Immunity boosting regimen

There is no universal "magic formula" for improving immunity. The truly effective methods are all anti-anxiety methods - you don't need to take expensive health products, and you don't have to force yourself to complete demanding health KPIs. As long as you adjust the four dimensions of diet, sleep, mood, and light exercise to a rhythm that suits your physique without straining your body, your immunity will naturally be stable at a high level.

In the past two years, I was a "glass person" who always caught colds when the seasons changed. I always got urticaria in spring and autumn. I heard people said that vitamin C can improve immunity. I bought 3 bags of effervescent tablets a day. After drinking it, I still got acid reflux and I didn't catch a cold less.； Later, I followed the trend and bought Ganoderma spore powder and Cordyceps sinensis lozenges. I dropped ten thousand into them, but the immunoglobulin value in the physical examination was still stuck at the lower limit of normal. It wasn’t until I later asked doctors in the nutrition department, Western medicine doctors, traditional Chinese medicine doctors, and friends who practiced sports medicine that I discovered that I had been “paying for other people’s health care experience.”

The explanation given by nutritionists is actually very simple. The basis of immunity is that there are enough raw materials needed for the synthesis of immune cells. Therefore, as long as you eat enough 1 egg, 300ml milk, a palm-sized piece of lean meat/fish and shrimp every day, and a pound of vegetables and half a pound of fruits, basic nutrition is enough. There is no need to take supplements unless it is found that you are indeed lacking a certain vitamin. But what doctors of traditional Chinese medicine say is a completely different logic: eating is more important than "nutritious" food. For people like me who have a weak spleen and stomach and have diarrhea when eating something cold, drinking fire-reducing pear water and dampness-removing tea recommended by others every day will actually deplete the spleen yang, and even the nutrients eaten cannot be digested. How can we talk about improving immunity? I later replaced the iced American coffee I drank every day with warm barley tea and ate less cold salads. Within half a month, the abdominal bloating I often suffered from before was mostly gone, and the frequency of colds during the change of seasons was also reduced. There is a ready-made example next to it. My colleague has a damp-heat constitution and gets acne and constipation whenever he eats spicy food. I heard someone said that he eats mutton to replenish his body in winter. After eating mutton hot pot for three days in a row, he developed shingles and the pain lasted for almost half a month. This is a typical example of wrong supplements that mess up the immunity.

It took me two months to adjust to the pitfalls mentioned above, and I got over it. The detour in sleep took me a full half a year. I read about the "elite sleep method" before, saying that successful people only need 4 hours of sleep a day. I also set the alarm clock and got up in the middle of the night to meditate. As a result, my hair fell out in handfuls during that time, and I got a fever when I blew the wind. I went to check my immunoglobulin, and it was 0.2 lower than before. This time I went to the sleep medicine department. The doctor said that for adults, 7-9 hours of continuous sleep and more than 20% of deep sleep are the core of immune repair. Fragmented sleep is useless even if you lie down for 10 hours. But the veteran Chinese medicine doctor who was seeing the doctor added that there is no need to stick to the 8-hour target. As long as you can get a good "midday nap" - fall asleep before 11pm and squint for 20 minutes between 11pm and 1pm, even if you only sleep for 6 hours at night, as long as you follow the repair rhythm of the organs correctly, the effect will be good. I have been trying it for three months. Now I basically lie down at 10:30pm, fall asleep before 11:30am, wake up at 5:30am, and lie down at work for 20 minutes at noon. I don’t feel sleepy the whole day. The immune indicators in the physical examination last year are all in the middle of the normal range. In the past, I forced myself to lie down for 8 hours, but the more I lay down, the more anxious I became. I tossed and turned until midnight, which was not worth the gain.

I always thought that immunity was related to eating, sleeping, and exercising. Until last year, an elder in my family was diagnosed with pulmonary nodules. He was so scared that he could not sleep all night. The nodules did not get bigger during the three-month reexamination. Instead, he had a fever and contracted herpes zoster when he blew the wind. After seeing a psychosomatic doctor, he learned that emotions have a much greater impact on immunity than many people think. Long-term anxiety will cause cortisol levels to remain high, and the activity of immune cells will directly drop by more than 30%, which is equivalent to your immune system directly "slowing down." As for how to adjust emotions, there is no standard answer: some people vent their emotions by lifting irons, while others rely on meditating to meditate. I have a friend who has to complain to his best friend for two hours every week, and dumps out all the troubles at work. This year, even the breast hyperplasia that he often suffered from before has been alleviated a lot. I found a more down-to-earth method: I would go to a park near my home to square dance two nights a week. Don’t laugh, it really relieves stress more than going to the gym to lift irons. I danced for half an hour with the aunties on the spot. I forgot all about KPIs and improvement plans. After dancing, I was sweating slightly. After dancing, I took a shower and slept very soundly.

When it comes to sweating, exercise has to be mentioned. In the past, many people around me started running 5 kilometers a day and pumping iron for 2 hours in order to improve their immunity. One of my colleagues did this for half a month and went to the hospital with a fever. The doctor said that after excessive exercise, there will be a 3-72 hour immunity "window period". At this time, it is easier to be invaded by viruses. There is no need for ordinary people to engage in such high intensity. A fitness instructor friend said that strength training can increase basal metabolism and have high long-term benefits for immunity. ； However, doctors of traditional Chinese medicine also say that ordinary people, especially those with Qi and blood deficiency, recommend gentle "Qi-nourishing" exercises such as Baduanjin and walking. Sweating a lot will deplete Yang Qi, which is not good. Now I basically walk two stops home from get off work every day, and occasionally go hiking with friends on weekends. I don’t force myself to check in on exercise KPIs at all. On the contrary, I feel much more comfortable than before when I got a fitness card and forced myself to go, and even my weight has stabilized a lot.

In fact, after years of hard work, my biggest feeling is that immunity is like a kitten you raise. If you feed it cat food that others say is delicious every day, force it to sleep according to other people's schedules, and be aggressive to it every day, it will definitely lose its temper and tear up the house.； You follow its temperament, feed it comfortable food, let it sleep enough, play with it more often to make it happy, and it will naturally behave and take good care of your home. There is no need for so many fancy health products and demanding health KPIs. It is the best way to improve immunity without any fuss.