some extra focus on a few details, such as try to get more of vitamin C and vitamin D foods. And of course, non-starchy vegetables and maybe some citrus, some whole fruit citrus and moderation would be a good source of vitamin C, not the orange juice. And vitamin D foods, there aren't really a whole lot. You can get some from organ foods, you can get some from cod liver oil or cod liver patei or from mushrooms that have received sunlight. But other than that, you pretty much have to get a vitamin D supplement or make sure that you spend some time outside. You might want to try to get some extra zinc and nuts and seeds, shellfish and legumes are high in zinc. And if you feel you don't getting enough of that, then you might consider a separate supplement with zinc. A few more ideas here are fermented foods such as yogurt or sourcrow. You can also get some herbs and things like turmeric, garlic and ginger that is anti-bacterial and that has been shown to support immunity as well as elderberry, echinacea and omega-3 fatty acids such as fish oil. So these are all nice things that you can sprinkle in. This is like the final touch. This is not the foundation. So remember that when people try to tell you or sell you on a ton of different things that the foundation is supporting your body as much as possible in general and cleaning out all the negative stuff. And then this, like I said, that's just the final touch. So the nutrition is the obvious part of the chemical or biochemical aspect. So then also let's talk about other aspects of your lifestyle that can support the structural with the physical as well as the emotional. And one of the most important things is regular exercise. And most of this should be light to moderate. You should not do most of your exercise with severe huffing and puffing. It's okay to walk. If you enjoy doing other things do some of that. But if you're looking for long duration exercise like 30 minutes or more, then most of that should be light to moderate, especially if you are a little bit older or a little bit heavier. If you are young and active and physical and athletic, then this may not apply. Then you have a little more liberty and you can do things a little more intensely. Some other things that are good are yoga and or stretching as well as resistance training. And then you can add in very brief episodes, very brief periods of high intensity interval training. And I've done other videos on that. So I'm not going to go into detail. But basically you work very, very intensely close to your max for just a few seconds just to get your heart rate up or just to stress your body. But this does not take very long. It takes seconds. If you do a lot of this, then it will stress you out and break you down. But if you do just a tiny little bit, it can be very powerful for your overall immunity and your overall health. But most of your exercise should be light to moderate, just increase your breathing, your heart rate and your circulation and you'll be fine. So by doing these things, you will support the structural aspect. You will make your body stronger and more resistant. You will support your immunity in that regard. And what you don't want to do is the bottom half, which would be sedentary lifestyle sitting around too much, not moving. Having poor posture, because if you're posture, if you're hunched over or if you move in a stiff way, then you're not creating the proper signals in the body. And if you're stiff or if you have pain from injuries or accidents or slips or falls, then those are also on the negative side because they limit your range of motion and your signaling. So if you have some of that going on, then you might consider some physical therapy or chiropractic or some other way or yoga to improve that motion and resolve some of those issues. And the reason that I put an EVE up here for emotional is that physical movement is so powerful. The body is so dependent on that motion on those signals to drive the brain and for emotional well-being that it actually affects both structural and emotional. And then there is gut health, which is very important for immunity, where it affects the chemical and the emotional. So here we can do things like prebiotics, which is the stuff that feeds the microbiome. We have probiotics which are seeds for the microbiome. But if you just throw in probiotics without the proper environment, then it's like throwing seeds on the concrete, not much is going to happen. And then the way that we feed the bacteria, long-term is through as much diversity as possible in different types of food fiber, plant fiber. But the gut can be pretty complex and pretty challenging. So a lot of people try these different things and nothing seems to work. Some people eat what's supposed to be good food with fiber and they react very negatively. And there are many different reasons why that could happen. One of the most prevalent now is called SIBO, small intestine bacterial overgrowth, where if you have bacteria growing in the wrong place, which is the small intestine, where you're not supposed to have many, then as you eat food, as you eat things that can feed these bacteria, now they produce gas, but they're in the wrong place. So now you get bloated and you get discomfort and IBS and so forth. Another factor is people who are sensitive to lectins. There's a family of foods called night shades that contain lectins. And even though these foods are supposedly really, really good, if you're sensitive to lectins or if you don't have the proper bacteria that can process it and break it down, now you can react to it. And that's why so many people do well with carnivore because if they have a microbiome, if they have a combination of bacteria that is unable to process a lot of things, then you can do well by eliminating most of those foods and you will do a whole lot better. But it is an elimination diet. So in my mind, it's not the ultimate long-term solution, but you can try it as a reset while you try to figure out what's going on and very often you might need some help with that. And at my clinic, we've worked a lot lately at trying to figure out and come up with a good support system where we can test your microbiome and then figure out and work toward a solution. So you can contact us through the link down below if you want to know more about that. Another good way is to do FODMAP diet. And that means that you're avoiding certain things that are high in the FODMAP. And this stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, dysaccharides, monisaccharides, and polyols. And basically what that means, it's a bunch of different carbohydrates, combination of different types of sugars and carbohydrates and polyols that feed certain bacteria. And if you have these bacteria and they overgrow as a result of eating these foods, now you can starve them by eating less of the foods in the FODMAP category. So it's kind of like carnivore, but it's not as strict or extreme and it's a little more targeted. But again, just like carnivore, I think it's a great tool, but I don't think that it's the long-term solution. We still want to rebuild a biome that can tolerate these foods properly. So I've created a little resource, a little ebook that again, you can click the link down below where you can get a printout, a little more explanation on the FODMAP and 100 foods, half of which are really low in FODMAP that you want to be able to eat on a FODMAP diet. And the other half are things that you want to avoid because they're very high in these things. So obviously, gut health has a lot to do with your nutrition, with your chemical health because it's the interface. Everything that you put into your body is going to be processed. It's going to be filtered through your microbiome and processed and repackaged in a form that you can use. But because there's so much going on there and the more we learn, the more amazed we are, for example, depending on if you have certain types of bacteria that produce certain things like maybe lipopolisaccharides, that can greatly affect your emotional state. So there's a very strong link between your gut and your brain and between your gut and your mood. And you also want to make sure you get good sleep. So a good recommendation would be seven to eight hours. There are some people will fall a little bit outside this range, but just try to figure out what works best for you. And the quality of the sleep is very important. So some of the things that you can do is to try to sleep when the sun sleeps. So don't be up for hours and hours and hours after the sun has gone down only to sleep well into hours after the sun has come up. So try to match it even if the seasons change a little bit, then try to match it as closely as you can so that you kind of sleep with the sun. Also you want to avoid the blue light from screens, from cell phones and tablets and computer screens and even televisions because it's a very high frequency. It's what's considered a white or a blue light and because of the higher frequency it stimulates your brain and it keeps your brain kind of revved up and it keeps you from winding down and getting into that sleepfall where you're ready for sleep state. And also think of other things that you can do to wind down. Try not to end the day working on something that stresses you. Try to figure out different things that relax you. Maybe sit by the fireplace. Maybe go for a leisurely walk but make sure that you wind down rather than doing things that keep you revved up. And even if it's tempting don't use alcohol as a way to go to sleep, especially not excess alcohol. One drink might be a good idea because it can relax you. Several drinks will relax you more but you'll basically pass out from the alcohol and then it's going to severely disrupt the sleep patterns during the night and make you wake up and it's going to interfere with the quality of sleep. So proper sleep is going to support the S and the E column over here because if you're not rested then you're not going to function physically structurally the way that you want. And of course if you're not properly rested then you tend to get irritated and grouchy and it's hard being a good emotional state. But then the emotional is a category all on its own and everything that makes you feel good is going to support your overall health and your physiology and your immunity. Everything that makes you feel bad. So feeling good having joy and purpose and happiness is going to improve things and feeling stressed and angry or frustrated or overwhelmed is going to interfere with your body's function. So the first thing that you want to do is to lighten up. Don't take things so seriously and especially don't take yourself so seriously. Don't be so hard on yourself. Give yourself a way out when you can. Also try to put some fun stuff in your schedule. Actually try to plan it out. Don't just wait for a blank spot in your schedule that you are going to try to fill because that may never happen and make sure that you get some social connections, some social interactions. Go join a club, join a meet-up, join a choir or just make sure that you have friends that you get together with them on a regular basis. Also make sure that you read or you listen to something positive every day. Something that can get your train of thought moving in a different direction because the world, the news, the world around you, the traffic, the people, they are going to tend to complain. They are going to tend to focus on the negative and if you don't do something on purpose, if you don't take steps to change that momentum then you tend to get stuck in that. And two very powerful tools to really change that momentum is meditation and breathing exercises. So meditation often involves some aspect of breathing but meditation is more about the mental state where you put your mental focus, where you try to go inside and silence the noise basically. And breathing exercises is more just on the physiology but they both work wonderfully together and they're not completely separate. And then there are some natural therapies that you can use to boost your immunity. So one thing is hot and cold therapy. And some people who like to punish themselves or are really really tough, they do cold showers or ice baths. Now if you have a low thyroid or if you're sensitive to cold, then you might have a very strong aversion to that. And I totally get that. Another way of doing it though is it's not just the cold, it's the contrast that has the beneficial effect. So if you start off with a sauna or a steam bath or a hot bath and then you jump in a cold shower or in an ice bath, now that cold doesn't really bother you. It's almost like you're so hot you're looking forward to that cold but you're still getting the same benefits. You're getting an immune boost, you're getting a very strong sympathetic stimulation but it's a strong stress but it's very short term so it is beneficial. And believe it or not, but aroma therapy can also be very influential. Your nervous system responds to all these different stimuli. And if you use essential oils, you can put a little drop somewhere or you can put them in a diffuser so that you spread these tiny moisture particles all over the in the air. And some of the things that people have noticed to work with the eucalyptus and lavender that can be very calming and soothing. And another form of energy medicine or energy signals is homeopathics. And one thing that we've used in the clinic and that a lot of people have found helpful is a product from energetics called field of flowers. And now here's an interesting thought that you might just consider if you have someone around you that may not be totally into all these different things. So they think that it's bogus or it doesn't matter. Then if you put some of these things in a diffuser and it spreads throughout the entire house, now you're kind of getting everyone at the same time. Getting all the members of the household in a very safe and non-invasive way. And something else that's important that as modern humans, we kind of get away from, we become so much of indoor creatures, but try to get out in nature. Try to get outside. Get out in the sunlight. And here we're actually going to get both chemical, structural and emotional. Because through sun exposure you get the vitamin D, you boost your vitamin D, which is a nutritional aspect. If you're hiking, if you're moving around in nature, which you probably would do to some extent, now you're getting some exercise. You're moving your body parts, you're stimulating the brain, you're increasing your exchange of air and your blood circulation. And there is also a strong emotional benefit. There's a non-tangible relationship between us and the planet and being outside. And spending time in nature, you're getting energized. You're exchanging particles with nature. There's an energetic relationship on so many different levels that I believe the more time that you spend outside, the healthier you will be. And there's a few more ways to reduce harm. So we talked mostly about nutrition as being on the positive side of the chemical. And on the negative side would be, of course, the sugar and the junk food and insulin resistance and inflammation. They're all on the bottom side here. But there's a few additional things that are on the bottom of the chemical that you want to avoid. And one, of course, is smoking. Whatever you need to do to stop smoking, just take steps to do that. One little drink here and there can be calming and maybe beneficial, but avoid excess alcohol. And then also avoid things like aluminum, plastics, avoid pesticides and cleaning chemicals. And aluminum, we get from aluminum foil, from aluminum cookware and from antiperspirants that we put as prevents sweating under the arms. Plastics, we get in so many different forms and plastic is a very useful and wonderful material, but don't cook in it. Don't store your food in it, especially not liquids, especially not any acidic liquids. And absolutely do not heat anything in plastic. There's so many foods now that are being sold in microwavable patches. Don't do that because they're going to mix with your food and these are toxins that are building up. They're becoming more and more prevalent in our environment and in our bodies. And anything that we can do to reduce that amount is a good thing for us. And did your best to clean up your body and your environment from pesticides and cleaning chemicals. So by organic, when you can, don't use herbicides and fungicides and all these chemicals in your yard. And don't use all these different cleaning chemicals inside your home because they're all toxic to us. If something kills a microbe, it's not going to be a nutrient for you. It's not going to be neutral. for you. The bug dies or the micro dies because it gets a stronger dose exposure, but when we get a little bit from thousands of different things, that's not a healthy thing. So I try to help you clarify this a little bit by categorizing things, but in reality, there's such a huge overlap in the body because everything affects everything else. So it's not as isolated and straight as this is, but I think you still get the idea of the things that support the body and the things that interfere with the body. And the absolute best thing to support your immunity is not to take some magic pills. It's to do all the things that we talked about to move the balance as high as possible. If you enjoyed this video, you're going to love that one. And if you truly want to master health by understanding how the body really works, make sure you subscribe, hit that bell, and turn on all the notifications so you never miss a life-saving video.