Immunity-boosting secrets revealed

There is no "universal immunity-boosting magic formula" that can be used by everyone. The truly effective method is never complicated - as long as you adapt the small things in the four dimensions of eating, sleeping, moving, and emotions to your own physique without disrupting the current rhythm of life, you can already surpass 90% of people who rely on supplements to "stack immunity."

To tell a true story from my own family, my mother caught a cold and pharyngitis when the season changed two years ago. She bought more than 300 yuan a can of immunoglobulin powder after listening to a scam in a live broadcast room. After eating it for three months, she still coughed when she should. Later, I asked a friend who practices clinical nutrition and found out that my mother has a hot body constitution that easily gets angry. She cannot metabolize animal-derived high-protein supplements, which puts a burden on her kidneys. Later, I adjusted to drinking whole grain porridge every morning and sunbathing my back for 15 minutes in the afternoon. I even stopped taking supplements. I didn't even have a sore throat last winter.

Oh, by the way, there is a fierce quarrel between the two schools of thought on whether supplements are useful. I checked the information in different fields: the conclusion of evidence-based medicine is very clear. Only when vitamin D deficiency, zinc deficiency, or people with low immunity such as the elderly and those after tumor surgery are clearly detected, additional supplements with corresponding preparations will have a clear effect. Ordinary people who take vitamin C effervescent tablets, bovine colostrum, and various immune tablets basically pay IQ tax, which is at most a psychological comfort. But the conditioning logic of traditional Chinese medicine is different. For example, people with qi deficiency usually boil some water with astragalus and dangshen to drink, and people with yang deficiency moxibustion Zusanli twice a week. Many people report that they are not easily tired and have fewer colds. This is actually an adjustment to the overall physical condition, not the supplement itself.

The immune system is like your body's own bodyguard. If you feed it junk food, stay up late, and stuff it with a bunch of useless supplements every day, it will definitely not have the energy to work for you. Compared with worrying about what supplements to take, what most people ignore is actually the impact of sleep. I have stepped into a huge pit myself: last year, I stayed up until 2 o'clock for a week to catch up on a project, and the result was herpes zoster. The doctor said that staying up late continuously reduced the activity of T cells by half, and the virus hiding in the nerves exploded. Later, I went through relevant research and found that people who sleep less than 7 hours for a long time are three times more likely to be infected by cold viruses after being exposed to cold viruses than people who sleep for 8 hours. This data is really scary. But there is no need to force yourself to go to bed early. There is now a new conclusion in sleep medicine: as long as you have a fixed sleep rhythm, even if you go to bed at 2 a.m. and start at 11 noon, and sleep for 7-8 hours without waking up in the middle, your immune level will be much more stable than those of people who force themselves to go to bed early and lie in bed for two hours with insomnia.

As for the common saying that exercise improves immunity, there are actually more people who take advantage of it. In order to prevent the flu, several friends around me suddenly ran a half-marathon and danced for two hours. As a result, they caught colds and fevers the next day. In fact, the 3 to 72 hours after high-intensity exercise is the "immune window period", and the body's anti-inflammatory ability will temporarily decrease, making it easier to be targeted by viruses. You really need to rely on exercise to adjust your immunity. You don’t need to pursue the vest line or how many kilometers you clock in. Just choose what you can stick to: walk two more stops after get off work every day, do 10 minutes of exercise at home, or even Baduanjin twice a week. As long as it is moderate intensity and slightly sweaty, you can feel the changes after two months. My colleague had mild fatty liver before. He walked around the company for 20 minutes every day at noon. The fatty liver was gone after a six-month review. He didn't even sneeze the entire winter last year.

Let’s talk about something that many people don’t realize: emotions are the invisible switch that affects immunity. I once had a friend who was doing scientific research and was anxious to get his paper published. He was so anxious every day for three months that he suffered from insomnia. He developed oral ulcers repeatedly, and no amount of medicine worked. After the paper was published and he went on a trip for a week, the ulcers disappeared on their own. Now psychology-related research has also confirmed that people who have been in a state of stress and anxiety for a long time have inflammatory factor levels in the body that are 2 to 3 times higher than ordinary people. This is equivalent to the body being "chronically inflamed" and the immune system will naturally not recover. There is no need to follow the trend and learn mindfulness meditation to adjust the method. If you feel that sitting and relaxing is suffering and counterproductive, petting the cat, eating hot pot, or going to the park to lie down all afternoon on weekends, as long as it can make you relax, is a good way.

Finally, to be honest, don’t believe those nonsense on the Internet about “quickly improving your immunity in 7 days.” Immunity is a feedback of your body’s long-term living conditions. You don’t have to suddenly become a better person. Stay up less late today and eat more green leafy vegetables tomorrow. It will be more effective than any supplement worth hundreds of dollars. By the way, if you catch more than 4 colds a year, or each cold lasts for half a month and doesn't get better, don't make random adjustments on your own. Go to the hospital to check your immune function first and rule out pathological problems.