Immunity improves the body’s performance

The most intuitive manifestation of improved immunity is that the body's "resistance" to external stimuli has become stronger - the frequency of illness has decreased, and even if it does get infected, it will heal faster than before. Two years ago, when the seasons changed from spring to autumn, I would suffer from allergic rhinitis. My nose and tears would flow for more than half a month, and I felt stuffy even when wearing a mask. This spring, catkins have been floating for almost a month, and many friends around me who have allergies all year round have asked for leave. I can only sneeze twice occasionally, and I haven't even opened the allergy medicine.

Many people think that "a complete absence of illness is a sign of good immunity." In fact, many clinicians do not agree with this single standard. Instead, they believe that the severity of symptoms and the length of the disease are of greater reference significance. For example, during the peak of COVID-19 infections, a young girl in the same department had a fever of over 39 degrees and lay down for a whole week. Another male colleague who insisted on running three times a week only had a low-grade fever for half a day, and returned to work normally the next day. He had not even experienced the legendary razor throat. To put it bluntly, his immune system was more efficient in combat, and the virus was destroyed as soon as it replicated.

You can also see the clues in my daily state. I used to stay up late for two or three days working on projects, and then I would get headaches, burns, and mouth ulcers. I couldn't get over it for a week. Now I occasionally work until one or two o'clock, and take a 40-minute nap at noon the next day.

Speaking of which, the immune system is like a 24-hour security team hidden in your body. In the past, it was either understaffed and often slowed down, viruses and bacteria broke in and could not be stopped, or it was overreactive and would sound the alarm randomly when there was a little pollen dust, causing you to have allergies and inflammation. Now that it is well trained, viruses that are causing trouble can be cleared away quietly. When encountering serious strains, it can attack quickly and accurately without procrastination and make you uncomfortable for more than half a month.

Of course, many health bloggers now mention the situation of "severe illnesses can lead to severe illness even if you don't usually get sick". There is indeed a relevant discussion in the academic circles. It is true that the quality of immunity cannot be judged by "sickness frequency" alone. For some people who have not had a minor problem for a long time, it may be that the "warning threshold" of the immune system is too high, and small abnormalities do not trigger a response in time, and then become a big problem. So to judge whether your immunity has improved, you don’t need to take any unified standard card at all, just compare it with your own status in the previous two years. Under the same stimulation, if your reaction is lighter than before and your recovery is faster than before, that means your immunity has really improved.