10 Unconventional Ways to Boost the Immune System
By Amy Lupton
Post Updated August 25th 2021
The human body is such a wonderful and amazing creation. The immune system is such a marvel, so complex that many devote their whole lives to understanding it. As soon as an invader enters your territory, the body is already hard at work (like a small army), defending you at all costs.
I have taught the basics of immunology to students (I used to be a grade-school teacher back in the day) and one fun way to learn the immune system was to classify it according to areas of “special military defenses” (such as army, navy seals, spies, and watchmen). Each type of defense in the immune system has a specific job and can quickly communicate to the other forces to get and contain certain pathogens or perform certain jobs. I then taught my kids the the same basics, and always stressing that we needed to keep our “military forces” healthy and in top shape in our bodies.
Keeping the whole being healthy can be a tough thing all the time. With the way of the world, stress, negativity and fear can become the theme of the day (or every day), and our rushed/hurried/convenient life-style can wreak havoc on our bodies in general.
In my current occupation (nutritional therapy, herbal medicine, energy/meridian balancing in the body), dealing with a person when the body is in crisis is normal. Many people go through tremendous amounts of stress in their lifetimes (sometimes of their own doing, sometimes totally out of their control).
There are also several points in a beings life where challenges are pressed upon it in the form of pathogens, illnesses, detoxification, rebalancing, or growth. The body has natural patterns of protection, detoxification, immunity, and fight or flight to deal with whatever comes up against it—and the challenge can then be to work with the body, honoring in whatever it is facing, guiding it to the direction that will nourish it back to balance.
What can you do to nourish it back to balance? You can search and find tips on immune system health just about everywhere, and these days it seems like everyone is interested in what can help/hurt our immune health.
We all know the basic tenants of immune system health and I will review them briefly:
Hand-washing (preferably just plain soap & water, natural essential oil hand-sanitizer if needed)
Sleep (make sure your getting quality sleep & duration in a pitch black room)
Nutrition (mainly lowering sugar intake, eating whole foods, getting enough veggies on your plate, balanced diet adequate intake of Vitamin A, C, D & Zinc)
Movement & Exercise (not too strenuous, as this can lower immune function)
Hydration (making sure you are drinking enough clean, pure water for your body weight)
Excretion (if your not pooping regularly, the immune system has a harder time keeping up)
Although these are very important to keep the body healthy, there are many non-mainstream immune boosters that are not really being talked about, so I wanted to cover them here. Some of these might seem strange to you, but have been utilized in alternative settings for hundreds of years with great success.
1. Limiting stress, fear, anger, negativity.
There is a quote floating around the internet that says,
“One minute of anger weakens the immune system or 4-5 hours. One minute of laughter boosts the immune system for 24 hours.”
Although I couldn’t find an accurate source for this quote, I believe it holds truth. Medical News Today, recently reported that negativity, fear, anger and stress are all detriments to the human body (1). When they studied people that in general had a negative mood, outlook, fear, and anger, they found that they stored more inflammatory bio-markers in their blood, which led to decrease in immune function, and health overall.
Emotions are aptly tied to immune health as the brain in fight or flight can’t do much but react out of anxiousness and fear. So when we calm the body, push away negativity (or do our best to think positively), and rationalize the fears that we are surrounded with…we can raise our immune system health immensely.
Action Steps:
Try to limit stress as much as possible. If you are feeling anxious, take an inventory of the last few hours, and see if there was a trigger. As we all know some stresses are unavoidable, but many are manageable. What action can you take to help lower your stress?
Social Media & News. Many rely on news and social media as the end-all-be-all source of information. Comparison, negativity, alarmism, and fear based media are the norm, and if you are plugged in, it can become rote anxious reel playing on repeat in your head. If you feel you must still watch the news, find a neutral source (like NPR or BBC), and limit exposure to a small bit a day. Most major news sources also have options for a summary to be emailed to you once a day so you aren’t living the “live” mentality and can think clearer about your reaction. Social media can be tricky, take a break, unfollow people that don’t bring you joy, limit to a certain small amount every day.
Find a calming and centering activity that works for you. Music, Yoga, Meditation, Walking. Whatever it is that makes you calm and happy, do it.
Work through your emotions by signing up for our freebie 14 days to finding your purposeful soul. Maybe you need to work through things that might be holding up in your body in the form of negative self-talk, emotional healing and finding purpose. Voice it to others and yourself to clear the negative energy in your body.
2. Honor the skin as the first defense barrier to the immune system.
I have been teaching for years that your skin and its health are so important in immunity. The immune system relies on the skin to detect, defend, and create a barrier as a first defense against pathogens. This previous Liferoot blog gives a great picture on the beautiful responsibility of the skin.
“The first line of defense (or outside defense system) includes physical and chemical barriers that are always ready and prepared to defend the body from infection. These include your skin and 'friendly' bacteria that live on it.” ~Science Hub
The largest organ, the skin, does some amazing things. The microbiota (or all the living organisms) host millions of bacteria which educate the immune system as to what is hanging around (2). You heard that right, educate. They basically school the immune system on what needs paying attention to. So cool right? Those bacteria on your skin and the healthy skin biome layer are PARAMOUNT to your immune system getting the moment-to-moment debriefing it needs to launch the attack on the pathogen that needs to take a hike.
If you are using harsh anti-bacterial soaps and body washes, masking the skin with disrupting chemicals and products, your skin ain’t gonna perform at top notch. So how do we mindfully keep our skin healthy? Let’s look at the action steps below.
Action Steps:
Use clean, organic and non-invasive body and beauty products. If your not sure what this means and where to look, visit ewg.org and compare the products you have. Most companies that don’t contain harmful chemicals, hormone disruptors, additives, anti-perspirants will shout it loud and clear. So you will know. But beware when it just says natural, because regulations don’t require much there. Note: Any products on our site are free of harmful skin disruptors and are nourishing to the skin biome to keep it top notch.
Keep the skin moisturized. This is important. When the skin is dry, pathogens can get in easier to the lower skin layers. Please follow the above and get as clean as you can products. Liferoot’s Your Best Body Oil can help moisturize the skin and keep pathogens at bay with its mix of essential oils and herbs.
Eat the rainbow of fruits and veggies to help the body neutralize free radical toxins which can damage collagen and elastin on the skin.
Eat Selenium and Collagen. which can be found in meat, fish and eggs, it can also be added to your diet in nutritional yeast, which is also full of those vital B vitamins. Collagen can be found in most of the above foods (meats, eggs) but require Vitamin C and Zinc to complete the process properly in the body (hence, eat the rainbow).
3. Take Care of your Lymph
Ahhhh…The wondrous lymph system. Such an under appreciated system of the body. Many have no idea what the lymphatic system does and how important it is when it comes to immunity. This intricate system maintains the balance of fluid between the blood and tissues and helps the body defend against bacteria and intruders. It doesn’t have a pump to move it like your heart does, so it relies on movement, manipulation or massage. Some ways to care & cleanse the lymphatic system are staying hydrated (lemon water is excellent), dry skin brushing, deep breathing, exercise, and cold therapy.
Action Steps:
Take a cold shower, splash cold water on your face, do cryotherapy, or jump in cold water. This is effective by cooling your body's core temperature down causing the blood to rush out of your limbs and to your abdomen to protect your vital organs. Putting this kind of stress on your body every once in a while is really good for your system. It's like getting a total reboot. As the blood rushes back to your limbs after warming up, if floods your body with fresh, oxygen rich fluid. This rapid exchange of fluid does wonders for you immunity.
Dry Skin Brushing encourages your body’s natural discharge of wastes, aiding drainage of your lymphatic system. We have a complete kit here, and you can read more about this amazing lymph support here.
Skip the bra! It is important to let the breast tissue experience times without restriction. This helps the lymph in the breast tissue move freely and detox. When the breast is “trapped” in a bra all day (especially underwire or tight sports bras), the lymph can’t move. So free the girls when you can!
Ditch the anti-perspirant. Anti-perspirant can clog the armpit area, making it harder to detox the lymphatic area around the breast. Choose natural deodorant (making sure it doesn’t contain aluminum). Check out our Paciferous Pits spray that contains an essential oil blend for a natural balance in the pit region.
4. Oral Care and Mouth Health (Brush Your Teeth Properly!)
If left unchecked, bacteria in your mouth can affect many different systems in the body. Including immune health. According to Dr. Steven Freeman, “If you don’t properly care for your teeth or see your dentist regularly, you can basically have a bacterial infection the size of your fist sitting there inside your mouth at all times. Bacteria from your mouth get into your bloodstream by way of diseased gums or places where teeth are damaged or missing. This sets off an immune response in the body, and C-reactive protein, or CRP, is released from the liver. CRP is a substance that is released whenever there is some sort of inflammation. In the short term, it is a natural and appropriate response and doesn’t do any harm, but if CRP is being released constantly (possibly due to bacteria in the mouth causing inflammation), then it can set off a chain reaction that eventually leads to other health conditions. (3)”
Also, when the mouth biome is disrupted, it can cause havoc in the rest of the body, and immune system. A study done in the Journal of Microbiology stated that oral bacteria can translocate to the gut and change immune defense. (4) What this means is that if you use anti-bacterial products such as Listerine regularly, you are changing the biome of the mouth, which can effect the gut and in turn affecting immunity. So ditch the conventional dental products and choose a more natural approach.
Action Steps:
Brush your teeth morning and night and time for two minutes. They have nifty two-minute timer toothbrushes now. We love Quip, cause they send you new refills every two months.
Use a water flosser. This irrigates the mouth removing soft plaque from the teeth.
Oil pull a couple times of month with essential oils, coconut or sesame oil
Use natural toothpastes (no fluoride), natural clays and essential oil toothpastes instead of conventional mouthwashes and products.
Set up a dental appointment (preferably with a holistic dentist in your area) and get a check up or cleaning if needed.
5. The Bitter Truth: You need Bitters!
While many herbal remedies are popular when it comes to illness (such as elderberry, echinacea, adaptogens, and medicinal mushrooms), there are many herbal remedies that aren’t often discussed to boost immune function. And bitter herbs are one of them. But there are also many bitter foods too that we can incorporate into what we eat. “Bitters change the way our guts work, especially when we taste them, making our stomachs feel fuller more quickly and affecting the secretion of enzymes that digest our food,” said Guido Mase in his book DIY Bitters. He goes on to say, “And, along with supporting healthy digestion, bitters also enhance the liver’s ability to flush inflammatory compounds and irritating substances from our bodies.”
The bitter truth is you need bitters! Back in the day bitter herbs were eaten a bit more regularly than they are now (you can blame the almighty sugar for that) and they are slowly now being recognized as an amazing class of health promoting herbs today.
Action Steps:
Incorporate bitter foods into your diet. This includes high quality organic coffee or green tea, over 88% dark chocolate, and bitter greens such as arugula, dandelion and endive.
Take a bitters supplement. You can make your own with our DIY bitters kit, or purchase one of three types of bitters.
6. Red Light Sauna Therapy
Many countries around the world consider sauna therapy very healing. Even back to the Roman days, there are records of steam baths, and sauna type therapy. For the Finns, the sauna was considered poor mans medicine, many homes in Finland had a sauna built into them. In times of illness or to prevent it, they would alternate sauna and a cold bath to stimulate the immune system to fight off invaders. A study conducted by Gard and Brown revealed that the average blood toxin level dramatically reduced after sauna therapy, and many things that harm the immune system such as pesticides and inflammatory markers were not as prominent (5). Hippocrates famously said, “Give me a fever and I can cure any disease.” The idea that increased temperatures trigger the body’s immune system response is certainly not new. Fevers help your body to fight off infection by allowing certain immune cells to work more efficiently and effectively. According to the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, hyperthermia, or the exposure of the body to high temperatures, gives these cells the ability to destroy virus-infected cells and tumor cells.
As an added bonus, red light therapy can boost immune function. According to joovv.com, “All living things need to make ATP cellular energy to function and survive, and nearly all living things rely on natural light to power this process in our cells every day. Red and near infrared wavelengths of natural light stimulate the mitochondria in your cells, the powerhouses responsible for taking light, oxygen, and the food we eat—and turning it into usable energy for our bodies through the process of cellular respiration.” This in turn creates reduced oxidative stress, better circulation (remember what we talked about with the lymphatic system above?), increased collagen production (remember how it protects the skin cell above?), reduced inflammation, and better sleep (needed to detox properly) (6).
Action Steps:
Find a sauna, buy a sauna, or it can be easy to build one. We built one for less that $500. There are many plans on the internet for whatever kind of space you have. We love Sauna Space and own a personal size one (called the Photon). It doesn’t emit any EMF’s which is amazing and can be very calming and healing. We also have Joovv, and do love their easy design that can go just about anywhere.
Many gyms have saunas or red light therapy. You can search for these in your area.
If you can’t get access to a sauna, taking a hot bath or shower, followed by a cold bath or shower can have beneficial effects.
7. Take a break from EMF emitting technology
We are surrounded on all side with technology. Although it can be a blessing and a curse, the EMF (or electromagnetic frequencies) can be damaging to our well being. There are cell phone towers in neighborhoods, on elementary school grounds and attached to the corners of hospital buildings. And its getting worse. We hold cell phones at all times of the day, bathe ourselves in wifi at work and home and some even sleep with cell phones under the pillows or next to them on the bed. 5G is also a hot topic, making its way into cities all over the country. There is hardly a way to escape them.
According to PubMed, a paper in Pathophysiology stated:
“EMFs disturb immune function through stimulation of various allergic and inflammatory responses, as well as effects on tissue repair processes. Such disturbances increase the risks for various diseases, including cancer. These and the EMF effects on other biological processes (e.g. DNA damage, neurological effects, etc.) are now widely reported to occur at exposure levels significantly below most current national and international safety limits.” (7)
This EMF energy exchange—which can certainly be described as an attack on your body—generates stress hormones. These, in turn, erode your immune system, which sets you up for an immune deficiency disease down the road. So how do you escape it? Well, we can’t really get away from EMFs, but we can mitigate them near or around us.
Action Steps:
Turn your phone on airplane mode at night. Or if you need it on for emergency reasons, set it on a table right outside the bedroom. At least 10 feet away.
Turn your wifi off at night. If you don’t think you will remember at night, a simple garden timer or plug strip with a timer can help. Set it to turn off when you normally head to bed and turn back on when you normally wake up. If you are not at home all day, think about just having it on during the afternoon and evening. This is especially beneficial when there are pets at home during the day (they don’t like EMF’s either!).Get your bare feet on the earth as much as possible. This can help keep your body clear of EMF’s, at least while you are barefoot.
If you would like to dive more into shielding your home from EMF’s we recommend following Shielded Healing to find out more. www.shieldedhealing.com. Brian is a world of knowledge on the subject and is a friend of Liferoot’s.
8. Get outside! (sun/forest/garden bathing and therapy)
Most of us can logically say that getting outside is good for the body, mind and spirit. Good ole’ fresh air strengthens your immune system by increasing the amount of oxygen that is breathed in. This will boost white blood cells function by fighting and killing bacteria and germs. Being in the sun and fresh air has a two fold benefit by adding the Vitamin D factor, which is an essential factor in immune modulation. When you are sitting and soaking sun, the Vitamin D being absorbed is actually helping kill pathogens on the skin and just below. Forest/Garden bathing can add another element by surrounding yourself in nature, calming the mind, putting you in a parasympathetic state (a calm, relaxed state), and receiving the energy from the plants around you.
Action Steps:
Get outside for some fresh air every day, whether this means just outside on your porch, on the sidewalk on your lunch break, or open a window in the house.
Get some sunshine! This can be hard in certain parts of the season and country, but do your best. An app called D Minder is excellent for calculating when the best time to be outside to absorb Vitamin D in your area.
Get into nature. If you live in a forest abundant area, look into natureandforesttherapy.org and learn more. If you don’t, any garden or nature area will do. Sit and bask in the beauty, take a few deep breaths and absorb the pure energy from the plants.
9. Keep your Vagal Nerve Healthy
According to Pub Med, “The vagus nerve (cranial nerve X) is the main nerve of the parasympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system. The vagus nerve regulates metabolic homeostasis by controlling heart rate, gastrointestinal motility and secretion, pancreatic endocrine and exocrine secretion, hepatic glucose production, and other visceral functions. In addition, the vagus nerve is a major constituent of a neural reflex mechanism—the inflammatory reflex—that controls innate immune responses and inflammation during pathogen invasion and tissue injury (8).”
In simpler terms, your vagal nerve is very important for heart rate, digestion, blood sugar, and immune function. It helps you regulate between your “fight or flight” and relaxation response.
This nerve is located right behind the jaw and below the ear traveling down into the body.
What can you do to keep your vagal nerve healthy? Let’s look at our action steps.
Action Steps:
Deep belly breathing stimulates and keeps the vagal nerve healthy.
Sing or humm. The vagus nerve passes through the vocal cord area and influences it positively.
Splash your face with cold water. This will help your lymph and your vagal nerve.
Massage the vagal nerve area between the jaw and the ear. We often hold tension in our jaw area, and that can affect the vagus nerve. Massage this area to loosen and relax. A great way to do this is to use a Gua Sha toolkit.
Vagal 2.0 is an essential oil applied the back of the neck and has done wonders for many of my clients. You can go here to order www.neomyalo.com
10. Get frisky!
Yes, you read that right! Its pleasurable and good for you! When a person is in a happy, healthy sexually active relationship, it can really give your immune health a boost. According to On Health, “Sex boost your body’s ability to make protective antibodies against bacteria, viruses and other germs that cause common illnesses.” They found that moderate sex activity (one to two times per week) raised levels of immunoglobulin A (IgA) found in saliva and mucous linings. IgA is in the front defenses against colds, flus and other viruses. In the group that was studied, if the couple was active more than three times per week, the study found it actually decreased immunity, but couldn’t really find a correlation as to why.
And we will point out, if your partner is sick, we can all agree that avoiding close contact and abstaining until your partner feels better makes sense. But if you feel a cold coming on, give it a go for you immunity sake.
Action Steps:
This one is self-explanatory :)
In conclusion, remember whatever pattern your body may be going through, in whatever form your body is being challenged in crisis time, there are several key strategies that can keep you functioning at your best.
**I am not a medical doctor. This article is meant to inform but not prescribe, treat or otherwise, so by law I am required to tell you to always check with your physician before doing anything new to your body.
Resources:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324090#Negative-moods-and-inflammation
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3535073/
3. https://drstevenfreeman.com/2018/07/31/oral-health-and-the-immune-system-whats-the-connection/
4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6427756/
5. https://sauna.space/pages/sauna-day-keeps-doctor-away?_pos=3&_sid=84adfadce&_ss=r
6. https://joovv.com/blogs/joovv-blog/how-does-red-light-therapy-work
7.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19398310
8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4082307/